It seems a male cousin may get engaged at C-mas with a June 2017 wedding. His mother (who is anyone’s worst nightmare in many ways) overheard discussion of this at a family event - her son has limitations with his mother due to her past and present behaviors.
H and I married on Labor Day weekend and it was nice for those who had to travel. We married in the city where we’d attended college, somewhat far away from both families.
D and FSIL are definitely not going the “groom’s side/bride’s side” route. FSIL is estranged from his paternal family (with good reason) and his Mom’s family is small. H’s family is Yuuuge and will almost certainly be there in force. D has a lot of dance friends coming. The rest of the friends are mutual. So, yep, we’re going for balanced.
Not a regular Game of Thrones Watcher I’m guessing. X_X
@walkinghome and @T26E4, from the description of the “day of” person or coordinator, I think my sister or niece would be perfect. They’re both organized and authoritative in a friendly way. The venue does provide a coordinator who we like and has been helpful in the planning. But I like the idea of having someone I trust 100% helping to make sure everything runs smoothly.
@runnersmom, I’m with you – it’s great when the siblings can be involved. D’s MOH will be her sis (hs senior now). My hs junior son will be a groomsman (which I’m very happy about) and also the DJ.
@scout59,Having 60 (!) of the MOG’s friends there who don’t even a particular relationship with the groom – makes no sense to me. My Mom did the same thing and we never said anything about it. I guess I just thought “that’s the way it’s done.” In hindsight I’d have preferred a smaller wedding with guests that H and/or I were close to. But I still have H, so things didn’t turn out too bad!
Scout I am still wrapping my head around the 60-70 friends your D’s FMIL has. Sounds like she wants this wedding to be her own party. That said I like the idea of her hosting /paying for her own party for them, but maybe your future SIL can tell her that the budget allows for only 140 guests.
:)) :)) :)) and also 
LOL, @snoozn Actually, I am.
Thinking about the Red Wedding could put a lot of minor tribulations in perspective. 
(On the other hand, the opportunity to poison the most vile of one’s family members at the wedding feast could be rather attractive. B-) )
Hey, good news on the MOG’s guest list: she and her son talked it out, and she’s cut her list on invitees down to 30. D and her fiancé are thrilled and there was no drama involved!
Yay for a happy resolution! Plus, it looks as if they have a reception venue. Things are moving along
One of the things a wise fellow recently reminded me of is that young adulthood is a time for our sons and daughters to figure things out. Great example of them doing just that, @scout59. Glad it worked out. He stepped up. Super.
The day of coordinator for my daughter’s wedding made sure that the timeline for the day went off as planned and that all members of the wedding party and the parents were where they should be on time. She also coordinated with vendors who were providing services before the ceremony. As the ceremony began, she helped stage the entrances and then her duties ended. This was all more complicated than it sounds. The bride, MOH and bridesmaids all had to gather on time in the morning in a hotel conference room set up for hair and makeup to be done so there was coordination with the makeup artist and hair stylist as well as with the photographer and videographer. The groom, best man and groomsmen all had to gather in the bridal suite. Same coordination with photographer and videographer. Day of coordinator had a portable steamer to get creases out of tuxes. She coordinated delivery of corsages. The wedding party was traveling on a private trolley throughout the city for a variety of formals and casual photos so she coordinated getting everyone on board and the schedule of stops. She coordinated the timing of my “first look”. She coordinated the timing of all the pre-ceremony family formals. For a 6:00 pm ceremony, the day started at 9:00 am for the ladies in the wedding and at 11:00 for the guys and the coordinator was like a general making sure all the moving parts involving all the vendors meshed and taking care of any issues or incidentals that came up. She made sure the set up of the venue for the ceremony was on schedule. Through her efforts, there was zero stress for anyone and all the bride, groom, wedding party and immediate family had to do was sit back, enjoy and go for the ride.
We just received the proofs from the photographer yesterday. Of course, in today’s world, that means website access and not printed proofs, lol. Just as well; the photographer and his second cameraman took 9000 pictures!!! My daughter and her husband have worked with him before professionally because of their work as MC’s for an entertainment company that does life events and my daughter has been used by him as a model for promotional work. So I think he went a little crazy with the camera at her wedding! Fortunately, he narrowed the 9000 down to his favorite, much more manageable 1925 pictures. It took my wife and me an hour just to casually skim through them online and I think I developed an overuse injury from clicking the mouse button :D.
We are working with a wedding planner. If anyone is considering it, I would advise to find out the planner’s communication style vs yours before you commit. Both D1 and I are accustom to work with people who are on their phone and computer almost 24-7. Our jobs also require us to respond to our customers in a very short time frame. After few inquiries to our planner, we found out the planner could go for days without responding to our emails, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t working on our requests.
I was getting increasingly stressed, and D1 knew I was I getting to a point that I was going to let it loose. She chatted with me first. She said we needed the planner more than she needed us at this point, it was a small town and everyone in the wedding business knew each other (so another word, I needed to calm down), but she was going to organize a conference call and she was going to take the lead.
