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Not everyone has drama planning their wedding. The only stress I had was that I was working 60+ hours a week while trying to plan. But if you just want it to be you and your close family, then go for it.
I had a huge wedding... drama and stress as well. I wouldn't trade my experience for another one. It strengthened a lot of relationships in my family and brought us closer. So see all the people who have influenced me throughout my entire life in one room for one day, I'll never get that again. It was better than I could have imagined. I'm sure it's not like that for everyone. But for me, it was stressful... and incredibly blissful as well.
A lot of the drama I've seen has come from how people choose to handle their weddings, or how they choose to handle themselves around other people's weddings. In my personal experience, the stuff I've seen go awry, in relationships, due to weddings, is because of expectations that one or both party have that aren't met, as well as how seriously people take their weddings. The planners who I've seen who are more laid back, not as particular, they tend to have less drama. It's definitely not just a size of the wedding ordeal that decides it! It's personality of everyone involved!
oh man, i know what you mean about wanting to avoid the stress. but it doesn't have to be that way if you don't want it to be. We have been to upwards of 30 weddings over the last 5 or so years, and i personally don't know anyone who has had fallouts. We did not have any either, but that seems to happen alot according to what i've read on these boards! But i will admit that as I was planning my wedding (which was mid-sized with 160 guests) that sometimes i wondered if we should have just done the smaller, family only wedding, possibly destination. just to make things more simple. but i wouldn't change my day for anything! it was so wonderful and I agree with hotwings in that it was really special to see everyone there supporting us as we got married.
For us, it's absolutely not worth it, that's why we are eloping! :P We both have very odd family dynamics and little to no support as far as planning, so why bother- we will elope and have a beautiful ceremony in the mountains followed by a lovely honeymoon, drama and stress free and saving a ton of money. At the end of the day we are marrying each other, not the extended families.
I totally hated wedding planning and never want to do it again! As the wedding grew closer I started gringing my teeth at night and literally pulling my hair out. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!
Im 24, and I HATE WEDDINGS. I dont even want to plan ours but Im pretty sure our families will hunt me down and murder me if we dont have this wedding, no joke. There has been so mch stress and emotional duress and we still have 20 months to go. I am dreading the next couple of years, seriously. My dream is to get married, just me and my boo on an island somewhere...sigh...
...we actually had basically no drama. it was an amazing day and i loved the planning process. there was stress and miscommunications at time, but nothing major and the day itself went better than i could have imagined. but, we both are very close to our parents and they agreed with (almost) all our decisions. we'd been together for 4 years by the time we got married so we were already close to each other's families.
@Aubergold: the you should do it!! family's pissed? oh well! :) my friend was the same way and knew her family would drive her crazy if she had a normal wedding, so she and her hubby went to key west just the 2 of them and got married on the beach. then came back and had a BBQ celebration a couple weeks later. it was perfect for them! and even tho their families probably weren't so happy about it they still supported them.
I'm going to be kind of the odd man out with my response: the wedding was not worth the stress.
Both DH and I had an amazing time at our wedding. We truly did. However, I cannot say "It was worth it in the end". Weddings are stressful. The amount of stress varies from person to person and I do not think it is necessarily reflective of how people are in general. Pre-wedding, I would have described my family as low maintenance and myself as low stress. During the wedding planning, NOT AT ALL. I did not have any falling-outs, but I did have hurt feelings and regrets. If I could go back and do it again, we would have eloped.
That being said, my advice is to trust your gut. I didn't trust my gut because I was worried I would regret it. Good luck!! ;)
Weddings bring out emotions in people. Period. I would say that 98 percent of weddings that involve other people will have some sort of drama. My mom is usually a VERY laid back person. I didn't expect any drama on her end. Well, there was a lot. She wanted to invite these people I rarely see because they were "business associates" and we had quite a few heated discussions about seating. We had a 70-person wedding, by the way.
We also had a t on of unexpected drama from some WP peeps. Again, TOTALLY unexpected! We lost friends over some stuff, but we were all drifting apart anyway.
In the end, our wedding was worth it. But sometimes I wish we could all be allowed two weddings. One with just the two of us, and the other with the families. I don't regret having a more private wedding at all, but every once in a while, I wonder what it would have been like to skip all the drama and just go to city hall.
Well, take out the family/frend drama, would it still be worth it? Personally, I am taking them out of the equation, like thanks for the advice but when it comes down to it, the wedding is essentially about the bride and groom.
I think that when I deal with family and friends, especially in a wedding situations, the relationship kind of shows itself once again, the wedding was just the medium. For instance, I have a family that throws there judgement without seeing the whole picture, this has always been this way and my wedding actually just is another way they throw their weight around (except this time I am not letting them).
