Goin' to the chapel
 

So, as I mentioned in another thread, my girlfriend and I just got engaged. I was wondering if anyone had any advice about weddings in general, or more specific advice about Judeo-Protestant weddings or weddings in St. Louis. Thanks for the help!

The only advice I can give is to let the woman decide what happens, where, and how.

I remember my wife getting pissed at me for not having an opinion as to which shade of blue to pick for the flowers or some shit. I know about eight colours, but apparently there are about five million different shades of blue, all named.

I would have been perfectly happy getting married anywhere, anytime. I didn't need the show, but she did, so I let her do it the way she wanted. It's a huge deal for some women, for some reason, and my advice to you is to let her do her thing, support her decisions, and wake up sober the morning of the wedding. Because the truth is...you know how vacations are prospectively volatile situations for couples? Nothing compared to wedding preparations.

It's worth it in the end, though.

Congratulations, I wish you both a long and happy life together.

So, what kind of advice specifically are you looking for? Places to get married? What music you want the band to play? What you should wear? If you are in St Louis, perhaps you should be married between periods at a St Louis Blues game! Have the reception at Hodacks, best freakin fried chicken on the planet, or on one of the casino boats.

Listen to Prince up there and let the woman figure out what she wants and help her get that. Its for her, its her day.

don't spend alot of money if you don't have to.

limit your guest list.

if family wants more than that, ask them to foot the bill for the difference.

Unfortunately for Asaris, I probably know less about colors and flowers and stuff than he does, and he's already concerned about the fact that my tastes tend to be a bit louder/brighter than his. Plus, I figure that if I have to deal with that sort of thing, then so does he :)

Seriously though, I think some of the big issues for us are planning a wedding from half-way across the country, especially with a mother who lives in St. Louis who we really don't want making too many big decisions, generally trying to keep both our families involved without them driving both of us crazy, and just general stress management issues.

As someone in her mid-twenties in the South, I've seen and/or been a part of my fair share of weddings. (yeah, I'm starting to get the, "Don't worry, you'll find someone" comments. Welcome to the Bluegrass) I've learned a lot from other people's mistakes....but never gone through the process myself.

I'd echo Cynthetiq's advice to keep it as small as you can. Of course, include everyone who you feel it is important to invite. But don't get bogged down in the pressure to invite everyone you/your parents know. Chances are, they probably don't want to come, but likewise feel obligated. Unless you're close to the bride and groom, weddings are a drag.

Make sure you don't get too consumed by the wedding. It's a big deal, but ultimately, it's one day. I don't know how many people I've heard complain that they spent too much time and energy on their wedding, and wished they had kept it simple.

As far as distance planning, a friend of mine is going through this right now. She's let her mother do some of the process-of-elimination, but retained control of final decisions. (sampling food, comparing florists, etc) It gives her mother some feeling of involvement without relinquishing control.

Oh, and a good way to alleviate stress is to relinquish decisions you don't care about. Don't really care what style of dress the bridesmaids wear? Let them pick them out. Not particularly concerned about what prelude the pianist plays? Let her guide you. There are roughly a bazillion decisions involved in wedding planning--don't take them all on yourselves if you don't want to. If control is your thing, then that's fine. But if there are things you don't care about so much...well, don't concern yourself. Of course, you may want "veto power", just so you are certain everything flows and jives.

Best of luck in planning, and congratulations on your engagement!

Best,
Saby

Sabrina has some great advice!

I will throw in something about letting bridesmaids pick their own dresses -
I gave my bridesmaids complete freedom, allowed them to pick out anything they wanted, as long as they wore the same thing. They couldn't organize themselves, couldn't figure it out. Four months after telling them they could pick, it became a large stress for a couple of the bridesmaids. I ended up walking into a bridal store with one bridesmaid, had her try a bunch on, and chose the dress. All of my bridesmaids told me they loved the dress, and were even more happy that I removed some of their stress by choosing for them.

