Weddingbee boards

DISCLAIMER: MOST OF THIS IS MY STORY.. IF YOU WANT, JUST SCROLL DOWN TO THE QUESTION IN BOLD AND GIVE ADVISE.. ANYTHING IS APPRECIATED!!! 

i know my headline is a little dramatic, but so is my story.. here it goes- in short:

 i am a twenty year old bride-to-be from long island. my fiance is from virginia (obstacle number one). we got officially engaged over the summer (although we have been wedding planning since december of last year) and have since planned 4 different weddings. at first i was getting financial assistance from my mother- which meant a $20k budget. we looked at a bunch of places on long island and were planning on doing a masquerade theme. after a series of events (including moving in with my mother and having that blow up in our faces), my mother decided to opt out of having anything to do with our wedding, and my fiance.

since we are both full time students we DID NOT want to start our marriage out with more debt than we already have. so we were planning something really low-key. we decided to skip the masquerade theme because i am not that creative in penny pinching and i didn't want it to end up looking like a glorified costume party. we foind an amazingly cheap (and more beautiful than most "wedding factories") Polish Hall in Port Jefferson, Long Island and booked it for May 9, 2009. this time we were thinking of doing something art deco. think audrey hepburn meets the notebook. the problem with getting married on LI was the lack of a church... or an officiant. my fiance and i are both Christian and we wanted our ceremony to be something more than saying our "i love yous" and signing a paper.

we came back to school and decided to stop planning altogether- for obvious reasons. we toyed with the idea of eloping for about two months then the little girl in me came alive again- and the planning began. we also had the idea of doing a picnic wedding/reception and a Halloween '09 wedding complete with costume changes and a haunted-house style reception. to save time i won't get into why that didn't work out.

then we thought "we both technically live in  Nyack (where we go to school).. why don't we just do it here and have everyone travel a little?!" so, we ditched the Polish Hall alltogether (along with the $200 deposit we already put down) and decided to have the wedding on May 23rd 2009. THEN my close friend/photographer told us that that was her 21st birthday.. so as of now (unofficially) the date in May 30th!!

while all of this was going on i bought a dress on e-bay for only $100 BRAND NEW AND BEAUTIFUL- although not really my style (its very Cinderila-ish). then i bought ANOTHER dress since i thought i was "settling" with the first one. then i decided the the second dress was not my style EITHER so i started looking online for weeks on the hunt for "the prefect dress" i must recomend buyer100.com and perimart.com- they make almost any designer dress (knock-offs, of course) for CHEAP. i think the most expensice dress i saw was around $300. and they are BEAUTIFUL AND you can even customize the color and other stuff.

ANYWAY... we started going to a church in downtown Nyack and asked the youth pastor to marry us- he agreed!!!! so that was the first official "yes" we had. then i walked up and down main street to every bar and resturant to see if they did private parties. i foind an AMAZING resturant-by-day-night-club-by-night place RIGHT on Main St. called Vertigo that said they, in face, DO private parties... and since they were closing the restuarant down, we would have the whole place to ourselves.. THIS PLACE IS THE EPITOME OF EVERYTHING I WANTED IN A RECEPTION SITE.. its not a wedding factory where you're just another number, it has class, the lady was nice and helpful and not pushy at all, it is beautiful, affordable, convieniently located and it is has a little bit of every theme i have thought of all rolled into one posh ultra art-deco-y amazing place.

SO. as of now we have (for the most part) our finished 75-ish person guest list, i decided not to be a consumer-driven bridezilla and just stick with the first dress i got (i literally had a vision about it while i was toying with the idea), a place that we love (although the contract is not signed), a ceremony site (within walking distance of Vertigo, mind you), and i FINALLYYY feel like the ball is in motion.

NOW- here is where i need advise:

we are having a resturant reception with no DJ (music via my ipod), a lot of the guests don't know each other, we are not having a florist- actually, i am planning on buying flowers from stop-and-shop the day of and tying it with ribbon.. lol, no centerpieces, no bridal party, no boquet toss, no first dance (no dancing at all, really), no limo, a friend is taking pictures with her own camera and college level experience, no videographer, no ceremony decorations and mix-tape CDs as favors... call me a minimalist- or just fed-up.

but here is my question.. am i crazy for having a ceremony and asking friends and family to WALK three blocks with me to a resturant and provide only drinks and food and background music? i am really afraid of awkward silences or just.. lack of flow due to the lack of tradition. (you know how it goes, ceremony, cocktail hr. first dance, food, drinking, cake cutting, dancing, drinking some more, etc.) i'm also afraid that people are going to leave early- its only a 3 hour reception but... i'm just scared they're gona be bored. our families have NEVER EVEN MET!!

how do i avoid this from happening while still having fun at my wedding?.. i do not want to have to worry about everyone having fun on the day-of.. i just want to enjoy. and i don't want to assign anyone this task, either. PLEASE HELP!!

thanky ou all i really feel so much better, now!!!!