<p>My wedding was my mother’s show. Everyone was a chess piece to move around. We obeyed and had a good time. At some point, I threated to go to Vegas and elope.</p>
<p>Of course, since it was her show, out of 500 guests (!) , she reluctantly allotted 100 to the grooms family (and of course his parents were divorced). She really wanted to host the social event of the year, I guess. MIL wanted cake and coffee in the church after the basement. Huge disconnect and the famlies didn’t really get along until the kid was born.</p>
<p>The kid wants to go to Kleinfelds only if we hit the lottery. I try to convince her that David’s Bridal is fine. And finally, she will have whatever kind of wedding SHE wants.</p>
<p>Right - my parents pitched it to them as “all of our friends / family are going to be gathered at the hotel in Chicago on Friday night, so we’d like to have some opportunity for us all to mingle, and to try to carpool them all out to the suburbs to the burger joint is going to be more trouble than it’s worth. Can the rehearsal be Thursday night instead? You are all more than welcome to come on Friday night and meet all of our out-of-towners.” They were very amenable and frankly it kind of got them off the hook and took the discussion away from “so, are you going to host our out of town friends or not,” which was a no-win. The groom’s parents got to do what they wanted, didn’t have to spend a penny more or a penny less than what planned.</p>
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<p>Sample of one; I got married in St. Louis in the mid 1980’s. Labor Day weekend. Lots of out of towners: All my family (from East Coast), and all of H’s family (from Chicago).
We had a whole weekend of events:
Friday night: Dinner at local restaurant, hosted by my parents
Saturday day: Pool party at my parents’ house; simultaneously, luncheon for the bridesmaids at a nearby cc, hosted by friends of my mothers
Saturday night: Rehearsal dinner at hotel A, hosted by groom’s parents
Sunday am: Brunch at hotel B for out of towners, hosted by my parents
Sunday night: Wedding at hotel B, hosted by my parents
Monday: groom’s parents hosted a little brunch at the hotel, only for <em>their</em> out of towners. I thought that was a bit tacky given how all their out of towners were included in all the events to date.</p>
<p>It certainly wasn’t “tradition” (my parents were married in a simple wedding with 20 people in attendance!) or based on religious tradition – just the simple fact that my parents wanted to celebrate and entertain on a nice scale.</p>
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<p>I completely agree. I think those little picture frames at everyone’s place settting and what-not are a big waste of money.</p>
<p>That has always been how my extended far-flung family has done it. This will probably be how I would do it for my kids.</p>
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<p>We’ll probably be facing this if D marries her current BF, not so much as financial situations and philosophies but definitely religion and region. They are living 3000 miles from us and 1500 miles from BF’s home town. We are Christian (I’m Catholic, DH is Protestant) and BF is Jewish.</p>
<p>Whatever happens, when my D marries, we won’t be asking the groom’s family to share the cost but will offer to share when my S (no GF yet) marries.</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily that the actual planning takes two years, it’s that if you want a particular venue on a particular date, it may take two years. Most popular venues in our city, and often some of the less popular ones, are booked 2 years in advance. When my D got married last year, she had a venue she wanted but it was already booked (a year in advance) for the weekend she wanted, so we took it for Friday instead of Saturday. It turned out to be a serendipitous choice because the Friday was the only day in a two week period that was a glorious day with no rain. Additionally, it allowed our out of town guests to stay until Sunday before heading home.</p>
<p>Having the rehearsal dinner two nights prior to the wedding is pretty much the norm here now. I’m not sure how, or why, it started but it worked well for us. On the day after the wedding, we had all of both families (many of whom were from out of town) to our home for the afternoon, for a swim and a casual meal. The bride and groom came, too, as they didn’t leave for their honeymoon til later that evening. It was lovely and I’ll do it again next year for D2. All of our out of town guests were family members, other than a few friends of my D who all headed home on the Saturday.</p>
<p>Kleinfeld’s actually has a good selection of gowns in many price ranges.</p>