Things that I learned very quickly: The groom became overwhelmed easily with wedding planning. He originally wanted to work with all of the vendors and sort things out on the technicalities. He gave up that task when he realized there was far too much to keep track of. He did help out a lot with little tasks like picking up the rentals two days before the wedding, helping to set up the reception site, and keeping me calm amid plans.

The guy in charge of music at the church where we were married made choosing the music an easy task.
Hiring a good caterer is worth it. Soooo much less hassle.
Don't depend on family friends for any of the necessities such as flowers, makeup, hair, cake, or catering unless you personally are intimately familiar with their work and know you will be happy with the result. Don't let your family pressure you into any particular vendor. You will most likely not be happy with the result.

Do yourself a favor and book a decadent honeymoon. No matter how much you enjoy roughing it or the outdoors, if you're planning your own wedding there's so much stress in those last few weeks that you'll need a bit of pampering when it's all through.

Oh! And... don't plan a wedding while working on your last year of university, applying to graduate schools, and dealing with serious family illnesses. Yeah. That made for a cruddy, cruddy year. If stuff like that comes up - even if you've been engaged for two years and have the wedding half-planned... just put the wedding off. It's really not worth it to try and do everything at once.

Congrats, man.

+1. There's a reason you'll be in a tux: you're a prop at HER big day. Be helpful by taking care of the mundane stuff at home (garbage, dishes, that odd 3 foot tall plastic thing you push over the carpet that makes sucking noises) while she plans out the dove release time and what kind of harp she'll have next to the giant ice sculpture of two swans with their necks interlaced.

Don't think anybody has mentioned the big wedding / reception no-no: Booze.

If alcohol is involved at the wedding / reception (open bar = nightmare), it's usually abused and ends up becoming a huge hassle. I'd avoid it entirely, if for no other reason than the outlandish cost.

honestly..you gave some great advice..then you fucked it with this comment.

i digress. i look back and see that it was a waste. i could have done it cheap..a few hundred bucks and i could have used that money for a holiday or savings. i came back from my honeymoon broke. i had to borrow money from my parents because i was just out of uni and she was still in uni.

make it small and personal. no obscene amount of money will:

a) make you happy
b) stop your guests criticising you
c) change anything about your relationship with your wife


and if you do decide to go all out, then you will look back and wonder why you were silly enough to let her take the reigns. if she wants to run the show make sure you set her an unmovable budget.

with the financial crisis, it'd be wise to hold onto your pennies

I had my wedding in August so I am just fresh out of wedding planning.

Choose two or three things that are important to you. Music most important? Hire a band. Food most important? Hire a caterer. Drinks most important? Hire a bartender. You get the drift. My husband and I knew that we wanted to hang out with the guests so we went informal at my parents' house. We did the food ourselves with a buffet which wasn't as much of a hassle as I would have imagined. We had wine, a mixed punch and beer so that cut down on our costs. We did music from my computer with guests suggesting songs on the RSVP cards. My husband is a graphic designer so he did the invitations but even to have them done professionally would have been less per invitation than ordering really formal ones. We did hire a professional photographer because it was worth the money to us.

Don't buy things just because they have 'wedding' in the name. I chose to wear a colored dress and so I purchased a bridesmaid's dress for $300 less than a similarly styled 'wedding' dress. I made it clear to my bridesmaids that I didn't care what they wore as long as they were in clothes. One bridesmaid wore a dress she had made for a Ren Fair but it ended up matching the other two dresses and I knew she was comfortable. Don't worry about matching the number of bridesmaids to groomsmen. I had three women on my side and my husband had just a best man.

Also, don't worry if things don't go the way you imagined. We had planned on a garden wedding and my parents had put many hours into making the garden look great. The day of the rehearsal dinner, it began to pour. It poured until the Sunday after the wedding. We rigged tents in the front yard and had the guests sit in the garage on chairs. It wasn't what we imagined at the start but it turned out very nicely. You can plan everything down to the last detail but you will get lost in the details and miss out on the day of the wedding.

