<p>I was mother of the bride one year ago and it was a lovely wedding. Two tips that I would pass on:</p>
<p>As aibarr did, we hired babysitters (we needed 6) but also had them available for the whole dinner and reception. We had a kids’ room with a “KneeKnocker” buffet - a table at kid height - with great kid fun foods. The room had floor pillows, cribs for the babies, two TVs and DVD players, coloring books, crayons and drawing paper. While we had our four course dinner in the main room, the kids had their own fun meal in “their” room. Then when the dancing started, the kids could come in and participate. Then when they pooped out, they could crash in the kids room. It was a great treat for the parents as well as the kids. We did leave it optional in case parents wanted their kids to eat with them. </p>
<p>Second tip - consider an off-season wedding. Here in Wisconsin, it’s winter. My daughter always dreamed of having her wedding at a five diamond resort an hour north of our home town. No way did we think we could afford it, but we went to see it anyway and found out getting married in months other than April - November was 45% cheaper! Not only that - everything was less expensive - dj, limo, church music. She had a dream wedding for a reasonable price in a fairytale setting (light snow, thousands of twinkle lights, a horsedrawn sleigh, roaring fireplaces). Totally worth it!</p>
<p>Since this is the time of year when many bridal shows are held, our newspaper did an article on weddings. Included in the article was information about a couple who was doing a lot of things themselves, and shopping for bargains when they couldn’t make something. They were trying to keep expenses for their wedding and reception (which included 60 guests) under $7000. </p>
<p>Yikes! I guess I had never really considered the cost before. We’ve been so focused on college, and although it’s surely going to be at least four years down the road–how do people pay for weddings? Knowing my daughter, she (and her dad and I) will want something nice.</p>
<p>My husband teaches at a small LAC so we have been to many student weddings, but there is one that will always stand out for me. My husband had two senior students who decided to elope finals week (for some crazy reason). They were extremely poor at the time and decided to go to city hall and skip the reception altogether. Their friends (who also had no money) were appalled at the idea that the occasion would not be marked in the appropriate way, so they decided to throw a surprise reception for them. My husband booked the college garden for them, I made the cake (white chocolate buttercream studded with real candied lilac blossoms), and the kids pulled the rest of the menu together (chips and salsa, cocktail weinies, veggies, stir-fried tofu, and half a keg a beer they “liberated” from the back of a fraternity house.) </p>
<p>The best part though, was because it was supposed to be a surprise they had to find a way to get the bride and groom into the college garden, a lovely space enclosed by a twelve foot high brick wall and iron gates. They told the bride that while she and the groom were off getting married their cat had gotten out and had climbed over the wall into the garden. They clearly expected B & G to call security to let them into the gate, but instead the two of them climbed the wall and dropped down right into the middle of all the guests waiting to surprise them! </p>
<p>A very strange and funny wedding, but one full of love and laughter that has carried them through ten years of marriage now.</p>
<p>It’s not about how much you spend or what it all looks like, it is about the love and care of each other.</p>
Because etiquette rules state that all single guests over the age of 18 should be invited “and guest”. So if you have 100 single friends, and 100 family members, but can only afford to pay for 150 people, you invite half the single friends “and guest”. Or maybe 75 of them and hope some don’t come and some come single. </p>
<p>To me, if you’re a single wedding guest and don’t have somebody you’d like to bring to the wedding, I think it would be nice to go single. In the first place, you might be somebody and in the second, you are freeing the hosts from having to pay for a stranger.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone! To be fair, my husband and I dated for close to eight years before we got married, so I was able to just harvest the best bits from weddings and articles that I’d observed over the course of our relationship. The looooong planning period ended up making things easier. =)</p>
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<p>I’m fortunate enough that my parents were in a position to pay for our wedding, though my husband and I pitched in here and there for various things. Still, no matter what the budget, a lot of it has to do with stretching your dollar as far as it’ll go. </p>
<p>You can add some really nice touches for very cheap by just keeping your eyes peeled and buying things wholesale. For instance, I designed a very pretty monogram logo that we used as a recurring theme throughout the wedding, and bought a custom hand embosser online for about forty dollars that would emboss the logo on anything paper-like. I bought 1000 silver foils for about $20 from an office supply wholesaler online, and I embossed all of them while I was watching TV in the evenings after work. The foils went on our invitations, our programs, and our favors. Our Lego favors I bought in bulk as classroom supply sets, so they weren’t horribly expensive and I didn’t have to go off-brand, either. I bargained with our vendors, keeping their prices under our budget. Our invitations were professionally printed, but I glued them and assembled them myself. I’d get a gift card to Target from a family member for a special occasion and would stock up on ribbon or something. Aside from the invitations, I did all my own printing with my laser printer at home.</p>
