Wedding BS

[AdminAssistant]

Since the engagement (ooh, shiiinnyyyy), I've been flipping through wedding magazines, planning books, and budget guides. I've only been super-involved with one wedding, my sister's, and that was 8 years ago. I haven't even been to many weddings, so I've been doing what any academic does: reading about it. And frankly...it's ridiculous.

First of all, the insulting way most books and mags treat secular/civic ceremonies. A civic ceremony doesn't have to be a few people stuffed in a judge's office. Just because I want to get married by a JoP apparently means that I don't want any of my family or friends to attend the event. I'm sorry, but WTF? I still want a nice ceremony with music, family, and friends. The only difference will be that a civic official will be standing up there instead of a priest.

Also...so-called "etiquette guides" offer advice that I find insulting and rude. Like one bride bitching that she had to feed the photographer, DJ, videographer, and other "staff." That it was unfair that these people actually wanted to, y'know, eat at some point during her 5 hour long reception. And the editor suggested that she order a separate, cheap "staff meal" from the caterer and serve it in a back room. WTF??? I know catering is expensive, but I find it incredibly rude to shove lovely food under people's noses and then say, "No, you can't have that. You have to eat the cold sandwiches in the kitchen."

Also, the issue of children. Yes, you have the right to a childfree event, but you shouldn't throw a hissy because some people then won't be able to come because they can't someone to watch their kid...especially if they're coming from out-of-town. And if you forbid other people to bring kids, then don't have kids in the wedding. I don't like the idea of, "Oh, no, you can't bring your bratlings, but my adorable niece is okay." Kids or no kids.

What I've noticed more than anything is the pushing of, "It's YOUR day. Do what YOU want on YOUR day." First of all, I'm assuming that there's a spouse involved somewhere, and it's their day, too. I expect to involve my fiance with a lot of the decisions...how much to spend, what kind of food, booze or no booze, do the guys wear tuxes, etc. And he'll get a groom's cake that can be anything that he wants. Which, right now, is Warcraft. I think it's awesome, but some of my friends are all, "OMG, you'd let him do that?" What? "Let?" I'm sorry, he's my fiance, not my puppy, and if he wants a neon orange, strawberry flavored cake with monkeys on top, that's what he'll get.

And, y'know...it's not just you and your fiance...it's two families coming together. And I think making a few compromises in the name of family sanctity is fine. His cousin has a few young daughters - boom. Flower girls. He has a super-religious nut for an uncle, but I'm still going to invite him. My father will likely get drunk and make a scene, but I wouldn't even consider excluding him. (I'm going to make sure he has people to baby-sit him, ditto Mom. With a supply of happy pills and tranquilizers in her case.)

And that's not even how much shit costs. Good lord. There was a point where I thought a sit down dinner might be nice, but after reading up on it....I think we may be settling for Ritz crackers and Cheez-Whiz. And y'know what? We'd still have a good time. I'm reading through all of this shit thinking, why do people care so much? I don't! I don't care if the cake cutter has a ribbon on it or if my nephew spills punch everywhere or if my brother-in-law shows up in blue jeans and cowboy boots. Getting caught up in all the little bullshit...the dress codes*, the band, the favors...it all distracts from the whole point of the damned thing. To get married to the one you love.

*Again, I think it's rude to dictate what your guests have to wear. Ditto being overt about registries.

[telecom_goddess]

I think it's insane that weddings can cost thousands of dollars....I mean really for ONE day? I'd rather do a short ceremony in a judges' chambers or something than go through all that hassle. The one wedding I had was very small and not terribly expensive at all and that's the way it should be.

