<p>S & DIL paid for their wedding. We did the catering ourselves as their gift (that total was just under $2500). They had 100 people – had originally expected about 60, so it felt pretty big to all of us. S did the addresses for Save the Date cards. I offered to do the hand calligraphy for invitations, which they eagerly accepted. They picked out invites and had them shipped to me. Return address was theirs, RSVPs were online. S & DIL paid for the rehearsal dinner, which was at a local BBQ joint. Most folks wore jeans, including S, DIL, DH and parents of the bride. </p>
<p>DIL’s parents were paying to fly over here and did not have other $$ to contribute to the festivities, but never said they had to have X or Y. We did ask them for British wedding traditions and foods, and FOB made some desserts as a result. MOB and FOB arrived several days before hand and helped us with cooking, shucking, fruit picking and general merriment. Not your typical event, I know, but we had a great time together and MOB and I are good friends now.</p>
<p>S & DIL had wine during the cocktail hour and during dinner (though one had to go out to the bar area to get it). They didn’t want it to be an alcohol-laden occasion. </p>
<p>Now as for thank you notes…I know some have gone out. That is a sore spot.</p>
<p>“One of the really interesting things about who is paying for what is that my son was very willing to chip in to help pay for this. He is fortunate to have a very good job. But, his future bride would not permit him to do this, reasoning that they would need the money he is making now in a joint account once they got married.”</p>
<p>I really hope that she is not the one deciding what he can and can’t do with money he has made before they get married. Money is one of the reasons people end up getting divorced.</p>
<p>@deb922, I sympathize. We have a very small family, and H and I are trying to catch up with retirement savings and so forth after a decade+ of severe underemployment during which we actually had to draw down our 401K. I can imagine a situation where my S marries someone with a comparatively enormous family–the kind where there are 150 first cousins–and they want us to chip in a lot of money to help pay for an extravaganza to which we would be inviting a maximum of 20 people. It isn’t a pretty picture. I just cannot get behind the idea of throwing away tens of thousands of dollars on such an event.</p>
<p>CountingDown, your S’s wedding always sounds wonderful to me. I’m definitely in the DIY camp. </p>
<p>(Of course, I am dying for S to get married and provide me with grandchildren. Do you have a D? Does anyone else remember LongPrime, who was always trying to find a mate for his S?)</p>
<p>I knew there was someone out there with a British DIL - I’m getting a British SIL and the wedding will be in the UK. My daughter’s one requirement of me is to wear a big hat. I don’t even know where to get one!</p>
<p>That is a valid point applicable to my wedding, since my in law’s non-contribution came up in the other thread. W e are expecting just under 100 guests, and of those about 8 belong to my fiance’s family. We both have very small families (I invited 3 first cousins), but his parents refused to invite most of their family and ANY of their friends. I know a few of their friends and wanted them to be invited and they wouldn’t. The few non-immediate family relatives that did get invited rsvped with regrets. Fiance does have something like 20-30 coworkers coming, though and I have none, so his side and my side are about equal, but his family has little to do with it. It’s entirely possible they view our wedding just as Consolation describes, a big extravaganza for 100 people when they are only inviting 10 people, but their D has had two weddings and neither of them were smaller than mine. Now I wonder who the heck went to those weddings! Her first the groom was from the UK, I doubt 100 people flew in from England. I don’t much care at this point, but I hope my in-laws are not feeling put out by how many guests we’re having.</p>
<p>Of course, on the other hand, the rehearsal dinner is going to be about 20 people and only 4 of them are from my side, and the brunch fiance is making me host the day after is all his side, too, and that’s his sides tradition. My parents don’t even want to come because they think it’s stupid and they’re mad I’m spending money on it. The joys of being a bride, you can’t please everybody. Keeping the peace and being married by the end of the day are the only priorities at this point, 8 days out.</p>
<p>Ema - I love your posts - only 8 days to go! Congratuations! I wish you the best. Don’t worry whose miffed by what and by who - like you said, the important part is getting married. </p>