Have the bachelor/bachelorette parties at least a week beforehand if possible. No one wants to be trashed on their wedding day.

Remember that this is a day of coming together and love. Plan things so you can have fun. We had our photographer take a group picture of all of our guests right after the wedding. It was the last weekend of the Olympics and Michael Phelps was going to race for his 8th gold medal. We stopped dancing for a bit and watched him race. It was memorable.

Dlish, it's a bummer that you and your wife spent more on your wedding than you had readily available. Just don't be sexist about it...
Now that's an interesting perspective. I'm curious what you mean by "going all out."

Anyhew, back to the topic: No matter who runs the show, the first thing you should do is set up a budget. Right from the start, figure out how much money you have to work with and what you want to spend it on. Also figure out where the money is coming from.

Our budget was "As cheap as possible." We still sat down with a plan and decided what was important to us and what wasn't. We soon realized that if we were going to invite everyone we wanted, it wasn't going to be cheap. We spent 2 years planning and organizing our wedding. We needed every minute. I made every single invitation by hand to save on costs without sacrificing beauty. For those two years, my then fiance and I lived in sub-standard living conditions so I could pump every cent given to me from educational grants into the wedding. It was my project, I felt I should foot the majority of the bill. Very little of his income went into the wedding. We ended up ahead.

Little unexpected things will pop up, but they're not always good.

Good: My parents didn't expect to contribute much as we began to plan our wedding. As the date moved closer, my mother decided we needed a professional photographer and footed the bill.

Bad: My makeup artist (sister's friend) backed out on us three days before the wedding. That was an interesting mess. My maid of honor's little sister ended up doing makeup - it worked out amazingly, but it was a lot of stress on everyone involved.

I'd add to this - don't spend money you don't already have. Getting married is hardly a reason for piling on the debt.
-----Added 1/12/2008 at 12 : 03 : 06-----
You can easily know what you are up for. We had our reception at a golf club, and the cost per head included 3 course meal and unlimited tap beer and house wine (both the white and red wine were reasonable). We even clarified what unlimited meant. Basically the bar was open until the bride and groom leave and no-one who was interested in getting tanked left the place unfulfilled. If people wanted spirits they had to pay. We knew upfront what the cost was. Moral of the story - ask up front at the venue what the cost is going to be.

sorry i didnt mean it to sound like that..i was posting at 5am. please forgive me for sounding like a complete twat.

what i meant by 'going all out' is....

if you want to get all the bells and whistles and get everything you see in magazines, make sure you set a budget beforehand. that goes for the male AND female. you cant always have what is pleasing to the eye.

what happens usually is the guys dont really bother with what colour the baloons are, or if the brides maids off-white dress suits the colour of the candles and the ribbons around the chairs...they just want to get married, so most of the organisng ends up being done by the woman. otherwise you'd probably end up being married on the front porch if the guy decided to organise anything. i dont think thats sexist though.

i had a cheap wedding by most peoples standards....but i still had 100 guests. but i was 22 going onto 23 and she was 18. so to get married so young meant spending most of what i had saved during my short working career. i wasnt in debt..i was just even. thats why i had to ask my parents for help.


yes, back to the topic,

this is what i did to save money

i asked my groomsman and bridesmaids to get their own suits.

i hired a up and coming student photographer who gave me a good price

i got my cousin who has a film production crew to do the video for the wedding, so i got that cheap

i had a bridal registry so that i dont end up with 10 toasters

i got a dj instead of a band

i borrowed my cousins ( i have 76 1st cousins) car for the wedding car

i didnt invite my cousins except the ones that i was close to

Congratulations on getting married :)

I just spent this last weekend helping my friend prepare her wedding, it was yesterday.

She had the wedding at home, because she couldn't afford something more lavish, and she has two small children, one of which is 3 months old and she is breast feeding!

Needless to say, it was a little crazy doing everything only a few days before the event.