[ExRetailDrone]

Gah, I can completely empathize where you're coming from. My husband and I got married last year and I, too, read up on budgeting and such since we were paying for it ourselves and didn't want to shell out a ton of money that would make us broke. After reading a bit, we said screw 'traditional', we're going to have what we want and it'll be great! It helped that we both have small families, and some people couldn't make it, so our reception had about 40 people at it. Neither of us are religious, so we weren't going the church route. My ideal was to get married outside in a forest clearing, but my grandma is religious and she doesn't know that I'm not, and I'm perfectly happy letting her continue thinking that I believe the same as she does. So hubby and I got married in a local pavilion near a lake - it had an indoor area for the ceremony in case it rained (which it did, of course ). We got married by a civic official and the ceremony was just lovely. We didn't spend much money on it, either, and I found it to be nicer than a lot of weddings I've been to where you just know they spent thousands just on the ceremony location.

Our reception also wasn't very traditional. There was a local Cajun restaurant that we both love, and we found out they catered private parties on the weekends, so we booked them. That was the most expensive part of our big day, and we wouldn't have it any other way. The reception was a time for us to mingle and catch up with friends and family that we hadn't seen in years, plus I am a believer that food helps bring people together. The food was delicious, the staff was great, and we had a wonderful time! There was no DJ, no wedding cake - instead we had them play the music they normally play during regular business hours, mostly zydeco and the like, and we ordered bread pudding for everyone and mud pies for the bridal party in place of a traditional cake.

I don't understand the bridezillas who freak out if the smallest thing doesn't turn out like the magazine said it was supposed to be like. There's all this push for individuality and uniqueness, yet so many people will not budge on weddings. Why can't weddings be unique to match the personalities of the bride and groom?

I think a lot of times people cave and have weddings that their families want rather than what they want. This seems to happen a lot more if said families are helping out with the financing of the wedding, since then the couple may feel obligated to let the family members have their way. I don't think either of our families would have done that had they been helping out, but even still I'm glad that we were able to save up and pay for our own day and have it just like we wanted.

By the way, I think the Warcraft cake is neat. My husband and I used to play, and while I got a bit tired of the game, I still enjoyed much of the time I played it

[guywithashovel]

I would love nothing more than to find a nice, gentle, intelligent lady who wants to enjoy a long, childfree life with me. However, I don't think I could deal with a bridezilla. I just have a very low threshold for drama and periods of high emotion. I prefer a calm, sterile life.

[AdminAssistant]

The one thing we may have to cave on is the ceremony/reception location. I've been looking, and most of the decent, indoor locations belong to the University, which means using their lousy catering (the stuff that made me ill in college) and no option for alcohol (dry campus). There are a few places to check, but we're running out of options. Of course, I'm the one being picky...I absolutely insist on everything being indoors. I'd rather not move the ceremony to Little Rock, as that means more family has to shell out lots of money for hotels and travel. The courthouse really isn't an option either, since I'm hoping to have....75-ish? people there. GRUMBLE!

[ExRetailDrone]

That stinks that you aren't finding more options for an indoor venue. My husband and I lucked out since there was that pavilion locally that is in a beautiful area and it was rather cheap to rent. We rented it out for a couple of hours, which was plenty of time for setup, gathering, ceremony, and pictures; right afterward, everyone headed over to the restaurant where our reception was held, which was about a 5- to 10-minute drive away.

Here's to hoping that you'll be able to find something that will suit your desires without having to add on all that additional travel time.

[Cassandra]

Ugh...I feel for you! We got married last October and are still paying off some of the things. We must have spent close to 20K on everything. Even through tight budgeting.

My dress and the bridesmaid dresses were $150 a piece. The place that we chose was the venue for the ceremony and the reception so that cut back a little as well as the fact that the hall catered the whole thing and made the cake on the premises. What hurt the budget the most was the photographer, 5K for everything from him. But, it is YOUR day as in BOTH of YOU! It is all about what both of you want and both of you have final say in it all.

That's how we did it all. We sat down and talked about what we would like and how much it would cost. We both chose the colors, the cake, the venue, the type of ceremony, every little detail was throughly talked out before anything was set in stone. We did make sure that there were options for the vegetarians and diabetics in both families and we made sure that the photographer, dj, and videographer all got fed the same food that everyone else had. Hey, we were paying for 100 people regardless and only had 75 able to make it so why waste the good food?!