<p>PhotoOp, congrats! S & DIL had a civil ceremony in 2012 and the celebration in MD in 2013 (they live in CA). Had they decided to have a small celebration in the UK, I would have been SO all over it. (To me, it made more sense and would have been much less $$, but not my call…) As it was, only DIL’s mom was at the ciivil ceremony and her immediate family was able to attend last summer. Hats are definitely a thing, though S & DIL put their own spin on it by having many kinds of silly hats available for the guests. (Oriental Trading was great for this.) We had bowlers, Doctor Who fezzes, Dr. Seuss hats, straw hats, cowboy hats, etc.</p>
<p>We had food for brunch at the house the next day for those who survived. Leftover desserts, bagels, spreads, etc. </p>
<p>I was so worried that DIL’s family would feel outnumbered and overwhelmed, but they wanted to come over and help prepare stuff, we welcomed them with open arms, and by the time the wedding took place, MOB and FOB were part of the extended family. Of course, we had 16 people camped out at my house all week and we were all doing food prep til 1 am most nights, but it was fun. (The pics of DH doing a strip tease with a corn shucker are a real hoot!)</p>
<p>We hosted my sil’s wedding in my home about 10 years ago when their venue fell through. We ended up paying for about 90% of everything. The in laws assumed 2k would cover the cost of 100 people. Keep in mind I am Irish so I give myself room to say this. The bride was marrying a Irish man - as in newly to America, with lots of other NY Irish born and raised. We decided to do a beer, wine & champagne reception since it was in our home, and these were some pretty hard partiers. My inlaws are complete teetotalers as is that entire side of the family - I thought at the time it was a good compromise. We knew we’d be liable if some of these people chose to get totally wasted and drive away. These very same people didn’t bother to rsvp, but managed to make hotel reservations. Imagine my surprise at an extra 30 - 40 people showed up at the rehearsal dinner (that I also paid for) I don’t know if I ever cried harder than the morning of the wedding in the driveway in a panic over having enough food. I had to actually tell my family and his to not get food until we made sure there was enough. There were complaints about the lack of hard liquor but we assured them their hotel would have a bar where they could go knock back a few.</p>
<p>It still ended up being a very fun wedding and they survived without shots of whiskey.</p>
<p>In the end it’s the marriage that is important, the reception is just to help celebrate and wish them well. I’d rather see people spend more time focusing on the honeymoon, and the marriage itself than a wedding reception.</p>
<p>PhotoOP; you could always wait and buy your hat in the UK. It would be easy to find in any of the larger department stores and you wouldn’t have the worry of transporting it over there.</p>
<p>I have been to one wedding where each side addressed their own envelopes. I only know this because we knew the bride and groom’s families separately (before they ever met), and we received 2 invitations. One from each side!</p>
<p>I’ve also been to tons of weddings without alcohol and have enjoyed them all. The rockingest wedding I’ve attended was completely dry.</p>
<p>" Personally I hated the whole idea of a big wedding for me and I have anxiety thinking about my kids getting married. I paid a lot of money for their college education (and am still paying their stafford loans, which we are happy to do). But both of the kids make a good living and both of their so’s do too. We’d like to retire someday and we’d like to travel someday also. But the thought of now having to outlay a bunch of money on weddings. It’s enough to make me cry.</p>
<p>I just want to buy a dining room set. And my refrigerator is needing to be replaced. Maybe go on a vacation that isn’t visiting family.</p>
<p>I am not trying to be critical. Really I’m not. And don’t think this is a criticism on you momof3sons. But we have spent most of our spending money on our kids and I wonder when it stops. I won’t even get started on my parent who is not in good shape in retirement. And we paid for our own wedding. My H was adamant. But I hate being the center of attention so it was very small."</p>
<p>@deb922 those words are just spoken from the heart. I feel your pain. Me and my husband paid for our own wedding, and had what I think was a wonderful one. The entire price of the wedding, gown, tuxes, bridesmaids dresses, reception and a week honeymoon in Aspen was $4,500. We didn’t go ultra cheap, but we looked for discounts and didn’t have to have the best of everything. It was great. My parents gave us a $1K check for the wedding and paid for the first quarter of community college. We have paid so much for our kids already, it is unbelievable. If I feel pressured to pony up for a big fancy wedding…what a waste. All you want to do is get out of there and onto the honeymoon!</p>