<p>The little things all add up. There are some really good books for brides on budgets, too. There’s really no sense in paying more than you have to… While weddings are memorable, the wedding only lasts a day and the marriage should be much more important.</p>
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<p>What a sweet story!!</p>
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<p>I compromised on this… I felt that if someone was in a relationship, I would invite their significant other. If someone was over 18 and didn’t have a significant other BUT knew many other people at the wedding and had plenty of people to socialize with, I wasn’t going to cut out a good friend in order to invite a stranger. If someone wasn’t going to know anybody else at the wedding, though, I made sure to say “and guest” so that they could bring someone along if they felt like it.</p>
<p>Not at all. But my threshold for tacky is rather high so long as it’s fun. </p>
<p>The first one I went to I thought it was a bit odd but down here they are very common. In fact, get ready for a south Texas slice of life, the meat is often provided by friends of the couple via hunting, bar-b-que, etc. Then the rest of the spread is provided by close friends and family which is organized by someone close to the couple.</p>
<p>Let me tell you, I’ve had some meals that were so good that I nearly cried at these affairs. And! They are often held in a barn that is cleaned out for the occasion. It’s amazing what people can do with strings of light.</p>
<p>As far as I know, these families could not have afforded a big wedding but by chipping in a bit each time a couple gets married, the expense is spread out, no one winds up broke and the whole community gets to participate in the celebration.</p>
<p>I guess I am sort of anti-big wedding… I had a big wedding with my first husband, but married in a civil ceremony the second ( and last ) time around.</p>
<p>It seems like wedding have become an outlandish competition to outdo one’s friends…without revealing too much personal info, our company gets called upon to be of use in weddings , where clearly we do not belong, if you want your extravagent wedding attire to remain intact…all for an ideal destination wedding atmosphere .
Some requests are so stupid, I just roll my eyes.</p>
<p>We have been invited to weddings that seem to never end ( and have had pricetags that would be a significant down payment on a very nice home ) Our dear friend’s son got married a few years ago , and they actually asked him to split the bill…his share $50G.
I just don’t get it…it doesn’t make them more married then those who choose more modest weddings.
I have made it clear that when it is time for our daughters to get married , I won’t participate in that kind of extravagance…I would rather help them buy a home than waste all kinds of money on a party , which is essentially what it is</p>
<p>We had a kind of pot luck many, many years ago now. H is from Europe, and it turned out that no one from his family was able to attend, and even his best who was supposed to be his best man backed out 2 weeks before the wedding. We had a church wedding in the church I went to sporadically as a child with a cake & punch reception in the church hall. We went out for pizza after the rehearsal, but it was only about 15 people. </p>
<p>After the reception, we went back to my paents’ house. My aunts had all brought picnic food and we ate in the back yard.</p>
<p>Actually, that’s not always true. I’m an attendant in a destination wedding this summer. The bride is extremely religious, but the majority of her family lives on one coast, his family lives on the opposite coast, and they went to college in different places. So since everyone had to travel anyway, they are getting married in New Orleans. The bonus is that she gets to have her wedding in one of the most beautiful cathedrals in North America. </p>
<p>And according to Emily Post no one is obligated to invited single person+guest. You only have to invite fiance(e)s, and people who live together in a committed relationship.</p>
<p>^^ The church service was extremely important to my daughter and son-in-law. They were new to our city, but had attended our church on a number of occasions and chose it for their wedding. They flew in their Episcopal priest from (her) college church to co-officiate. It was lovely and meaningful. She is in seminary, so that makes her a little different than most brides, but the priorities were the church service and having a kickin’ country band at the reception. She got a very reasonably priced dress (I think it was a steal) and didn’t spend a lot on invitations, guest gifts etc.</p>
<p>Key West weddings can be so much fun!!! Look into Sally’s Garden for wedding. Several B& Bs offer discount rates for large groups. June is off season, so that should help. Find out if there is a “Theme” the weekend of wedding.</p>
<p>This is a great thread with lots of food for thought as I’m planning a wedding for this summer. It’s my 2nd marriage, and my fiance & I want to keep the wedding as small and as low-key as possible. What’s nice about mid-life weddings is that it’s an opportunity to celebrate what’s really important and discard what’s not.</p>
<p>For me what’s important:</p>
<p>1) a meaningful ceremony
2) having my immediate family attend, along with my fiance’s immediate family
3) dancing
4) good food and wine
5) a pretty setting, perhaps a garden or a farm or a B&B with nice grounds</p>
<p>What’s not important:</p>
<p>1) fancy clothes
2) goodie bags
3) gifts (no registry!)