<p>That’s life when people move around, though. It certainly wasn’t my sister’s “fault” that all our relatives and most of our family friends lived on the East Coast. She was already doing the groom a favor so to speak by being married in Chicago, when she could have insisted it be in St. Louis and then they would have all had to travel down there. </p>
<p>I just don’t think you invite out of town guests to something and then leave them to their own devices the whole weekend until the actual event. I think it’s gracious to provide some hospitality, whether it’s inviting them over your house for a meal, having a hospitality suite at a hotel, or taking them to a restaurant. I’m not talking about fancy-- that’s not the point.</p>
<p>Yeah, my church is so popular that moms who want a Saturday night wedding in June book the church before their D is engaged.</p>
<p>Funny aside: One day H called from the grocery store and said, “Our pastor is on the front page of the National Enquirer.” I said, “Was he abducted by aliens?” Turns out, someone had snuck pictures of the Angie Harmon/Jason Sehorn wedding and it made the cover and a whole spread inside.</p>
<p>Lol. Our wedding was on my H’s turf in suburban Chicago. I can guarantee you that my girlfriends had a whole lot more fun seeing Chicago on their own than if I’d made them hang out with me at the Holiday Inn Alsip!</p>
<p>No, Dallas. A few years back I finally insisted that we take a vacation to see Chicago as tourists. For years I’d suffer the flight into OHare (or Midway if we were lucky), only to be driven straight down to the suburbs, to stay in the suburbs. Then it got worse - the inlaws moved to a farm outside of a town that is an hour outside of even the suburbs…I finally just had to see the city. (I like it a lot but can’t take the cold.)</p>
<p>Talking about no alcohol reminds me of a bridal luncheon that my mother gave for a family friend who was marrying a (temperate) Methodist minister. I remember Mom passing a silver tray around (this was at our house) with Bloody Marys and Virgin Marys separated by a line of parsley sprigs. Thing is, she forgot which side was which! It made for an interesting party.</p>
<p>being from the NYC metro area,we’re used to big,lavish weddings (all religions)
things I’ve learned having midwestern family from H’s side:
cash bars at weddings!!
police officer needing to be paid to be present at a venue where alcohol was served (Minnesota)
bride and groom have brunch/lunch with others on day after reception to open and display presents …never,ever heard of this one before
people bring actual presents to wedding reception…cash is king in NY and if you do buy a present, you send it ahead you don’t carry it along.Midwestern wedding venues had actual display spaces set up for the gift boxes.
It seemed there were many more in the wedding parties in the midwest.Tons of bridesmaids,etc and “honorary positions”.
The midwestern contingent who attened NYC area family weddings deemed the food excessive,the NY’ers who attended midwestern bashes thought the food inadequate.
Midwestern weddings had dinner, then dancing and most of the older people left.the dancing was for the “youngsters”.the NY’ers weddings had dancing intersperced with eating and everyone danced,and everyone stayed.
Not saying one is better than the other, just different.</p>
<p>I was brought up outside of NYC but alot of my NY friends were surprised that my mother set up in her house a display of wedding presents, including one place setting. My brother’s in-laws in Westchester did it, too. I think it may be an old Wasp thing because my mother assumed that of course she would and showed me photos of her display in her house when she married in our same hometown. I don’t think people do that anymore, though. Since our wedding was at our house on the lawn under a tent everybody came in to see the presents and it was quite a topic of conversation and amusement!</p>
<p>In the current decade you don’t have to set up the wedding presents because everyone can just go online and check them out on the gift registry at Target, Crate&Barrel and Bed, Bath etc.</p>
<p>At the first weddings I attended as child (my dad was the pastor), wedding gifts were opened AT the reception! It was a tiny town in southeastern Illinois. I wonder how long that tradition lasted.</p>
<p>I think some of those customs are more cultural and socioeconomic then they are regional. The only real difference I’ve seen between east coast weddings and Chicago weddings ( among people of the same socioecon class) is that they dress up more in the east.</p>
<p>Some of the customs must be based on the extended family and /or some other smaller unit. </p>
<p>I’m thinking of the wedding we attended a couple of years ago where they had a “dollar dance.” If you wanted to dance with the bride or the groom, you’d put a dollar (or more) into a basket and dance with him or her for a minute or so.</p>
<p>This seemed to be expected by many in attendance, but it was a first for me!</p>