I was very pleasantly surprised by how D1 handled the call. She told the wedding planner that we needed to adjust our communication styles. She appreciated the fact the planner was trying to balance work and life, but she needs to let us know she has received our emails and would get back to us by X date. The planner went on (a bit defensively) to say she knew what she was doing and we needed to have a bit of trust in her. D1 said, “You raised a very good point about trust. We are all in the beginning of our relationship. It takes some time for all of us to build trust in each other. I am sure once we settled on a venue and have some of those vendors identified then we could all be a bit more relaxed.”
D1 drove the whole conference call and I didn’t have to say much. At the end, the planner agreed to be more responsive and to use an onsite planner identified by D1 so could all communicate better. More importantly, we all ended on a good note. Every time I thought we were going to some where negative, D1 was able to bring it back.
We need a planner because it is 250+ miles from where we are. It would not be very effective for us to go up there to check out venues and meet with vendors on our own.
@oldfort (and others,) those moments when our kids delight us this way are priceless.
Great story, Old Fort!
Thanks, all who commented, for the reassuring advice regarding 3 day weekends. I will tell D and future S in law to go for it, and we will work on venues when they come up with which weekend works for them.
Meanwhile. for May 2017, S has picked a date, a place, knows that the airfares will work. But has yet to get on the ball with save the date cards and actual booking.
Well, our kids know they want a three day weekend, but the guest list conundrum has thrown a wrench in the works. The venue they picked for LDW can only seat 200 people (I know, that’s huge, but we are dealing with huge immediate families and B & G with very large friend groups). To put it in perspective…our immediate family (siblings, aunts, uncles and first cousins-all of whom he has a relationship with) numbers 31 and her family is even larger. We can get to 75 people without any of their friends or ours or her parents. They have begun looking for a larger venue that will allow for perhaps a more casual wedding (fine with everyone) that can accommodate more people. I mean I told him I only have 3 “must have” people outside the family, but even my S identified 8 more close family friends who have known him since the day he was born that he (and I) would like to have with us. And his list, without even thinking, was close to 60 people, most of whom live locally and are likely to attend. As he told us, that’s actually only about 30 friends because most are married or living together with long term significant others. My FDIL has a similar list. It’s going to be a wild ride, but they want to be married within the year and need to nail down a venue…fast.
@MichaelNKat Love the # of pictures taken with the very memorable event captured also in a big array of photos!
DD’s photographer is a friend who takes fabulous photos. So will be within budget and will do great work.
DD is getting busy with things this week - hope she begins her career FT job as slated in a week; she needs the cash!
DD’s wedding date is a Marian feast day, so hopefully will be a very blessed day!
Speaking of pictures, do couples still put together wedding photo albums? Any suggestions on better quality albums?
I did a lot of looking at online photo book companies. Although I wound up using mixbook because it fit my needs and the software was user friendly, I’d look at milkbook, mypublisher, and artifactuprising, and picaboo for some of the nicer looking photo books that would be great for self-designed wedding albums.
I love hearing about all the weddings and wedding plans. Keep the tips coming.
S and FDlL have been slow in picking a date. Next year they are already fully committed for all their vacation days so they are thinking August or Sept 2018. His fiancé did ask me for a list of people we would want to include and to group by absolute and would be nice if there is room. She wants a general number before they pick a venue. Not the way I’d do it but I’m not the one getting married. They want outdoors so time of year is tricky.
By pushing the date out so far it has one of my other children concerned as she wanted a May 2018 wedding. She isn’t yet officially engaged but getting married has already been discussed and they are committed to each other. She is set on May and doesn’t want to wait till 2019 but doesn’t want to step on her future sister in laws toes.
I suggested to S that they might consider a long weekend date.
“She is set on May and doesn’t want to wait till 2019 but doesn’t want to step on her future sister in laws toes.”
First one to pick a date and lock it in, gets what they want IMO. I appreciate your daughter’s thoughtfulness but she should have to wait if she knows what she wants. Plus, there can be two weddings the same year, right?
My kids got engaged 3 months apart and got married 4 months apart.
With our July date ‘set’ and communicated verbally (and soon with save the date magnets), male cousin and his GF (expect a C-mas or New Year engagement) may be setting a June wedding or later.
We had a NY family wedding years ago very well communicated. IMHO cousin was very rude by scheduling her TX wedding 2 weeks before the NY wedding, and side railed a lot of WI family from going to the NY wedding. Neither marriage lasted, but NY wedding produced two children - and one is the June 2017 or later wedding. We don’t know yet where that wedding will be at. But with enough notice, flying to venue is not an issue.
There is a book that is very inspiring IMHO “Married for Life” Inspirations from those married 50 years or more. A Hallmark Gift Book. I saw it at Kroger’s.
We got married 5/31. Brother got married same year, 1/25. It was a hectic, busy time but all went well.