Marriage

[Josh_R]

Alright guys so it is finally that time. I am tying the knot. Basically what I want to know are what are some things that I should consider with this wedding. I have very few friends that are married, and even less family to talk to about this. So I am going in blind. I have no clue wtf am I doing haha. Also how much money am I looking at haha.

[che]

Why are you getting married?

Depends on what type of marriage. Civil, huge fam invited in a church with reception, venue/villa, etc. You can spend as much as you think is reasonable. If you don't have the money for the size wedding you want, too bad. Get friends and family involved to help you guys out if you can.

If you're going for a wedding like the one on Duck Dynasty, you really only need some dresses and suits, which you can rent. and some wood and stacks of hay and decorations, and a pastor(preacher?).

[noxious.sunshine]

What you need to know is this: STFU and listen to whatever the fiancee wants.

Put your foot down on the budget, but otherwise... Just let her do it all and say "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, yeah, ok".

Make it easy on yourself.

[Rowan]

bump.

also interested.

[noxious.sunshine]

You just need to set an overall budget and then decide where the priorities are. Like how much do you want to spend on tuxes, dresses, decorations/flowers, food, venue, etc.

A lot of people are going the DIY route and making their own stuff in some cases. My ex's cousin had a relatively small wedding somewhere (like around 50 ppl, maybe less) & I'm pretty sure her mom cooked all of the food, did the wedding cake & made the center pieces on the tables and stuff.

Watch "Four Weddings" on TLC , they tell what the budget was for each wedding.

I'd say low-balling it, probz $10k minimum.

[final fantacy_tifa]

ohhhhhh myyyy gggaaaddd!!!! my budders is getting married i think ima have a heart attack!who woulda though all the help i can give is goodluck .miss u bro

[OceanEyes28]

I'm in the stage of planning that involves drafting a guest list and asking our parents to send us guest "wish lists" with the understanding that we might not be able to invite everyone. Also going to a rental place to price things like tents, chairs, tables. See what we'll need to budget for. That will play a big roll in how many people we invite. Once we have the structures settled, we can talk to caterers. I've already got a photographer, and photographs are one of our top priorities, so we can spend a little extra on that. Shit is expensive tho. And I've got a dress! Well, it's ordered. Once it gets here in a month or two (or whenever), I can get it sized. I found one in the middle of my price range, and I feel really excited to wear it. A friend of mine spent $3000 on her dress. I can't even wrap my head around that, but good for her. It's mostly a ridiculous website, but The Knot has a pretty nice checklist that will remind you of things on your timeline you may have forgotten about. I'm getting hitched in a little over a year from now, so it feels good to be laying the foundation for an easier crunch time.

Good luck!

[Rocky]

are you guys all getting married in the summer so i can road trip crash all your weddings?

[loaf]

I got my invitation through myself.

[Rocky]

fk how do i get that loaf privilege someone hook me up PLEASE

[noxious.sunshine]

because loaf is almighty. that's why.

I found a dress in a magazine that I absolutely fell in love with, but after scouring the intarwebz for where to get it.... It's about a $7,000 dress. And pretty much you'd have to actually -fly- to Italy to get it ..

[Josh_R]

are you guys all getting married in the summer so i can road trip crash all your weddings?

Rocky you would of course be invited. No clue when it'll be though haha.

Right now we are doing some location scouting.

[Tiffany]

I had a blast planning our wedding. It was a lot of stress but super awesome and fun too.

Hmmm, I ended up getting this bridal book of sorts that kind of explains the timelines of things. I had no idea that getting a wedding dress (when not buying on the rack) would take up to 9 months to get, then there were alterations etc, having to schedule fittings right before the wedding etc. You can google and find the same lists though.

First thing we did was get our venue and set a date. After that we did the guest list... it was tough as my parents wanted to invite everyone and since we were paying for part of the wedding ourselves we were limited with who we could invite. In the end, we split the amount of people we knew we could afford into thirds (if that makes sense). One set for my parents and they could invite whom they wanted, then another set for my MIL to invite who she wanted and then the last for us so we could invite who we wanted. We had to put our foot down with my parents though as they wanted more people than what we could afford. Our venue could hold more people, but I ended up telling my mother that if she wanted to invite more people than what we budgeted for then she'd have to foot the bill for them. Might sound mean, but its really easy to get caught up in all the "wants" for a wedding.

My hubby was 100% a part of the planning and he wouldn't have it any other way. LOL! It was frustrating at times, as there were things I had to compromise on that I really didn't want to. But, it was his wedding too and in retrospect I'm glad we did it that way.

If I can give any advice, it would be that just know things are not going to go to plan on the big day. Try not to stress about them as they do make for funny stories after the fact. My one bridesmaid was 6 months pregnant, had her dress altered to accommodate her bump and it literally fell apart when she tried to put it on. She was SO upset Raging pregnancy hormones don't help either! We were so far behind in our timings that the limo showed up and I wasn't even in my dress yet! The plan was to already have family pictures done by that point and then have the final set with the limo then head to the venue.

En route to the wedding, our limo was stopped by some dude riding bareback on a horse. NO idea where he came from and we're pretty urban here... not common to see people riding horses out and about.

I didn't finish a single drink, anytime I got one I was called away to either have my picture taken with someone or check on something. Was frustrating ha ha.

I think the thing that bugged me the most were people who didn't show, and didn't let us know. While I understand that life happens, it was very expensive for us to do our wedding and a waste of the food as well. I think out of the 170 people we invited, 110 actually RSVP'd yes, and maybe 90 people actually showed. If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to ask!