The only advice that I can give you is to put down the mags! Sit down with your fiance and figure out what both of you want, write it all down, research how much the average cost of each thing is and decide on a budget that way, and remember that something WILL go wrong and there is no way to avoid it, so take a deep breath and work through it. Don't sit on the floor in your underwear crying your eyes out screaming that you don't want to go through with this when you put on an extra couple of pounds from stress and your dress is just a smidge tight like I did.

Use the internet to your advantage. I was able to score dresses for $150 each on a couple of different websites. I was also able to get some really nice personalized favors for a reasonable price on this website: http://www.myweddingfavors.com/


And as for the type of ceremony, only you and your fiance can say what type, how many people, and who will marry you. We got married by a Unitarian that I worked with and our vows came from a Wiccan handfasting book. His family is Catholic, my mom is Wiccan, the rest of my family is non-religious, as well as me, and hubby is a non-practicing Catholic. We did not let anyone dictate to us how to do anything for OUR day and neither should you!

I wish you much happiness and love in your nuptials and many happy, healthy years with each other. Don't stress too much!

[Nyoibo]

Hell, I'm possibly about to spend about $700 or more on an outfit for a friends wedding (damn victorian era clothing) Weddings are evil!

[HYHYBT]

Until that thread a couple months ago about church weddings for nonbelievers, I'd never thought much about what I'd want my wedding to be like, should I ever be fortunate enough to have one. But ever since then, I've had an idea which I cannot get out of my head. This is doubly cart before horse, because I have no one to marry even were it legal to do so, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't even work. But it would be fun, unusual, cheap (certainly as weddings go!), etc if it did work. On the other hand, it sounds a bit silly.

What I'd want to do is a surprise wedding. Not for the participants, but for the site; after all, if everybody buys a ticket, are they going to stop us from standing up for a couple of minutes and saying vows? Get everybody to show up at the railroad museum (one of my favorite places on earth, hence the avatar of a color-shifted #4501) one morning and simply buy tickets and get in the last car of the train. The actual vows and such only take a few minutes anyway; time it right and we'd be hitched by the time we got to the other end of the line. Followed by dinner at Outback or something.

No fancy clothes to worry about, no decorating necessary, no fancy cake (everybody can order off the dessert menu) or any of that stuff. And I don't know about my hypothetical husband, but everyone I'd want to invite who'd be willing to come is in reasonable driving distance (assuming they can stay a night) and they're few enough to fit along one side.

[crashhelmet]

Admin, are there any local Fraternity Halls (Elks, VFW, Moose, etc) in your area? They're usually well taken care of, from what I've seen and more than willing to accommodate for an event like a reception. They may just charge more if you or a family member is not a member.

As for my own wedding, I would LOVE to have a big traditional Mexican wedding where everyone in town is invited and it's one gigantic pot luck type reception. But that's the traditionalist in me. Another idea I had was to get married in the water at the beach. Wet suits instead of penguin suits, then have the reception there on the beach.

CH

[AdminAssistant]

Admin, are there any local Fraternity Halls (Elks, VFW, Moose, etc) in your area? They're usually well taken care of, from what I've seen and more than willing to accommodate for an event like a reception. They may just charge more if you or a family member is not a member.

That's some of the options I still need to look at. I know from personal experience that the Elks is trashy, and I haven't heard great things about the VFW or Moose. However, one of my bridesmaids suggested the Knights of Columbus hall, which is relatively new.

I still haven't ruled out the idea of getting married in the grand lobby of my undergrad's theatre (it's really pretty, plus, it's a building that's very sentimental to me). The reception would have to be elsewhere, and it's a $750 minimum. Sheesh.

[muses_nightmare]

It seems to me there are so many "rules" for weddings etiquette for gifts, and clothing, and food, and where to stand etc. I just don't understand that stuff. As much as I like to think about dress shopping, I'm probably going to end up with a fairly simple dress, nothing super expensive, $500 or under most likely (unless I get a corset, which is something I would want to wear afterward anyway)

My best friend got married this past June, they did their wedding for around $3000 total. Given, she didn't buy bridesmaid dresses, but she also didn't expect us to get super expensive dresses, she just told us to get something black, I managed to get mine for $15. I think the most expensive parts of theirs were the location, which was this beautiful park full of heritage buildings, and her dress. They had the reception at her in-laws, they had a huge ballroom in their place. And the food was all potluck. She made the music playlist on her Ipod and let that go, they also made their own cake.

As for what I'd want? I'm not entirely sure, I will probably be getting married in the next few years. Haven't been asked, but me and the BF have been together 7 years, it's pretty much a forgone conclusion . Definitely won't be a church ceremony that's for sure. I like the idea of an outdoor ceremony, but with my luck it would rain. :P I also have a friend that's an aspiring photographer, we can also hand off our DSLR to a friend to take pics as well. Yeah, I've thought this over a lot. It was suggested by a friend of mine that we have a medical themed wedding, which would make the BF happy as he could wear his scrubs, but frankly, I want something more elegant. He still threatens to wear scrubs.

[IDrinkaRum]

When I got married, I wore my mom's wedding gown. My Matron of Honor (sister) bought her dress out of a Land's End magazine for under $50. My other 2 bridesmaids, I bought 2 identical dresses (green dresses the tops were green velvet & the rest of the dress was like sateen or something). I got those 2 dresses for like $10-$15 eacdh (JC Penney outlet FTW), and each person knew how to sew/knew sewers so it worked out. The cake (which would have been expensive) was free as it was a wedding gift to us (the baker is friends with my MIL).

If you don't want alcohol @ your reception, stand by your guns. My MIL insisted. One of the reasons my wedding is so memorable with husband's friends is because a lot of peoples got trashed and one guy showed his .... "manhood" (to put it delicately). Yeah, didn't go well with me.

[draggar]

Luckily my wife wasn't one of those who demanded an all-out fairy tale wedding.

- We were married by a good friend of our's (he's a Wiccan priest, is allowed to marry people in NY and if he had a following in NJ he could marry people there, too).

- Dresses - my wife is petite so her dress wasn't expensive. She told the bride's maids what color to wear but that was it. They got to choose the dress. Flower girls - I don't know why people expect parents to shell out so much for their dresses that they'll probably wear once and/or ruin. my wife told the mother "something that looks nice". We were even OK with them re-using dresses from their uncle's wedding (who the bride insisted on higher-end dresses - at least they got two wears out of it).

- Food. Yeah, we kinda went overboard. And why not?

- Photographs - a friend of my wife's who is a professional did them for us.

We even went to a Wiccan wedding that was pot-luck and in the person's back yard. It was great and very personal.

I understand that it is an important day for many people but I don't get it why so many people make so much out of it. My wife is hooked on wedding shows (Who's wedding it it anyway etc..) and some of the things that these brides do would put me in a straight jacket.

As for the up-tight books, magazines, etc.. I'd say f-the system. Do what you want to do. It's YOUR day so why should they tell you how to run your day?

[AdminAssistant]

Well, after ranting on Facebook, my friends came to the rescue and pointed out a great location. It'll be a bit more expensive than a church wedding, but I think we can do the whole shebang there. I haven't started looking at dresses yet, but I definitely don't want to spend a lot of money there (even though Mom's already said they'd buy the dress). I only have two bridesmaids, so the three of us will probably hit the malls and find something in a department store that would be cheaper and better quality than a "bridesmaid dress." Flower girls? $30 white Easter dress from TJ Maxx. Done. The guys? I haven't decided. I don't think it'll be formal enough to warrant a tux. Maybe just suits? Hrm. Oh, and one of my bridesmaids is a fantastic costume designer and seamstress, so I think I'll ask her to help me make my veil, the ring pillow, and other accessories.

The other etiquette thing I forgot to mention is the Mr. and Mrs. His Full Name. BULLSHIT. I am not, nor will I ever be, Mrs. His Name. I am taking his last name. However, I have a first name that my mother and father gave to me, and I'm not giving that up.