<p>This thread is helpful in making me realize how discussions far in advance of any thought of weddings are a great idea. Busdriver and deb922, am rather in your camp. My kids dad is out of the photo due to health reversals, and at a point, education and the aftermath is the biggest and final gasp. CD is a great inspiration in terms of inclusive and willing to put elbow grease into the situation in liu of massive outlays of cash. </p>
<p>For the record, my mom did all our envelopes and would have no matter how many guests fiance’s side had. But she is hosting, her name is on the invitation-- mr and mrs ema’s parents request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter, etc and so forth. So it was appropriate. It was only like 80 envelopes anyway, but if we were having a much bigger wedding I don’t think it would have been wrong to ask fiance’s family… But I think I would have sooner split it between my mom and me. </p>
<p>Thankfully not necessary as my handwriting is atrocious. I did all my thank you notes for the shower before I went to bed that night and have been doing wedding gifts as they come in, literally as soon as I open them. If I had 100 to do at once it would be hopeless, no one could read them.</p>
<p>shellfell, S & DIL also paid for their wedding (with a contribution from her mom & stepfather - I don’t know how much, but I suspect a nice amount). One of the ways I could help them with costs was to use the same florist for the rehearsal dinner as the bride was using for the wedding. The florist came back to the rehearsal dinner to pick up the flowers at the end of the evening and then used several arrangements again for the wedding which was at an event space on Lookout Mountain on the TN/GA border. We used locally grown dahlias and other late summer flowers and they were spectacular. Two of my friends who are “extreme” gardeners had a fit over the quality of the flowers. The florist told me we were lucky with the timing as the dahlia grower had flowers blooming that week, but no show to enter them in that particular weekend!</p>
<p>That’s a nice idea, 2VU0609. Those arrangements sound beautiful. I’m not sure what would be local to our location at our time of year, but I’m sure my FDIL does. I think she wants to make her own bouquet, but there are lots of other uses of flowers at a wedding. </p>
<p>I’ve told my kids for years that I paid for my own wedding and since I paid for their college, THEY would be responsible for the cost of their wedding. My oldest has a steady boyfriend and she’s told me that she prefers a small backyard wedding so I know she understands that she’ll be paying for the wedding. I’m sure I’ll probably pitch in a little but it will depend on my spending priorities at the time. If my youngest is still in college at the time of the wedding, college costs come first and there won’t be any money available for wedding expenses. I’m not cashing in my retirement or taking out loans for a wedding. </p>
I said it before, and I’ll say it again – your inlaws are boors. I remember your previous post(s?) about the rehearsal dinner. Are you cooking things for it, or having it catered? You are the bride. I’m sure that if we could, many CC’rs would like to whisk you away from it all the day before for a spa-pampering day! </p>
<p>I am cooking for the brunch (barely, keeping it simple), having the rehearsal dinner at a restaurant. I just found out yesterday fiance FORGOT TO TELL his out of town siblings about the brunch, which I reminded him to do a hundred times, so now none of them are coming and the entire purpose is defeated. So now I am hosting a brunch for all the local people who can see each other whenever they want (who choose not to because they don’t get along that great anyway.) </p>
<p>The good thing is that this close to the wedding, any perspective you might have been lacking you are forced to develop, and virtually no problem is big enough to even be a blip on the radar. I have a list of a hundred things to get done this week before the rehearsal on Thursday, I doubt this stupid brunch will even occur to me before Sunday morning. Of course, I am still managing to stress over the fact that I lost more weight and now I have ZERO pairs of jeans that fit, and no time to shop before the honeymoon. Hopefully there are no chilly nights or I’ll have to sneak into the resort restaurants in yoga pants. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I am coming down with a chest cold. I haven’t been sick in almost two years, I stopped getting sick when I started exercising. Can you believe my luck? Trying to alternate between spurts of wedding preparation and napping to keep stress levels down and hopefully get rid of this cough before Saturday. I am envisioning asthma+chest cold+caribbean heat and humidity and it doesn’t sound like a fun honeymoon. The cough medicine is probably helping with the stress, though! :P</p>
I’m definitely in the DIY camp. </p>