The wedding was very pleasant with only a small group of friends and family and a buffet style lunch. We decorated the place ourselves with about 40 sepia photographs of her and her groom, and some of them with their babies. We also painted a wall in a colour that matched her dress (it was burgundy) and decorated the room in similar shades and cream. We spread white daisies, burgundy gerberas and candles around the place too.

We made the music mix ourselves with songs picked by my friend and the groom that reminded them of the 10 years they have been together and the bridal gift to the guests was a CD with 15 of the songs played and a matching cover.

All in all I think she spent maybe 1000 € on the wedding. It was very cosy and pretty and people seemed to enjoy it.

I run a wedding planning forum, if shes an internet junkie, she is welcome to come over and join the group we love to be helpful with plans!!! (or you're welcome lol we dont discriminate but we are all girls and one guy right now)

I just got married on July 4th. Weddings are stressful, period. Even though my wife does advertising and event planning, it was still stressful. I couldn't imagine trying to plan this without her background.

My wedding was a very casual (seriously, I wore shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals) outdoor old fashioned 4th of July cookout. It was the most laid back wedding I had ever been to, and it still stressed me out. Our whole idea was that we were throwing a party, and oh yeah, we're getting married also. If I had to do it over, I wouldn't change it at all.

We chose to not serve alcohol in any fashion. This prevented a lot of the problems that go along with that, and the liability as well.

We didn't do cake, neither of us really care for it, so we nixed it in favor of a soft serve ice cream machine and toppings to make your own sundae, it was a huge hit even if the ice cream was a little too soft.

Things will go wrong @ the last minute, something always happens. Most of the time the guests don't even notice. Even if they do, they are there to celebrate with you, they won't notice that the napkins don't quite match the color of the thread on the buttons of the groomsmen's shirts. My point is don't sweat it, it'll all get done.

Set a budget, then throw that out the window and set a realistic budget.

Have fun, seriously, if it's not fun, then why do it?

Can you post the link to the forum? Thanks!

congratulations on your engagement.

i don't have much in the way of suggestions---what's already here is full of good advice. i would only emphasize two things--one is that if a particular venue won't let you know what you're getting yourselves into with an open bar, or with a limited open bar (x drinks then cash), find another. you can control costs and balance that against gregariousness.

if music is important to you, then pay attention to it. the succubus of bad taste lives off wedding receptions, sucking the blood of the living who submit willingly because they think they have to. if you don't like doing the hokey pokey in regular life, why would you do it at your reception? it should be a celebration for you, of you. this from someone who has attended many weddings....

so how many hokey pokeys have you done roachboy?

i havent done any at weddings yet. the last time i did the hokey pokey i was 10.

i have never done the hokey pokey.
i have endured it.

We married in a church that had separate buildings for sanctuary, classrooms, etc. If you are getting married during a month that rains, at all, pick your location more wisely than I did. You don't want the bride/bridesmaids dressing in one building, then running to 'the main event' in high heels through a downpour and mud puddles trying not to get her dress/shoes/self soaked or dirty. And umbrellas only save her hair and part of the dress. They don't protect the shoes from mud puddles, and the person holding the train will be a couple of feet away, under a different umbrella, exposing part of the dress to the rain. Heaven forbid if she slips on the wet pavement and falls into the water or mud. I slipped, but luckily did not fall and tear/dirty the dress.

But you've got to admit - he is a mighty fine guy. :D

The correct answer is "I do" not "I guess so."

how about "you'll do"?

The difficulty is that the wedding is taking place half a country away from us, so it's a bit hard to 'try out' djs and such. We're leaning towards places that have a house dj, on the assumption that they're less likely to be horrible (though more likely to be average than good).

As far as open bar goes, most of the places we've seen just charge a single price per head. We both feel that an open bar is something we want to do for our guests.

Unfortunately, asaris vetoed my suggestion of having a hotdog eating contest :rolleyes: