Weddingbee boards
awww, I'm sorry! My mom was confused about a lot of wedding stuff as well (like Save the Dates and engagement photos and stuff) but keep trying! Maybe you two could sit down and look at The Knot or MS Weddings together, either in magazine form or online? It could be a bonding thing...You have a great budget and def deserve a wonderful wedding so keep on trying to get your mom onboard with your plans...patience, even tho moms can be so annoying sometimes, right? As far as your FI goes, have you guys sat down together and broken down the budget bit by bit? That was really helpful for us, The Knot has a good budgeting tool that you can put your total budget in and it will tell you how much you're meant to spend on each thing, so he can see you're not crazy, this is just how much things cost and what is usually done for a wedding!
BTW, we're date twins, both live in NYC and both getting married in the Capital Region...Where's your wedding going to be??
Hi runrgurl: We're having the ceremony at the Crossings of Colonie and the reception at Wolfert's Roost Country Club. Where is yours?
You should google "average wedding costs" and show your FI so he knows how much things cost. My FI was also pretty clueless until we started planning, then he saw pretty quickly that no, I wasn't making things up, and yes, weddings are really expensive!
I second showing your FI some average wedding cost numbers.... I did actually get a $20 veil (from an eBay seller, I'm really happy with it!), but not until I made sure FI knew that many brides spend hundreds of dollars on veils! If he doesn't know average costs, then he doesn't know when to be impressed with your thriftiness!
I'm really sorry! As someone who's also the first in my family getting married, I can totally relate! My mom had a really hard time understanding our non-traditional ideas and themes, and she even flat out told me she "did not care for" my beautiful tea-length wedding dress that I absolutely love because it's "weird for a wedding." She's been flat out mean at times, and I finallt confronted her and said, "Mom, this wedding is about me and my fiance, and we're doing to do what we like, and I need your support, because I'm not sure if you're aware, but you've hurt my feelings on several occasions." Turns out, she didn't realize how rude she was being, and things have been so much better.
I've also been sending my mom links to the blogs I read, and since DIY weddings are a big trend right now, that might help your mom see that it's not weird or out of the ordinary. Sent her links to thebridescafe.com, oncewed.com, snippetandink.com, etc. There are so many beautiful weddings and such with a LOT of DIY elements! That may open her eyes to what others out there are doing.
Hang in there, and stick to your guns. Don't let family get you down. Just remind yourself that if they make any snide comments, it's really because they can't picture your ideas all put together, and once the wedding is there, they'll see what your vision is, and they'll just get it! And in the end, it's really what makes you and your fiance happy!
I have encountered a lot of questions and strange glances from people when I explain our wedding plans, even though that are not that different. For example, we are having one attendant total (my sister as the maid of honor/best man) and when I told my FMIL about it her eyes got really wide and she made a kind of shrieking noise. And when we tried to explain how much wedding things cost, she basically didn't believe us. I think the problem is that some people are so removed from the whole wedding scene that they have no idea how things have changed since they got married.
I'm also the first to get married in my family (cousins & all), so all my mom has to go off of is her wedding experience. Luckily, her planning experience with my nana was stressful, so she's making an effort to not scoff at my ideas. However, like someone else said, maybe your mom has such little experience with modern weddings that she can't wrap her mind around non-traditional elements. Instead of sending her blogs/websites to look through, why don't you make an inspiration board or folder of photos that represent what you want your wedding to be. Scrolling through websites might just be too overwhelming for her (and like my mom told me, she doesn't have time for that - it's not HER wedding)
Also, are your parents helping to pay for the wedding? Maybe your mom is from the group that thinks that, because she's contributing financially, she gets to make all the decisions. You could offer to sit down with her and hash out what ideas she has for the wedding & compare them to your vision, then see what can fit.
Regarding your FI, I think maybe he's just not there yet. Your wedding is still a year away & it sounds like you've been engaged a long time. It might not just be "real" or on his radar yet. My FI started to care about things & costs only last month (3 months before we get married). You might want to just give him time - he could be putting things off because he's overwhelmed.
Remember, you might feel like you're the only one who cares right now, but you've got a lot of time left. As it gets closer, more people will get into it. I think this happens to everyone. Actually, I was happy to have less people in my business - then I could pick what I wanted, make the vision I thought would be best, and not have anyone question me until it was too late ("Sorry, folks, I've already started that funky/wierd/non-traditional DIY project! Can't change it now")
I feel for you! Both my mom and FMIL haven't been to a wedding in a decade or so, and their own was the last ones they had a hand in planning... I'm still struggling with their visions that bridesmaids must match in some way, etc. etc....
The best way to deal with it that I've found, is be strong, know what *you* want and be able to explain it to them {calmly}... even if you have to do it three times over. My mom also likes to play devil's advocate, and it got to the point where I just sat her down and said "look, I appreciate what you're doing but DON'T!"... sometimes you just have to say stop.
Hopefully as your wedding nears and your details come together your mom will get with your program.
Ugh. I feel you. My parents magically think that a 135 person wedding can be paid in under 15k. I'm like... uhhhh... food and drinks are costly, yo!
We're definitely working out the kinks right now!
Good luck!
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I wasn't sure what to call this post because my situation is a bit confusing. My fiance and I are the first to get married in either of our families. Everyone has absolutely zero experience planning a wedding (us included) My mom is basically using my cousins' recent weddings as a jump off point/comparison. One wedding cost over $100K and was in Michigan. The other was a lovely wedding but not anything like our wedding is going to be.
I am constantly hitting a brick with my mom about everything. Just because she's never seen something at a wedding, she assumes it's wrong, or a stupid idea. She's not reading any wedding websites or anything (I've sent them all to her) and she just has this picture in her mind of what she wants my wedding to be, and I'm on the other end of the spectrum.
My fiance is completely frustrated every time I bring up the wedding. He doesn't understand why we need save the dates ("why can't we just send an email?"), invitations, favors, etc. etc. He doesn't know how much anything costs ("how much is a veil...like $20?") and is not interested in doing any sort of research or budgeting. He thinks that we should just postpone our honeymoon until later so that we don't have to save money for it. I feel that after 7 years in a relationship, including a 2+ year engagement, we deserve a reasonable wedding and a honeymoon.
I just feel like I'm completely on my own in this. We're working with a $20K budget (not including honeymoon) and I'm planning to save $ by DIY and some other things. I just feel so frustrated and sad and feel like no one cares about the wedding except for me :o(