I would do it all over again! By the time our wedding was quickly approaching I was in tears all the time, I was so stressed, and all I kept saying is how I wished I eloped. Well I didn't and am so glad I got to have my day. It was amazing and perfect in every way and everything I worried about didn't matter. The fact that my inlaws tortured me and caused so much drama showed me how much my husband loves me and how he put me before anything else. And those who didn't show because they didn't want us to get married, well they weren't missed. We felt so madly in love that day and got to celebrate with all of our close family and friends.
NO. If you feel stressed or unhappy, it's not worth it. I didn't enjoy a single moment of my wedding day due to family drama. My husband and I say if we could do it over, we wouldn't have invited a single soul.
I would not trade my wedding day for anything - I am SO glad that I had the wedding that I had envisioned throughout the planning process. Yes, there was drama and stress and not everything went as planned but I loved my wedding and I have only happy memories when thinking about it. It did NOT ruin any of my friendships or relationships but it did show me peoples' true colors! It is a learning experience and a long process but once it is over it is so so worth it! My wedding day was the happiest day of my life (thus far) and nothing worthwhile is easy to do! Wedding planning is sometimes what you make of it - you choose your battles and sometimes you can create your own drama and stress without realizing it. But in the end, my friends and my family were 100% supportive, loving, encouraging and awesome on our wedding day!
Well so far the planning has been cool just taking it one step at a time and learning what to listen to and what to deflect firmly but positively. If anything, I think the wedding planning so far has been instrumental in teaching me how to deal with my in-laws, and teaching me how to respond to my family as one half of a couple.
Honestly, I've been asking myself that same question a lot lately. The only conclusion I can reach is that --- well, the family drama and friend drama didn't start because of the wedding. It was always there, it was just a lot easier to overlook because I would bend towards what other people wanted and that was that. Now that someone has to do something to celebrate me and my FI, it's just become more obvious that there are problems. So, I don't think I will do anything different despite the drama, it's just going to be an uphill battle. Although, florists are making me crazy and they weren't there before.... No, I think I'm just going to learn from this and stand my ground and do what I think is best for my FI and I - keep calm and carry on and all that jazz.
I'm nearing the end of the wedding planning process and have had such an easy and stress-free time. My family has been great and supportive and my friends have been helpful. So, no drama or stress over here . . . and, has it been worth it thus far? Absolutely.
i heart weddings.. they are fun! event planning comes with stress regardless what type of event it is, and that doesnt mean ppl stop planning events because of the stresses involved, i think its even more enjoyable that after all the hard work and problems u still get to see live ur dream... i cant get enough of weddings
I am not sure anymore. Three days to go and there have been many casualties along the way. Wedding planning has literally gobbled up my energy for the past two years. Now i have niggling questions such as - could I have done better at my masters if i hadn't been pre-occupied? I worked bloody hard, but maybe the 20% of my brain that have been bridezilla'd for the last two years would have made a small difference. And what about the severed friendships, offence caused and taken, time and effort? I literally worry about the money spent every night (and I would say our budget was fairly average). Worst of all, as the big day approaches I get filled with such a sense of dread - what will I do after I have had the wedding? What will fill the huge wedding shaped void in my life then???
I'm eight months in with two and a half months to go, and so far, so good. No drama. Now, that has a lot to do with the circumstances - I'm an older bride, I'm paying for the wedding myself (with the exception of my dress and the liquor, which my mom graciously offered to cover), and I have a great relationship with my fiancee's mom. We're all very laid back. Our guest list is about 80, and only includes our closest family and friends - no one was invited out of any kind of obligation. Our wedding party consists of our young nieces and nephews, and my closest girlfriend has stepped up to be my honorary matron of honor.
In the end, drama requires two people to create it. One person can try to start something (by saying something snarky or questioning a decision), but if you let it roll off your back and refuse to engage, then there's no drama. To me, the trick is to stick to your guns, be confident and at peace with your decisions, and don't let anyone tell you what you "should" or "shouldn't" do.
I had a big wedding and honestly the people who gave us drama during the planning are the same people who give us drama on a daily basis anyway and would have given the same drama regardless of the type of wedding we chose. I found that having a big wedding actually brought me closer to people and strengthened relationships instead of breaking them. But I was also a pretty flexible and drama free bride and was also too busy at work to even think about a lot of things so that probably helped.