4) live music
5) lots of flowers</p>
<p>We’re dispensing with the idea of a wedding party entirely but do want to have our sons play a role in the ceremony. We’re still working this out.</p>
<p>We’ll be having a “destination” wedding to the East Coast due to the fact that all relatives live there while we live in California. This makes planning a little tricky, but the internet helps.</p>
<p>If anyone knows of a beautiful garden/farm/B&B setting somewhere between Philadelphia and Baltimore, please PM me :)</p>
<p>alibarr I’d be really interested to know more about your invitations.</p>
<p>This would be news to Miss Manners. Especially because etiquette says that you’re not supposed to send anything addressed “and guest”. You’re supposed to enquire as to the name of the person who will be accompanying that single guest, in the event that there’s already a close relationship. No casual guests. A wedding is not Date Night. </p>
<p>I’m with Pizzagirl on feeding and entertaining out of towners, especially family, through the weekend. People don’t have to attend, but for a lot of families it’s nice to be able to spend time catching up with people you don’t get to see much. For bat mitzvahs, we host many, many meals. The goodie bag in the hotel room is because people might get peckish between meals. I love getting them when I go to someone else’s wedding or b’nai mitzvah, especially when the hosts have fun with it and pack the goodie bag with local treats. I love giving them for the same reason.</p>
<p>It does seem that weddings could easily get out of control. I wonder how easy it is to work with the other family and to make compromises. Stories?</p>
I love pot-lucky type weddings since they tend to be informal, warm and fun. A nice hybrid is that bride/groom provide main course and cakes and friends bring side dishes. Hey, that’s what we did, lo 25 years ago! Many of our friends still tell us that it was one of the most enjoyable weddings they’ve attended. i find most traditional weddings stiff, boring and cold, (think waiting around for hours in uncomfortable clothes to get the “official family portraits done”, while all the guests mill around hungry, hoping that the reception will start soon.)</p>
<p>sportsmama, I told this story on CC a couple of times before. Friends of my parents have a son. He got married. He left all decisions to the bride and her family. He was going along with everything that the bride and her family decided on. The groom’s family invited the their guests and told the groom’s family how many guests they were having. The groom’s parents were not consulted or about anything (ie: flowers, the reception, the music, photographer, ceremony, etc.). Nothing about money was discussed. Just before the wedding the bride’s father approached the groom’s father to split all costs in half! Boy were the groom’s parents in shock. They had not been consulted about a thing! They sheepishly just paid for half because they were in a postition to be able to, and they did not want to ruin their son’s or new DIL’s wedding or the marriage.</p>
<p>Talking about whom to invite to a reception when the numbers have to be limited…</p>
<p>I have a good friend who is a straight talker. When her daughter was getting married, the reception was a sit down dinner at the country club. Financially, they planned for XX guests.</p>
<p>So she asked if I would be offended if she didn’t invite me to the reception. She had to invite Mr. and Mrs. Y to the reception even though they rated lower on her friend list than I did, but they wouldn’t be so understanding if they weren’t invited. Sure, I don’t have a problem with that. </p>
<p>So a week before the reception, I get a call–they’ve had cancellations–I’m in! Two days before the reception–now I can bring my husband, too. I went; my husband did not. He wasn’t so understanding…</p>
<p>Her other friends who were on the “waitlist” and I have a good laugh about it.</p>