I'm reflecting on these issues as well. I've been with my FI for 12 years and it will be 13 when we get married. My ideas about my wedding have certainly changed from my 20s to my 30s. Long engagement, large wedding, lots of money. I also wanted something smaller and intimate than what it is becoming. Unfortunately, given the size of family and friends, my parents and I think FI too, are not willing to go smaller. Everyone keeps telling me it will be worth it in the end and I will be so happy. I hope so because right now, it doesn't feel that way.
bumping FI and I are re-evalutating our "bigger" wedding plans and I wanted to hear more thought about a wedding being worth it. We are under so much emotional duress right now; I have completely postponed all planning and vendor communications. I dont know what to do. I dont want to look back a yr and a half from now and regret sinking our 20K into a big mess. But if I dont have a wedding, will I look back 10-20 years from now and completely regret it? I dont want to be jealous and angry every time I go to someone else's wedding.
My thoughts are that planning any big event takes a lot of hard work, thought, and clear vision to pull it off as stress free as possible. Being bombarded with everyone else's idea of what your wedding 'should be' is what can create a lot of indecision and doubt on your part. If you are relatively strong (in that you aren't easily swayed), and are able to convey how you want things to be without hurting anyone's feelings in the process, and can become a little self-centered and delegate, I don't see why you can't have what will make you happy on your wedding day.
Will everyone like it and agree? Probably not. Will some people give you a hard time about certain things ? Probably. Are you able to sit down and describe your vision of your wedding? Does your FI agree with you?
A wedding is a huge milestone event, but not everyone feels that way. Maybe you're the type who would like someone else to plan and make all the decisions for you and you want to just show up the day of...nothing wrong with that! Maybe just the two of you is what you really want. If you can't decide right now, maybe you just need more time to figure it all out.
Sounds like you may need to do some soul-searching.
@smyley: you're right; thanks for writing that. I just get so worried that we may not be doing this the 'right way' whatever that means if we do something ourselves.
I hear ya.
My FI and I wanted a small wedding, nothing big, especially because we've been together 8 yrs (and have very large families - well, he does anyway). My parents, however, fought that all the way.
They're not huge wedding people, but for some reason, thought becaus I am their only child, it needed to be done. We fought it, tried to say "screw it" and elope (of course, that would've caused more stress and drama than planning a wedding) and eventually gave in.
Fast forward 14 months - I am getting married in 3 months. And its turning into a bigger of a wedding (about 110 ppl). The stress and drama is there (mainly decision making and issues with the MIL - and MY mother - lol) Some with the friends and cousins, etc. But, hasn't been nothing that couldn't be handled. The point is - I absolutely love it. 
I didn't think I would because I'm not very girly nor do I like center of attention, but I really did get into it! It's now very exciting to me (not just starting my life with my FI) but also having all those ppl there, friends, families, to experience this with us. I think about "them" when planning the wedding and I want it to be remembered as a "fun" wedding. (not a conservative wedding).
So, we took that "big wedding" idea and kept it ... but, turned it to be about "everyone" and not just us. And I think that's why I got really into it. So, if your family forces you into it ... embrace it. You can still take that "cook out, informal" idea and add people to it (to make it bigger). They have some cute ideas (especially on these boards) for themed wedding where you and do things like that!! Its the one time in your life to plan a party EXACTLY the way you want it to be. Its your personality intertwined with bliss ... a win/win situation.
Good luck!
@njm1313: Thank you for that perspective! FI is firmly in the elopment camp but he knows if I regret it I will blame him forever so he's steering clear of the decision. LOL
I wanted a wedding. With all my family and close friends there like they have been for many celebrations in my life. My now-husband wanted to run off somewhere with his siblings and our parents. He hated the idea of a large wedding (he kept calling our 100 person guestlist "huge") right up until we sent out the invitations and everyone else was getting excited. He now says that was the most perfect day. I can't explain how overwhelming it is to look at a room full of people and know they are all there for you. Because they love you. It was awesome. We wouldn't trade it for anything.
How did it end up going for you guys? You seemed to be experiencing some things I am going through and I am wondering how your special day turned out. Thanks so much!
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This post is a reflective posting. It is not meant to insult those who are planning and/or who had big/lavish weddings.
When I was in my 20s, I had the sterotypical image of what I thought I wanted in my wedding (i.e., big wedding, big cake, big dress, flashy, etc.). Over the years, I've had cousins get married, some friends get married, and my own brother get married. I've witnessed the drama and stress that goes with weddings. I have yet to come across a wedding that didn't deal with some sort of fall out (i.e. feelings getting hurt to the point where friendships end and/or certain family members' relationships get serverly strained for a very long time). Even reading many postings on this website makes me wonder if the drama and stress is really worth it all.
I'm in my early 30s now and my idea of the perfect wedding has drastically changed. If I really have it my way (I know I won't because my family won't let me), then my wedding would be very simple....just me, my FI, and our immediate family members only. No fuss...perhaps we will throw some sort of informal gathering (i.e. a cook out?) later on....but no big wedding cake or whatever.
For those who got married and/or are currently planning a big wedding....reflecting on it all now, would you still throw a big wedding? Just curious. :)