Weddingbee boards

Hi all, 

I posted a few days ago about my dad being hospitalized and diagnosed with cancer and about how great random strangers and other people have been (http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/bad-news-but-good-people-and-one-lousy-doctor) Anyway, thanks so much for all the support and comments.  It really helped!  The good news is that he was just released last night.  Also, there is a new lead doctor on his case (apparently they rotate), so no more Dr. Horrible.  It's great that he's home, but he's still really having trouble moving and is on a lot of medication.  

Anyway, we'd planned on getting married less than a week from now in Yosemite (about 200 miles from my parents').  Here's where I need some help!  My dad feels horrible about "making" people miss a trip to Yosemite, but of course all our guests totally understand that we should change the plans so that he can be there.  Obviously, his health is what matters, not wedding plans.  So now we're trying to figure out a way that guests can come to a ceremony in my parents' town first, then continue on to Yosemite (many of them have non-refundable hotel reservations).  Most are flying into San Francisco airport (which is near my parents') on Tuesday.  So we're trying to plan a last-minute ceremony and little party Tuesday night so that they can come if they want, then continue on to the park.  We can't get any money back from our planned Yosemite reception, so we're encouraging everyone who wants to to show up at the scheduled time and eat all the food, cake, and booze that we've already paid for (and maybe someone can bring back some cake for us!).  

A few of my parents' friends have very nicely offered their backyards for a wedding on Tuesday, so my question is how do you plan a wedding from scratch in 3 days?  It doesn't have to be anything fancy (our original plans weren't) and we don't want to spend too much.  Any suggestions?  I'm thinking something very casual, probably along the lines of Costco food and beer and picnic tables.  We really can't afford catering or vendors (which is fine. because it's way too short notice to get anyone anyway).  Any suggestions for decorating a backyard or for having a reception cheaply but with some personality?  I'm hoping we can get speakers and do some iPod dancing.  And since half of the people we invited originally can't come to a new location or date (it was only going to be about 50 people to begin with), would it be horribly rude to invite new people to the new wedding only 3 days in advance?  "Hello, I know you weren't invited before, but . . . "  There are several people I'd like to invite who all live in town and could probably come, but who we didn't invite initially because we were limited by the budget and the size of the venue.  I don't want them to think I'm fishing for a present, I'd just like them to come if they can, and I think it's budgetable considering it will probably be a very cheap reception.  How do you politely say, "please come, but don't bring a gift and don't be offended that it's 3 days from now"?   Sorry this is so long, but any advice would be greatly appreciated!  I'm not too worried about it, I just want my family to be there and I thought the hive may have brilliant suggestions to make it more fun and welcoming for everyone.  

Just read your original post and this one. So sorry you are going through all this, I can't even imagine what all this is like. Kudos to you for keeping it together and keeping a positive outlook :) I hope only the best for your dad, your wedding, and your entire family. I truely believe that ones support system can keep them uplifted.... so cheers to your family and the wonderful people around you!

Now onto the backyard wedding. I agree, picnic tables, costco food, maybe some cheap places in town that do trays of food for relatively cheap? Dollar tree has paper light up lanterns for a dollar...as far as other decorations maybe just some candles and table cloths. Ask around friends, neighbors, see who has portable speakers for an ipod so you dont have to buy any. I would do coolers with ice and sodas, waters, and beers. Use plastic wear for easy cleanup. I'm sure your dad feels "bad" but will be honored to know his daughter would give up her wedding just so she could be with her family when it really counts. And my last piece of advice, let friends and other family members carry you thru this rough time. Don't be afraid to ask for help, and dont feel bad accepting it when someone offers. Others around you I'm sure want to help you. And as far as inviting other people, I say do it! Just make it a casual verbal announcement, they obviously know the circumstances, make it sound like the more the merrier.

Hope this helps a little if at all. Good luck! <3

Hi all, 

I'm so sorry I didn't reply sooner--I haven't been near a computer in a week and I stink at typing replies on my phone.  Anyway, I wanted to thank you SO MUCH for all the help and support.  It really made a world of difference!  Your suggestions were awesome, but even better were the words of encouragement for my family.  

So an update: my mom's friends all banded together and threw an amazing wedding in the backyard of an incredibly nice family I'd never even met before.  They coordinated amongst themselves on flowers, tables, chairs, tablecloths and more.  My sister and I went to a farmers' market to get flowers for our bouquets and to Costco and the Honeybaked ham place for food.  Even the morning of, we had people calling offering to help, and a group of people showed up a couple hours early to prepare the food we bought.  We got lanterns and tea lights from Ikea (thanks, Lydia!) and friends brought over Christmas lights, so the backyard looked amazing.  I didn't know about half the people there (out of about 40 total), but they were all unbelievably nice and thoughtful.  We messed up quite a bit of the ceremony (including forgetting to walk away when it was done :) ) but the whole thing was fantastic anyway.  

None of my fiance's family could make it, so we wound up going ahead with the originally-planned wedding 2 days later.  Yep, we got married twice in 3 days. Everyone knew the whole story and that we'd had the "real" wedding already, so we called it a 2-day renewal of vows (just jumping the gun by 50 years).  But both families wanted to be at a wedding, so this seemed like the best way to make it all work.  Since we hadn't done any wedding planning in the past 2 weeks, my sister (the MOH) was amazing and dealt with all sorts of last-minute work.  We had the ceremony on top of a cliff in Yosemite, then changed clothes and went on a 3-hour hike with some friends.  We'd never gotten around to getting a cake topper, so we bought finger puppets at a gift shop and my sister made them into cake toppers using floss and water cups from the hotel 5 minutes before the reception.  I was really sunburned from the hike (despite using tons of sunblock), I'd cut my finger somehow and bled on the dress during the ceremony, and my period started a week early so I had to sneak out during the reception to buy "supplies" (in a wedding dress), but none of that mattered because we got to celebrate with family and friends.  

And most importantly to me, my dad got to see the first ceremony (the "real" one, although we completely forgot to get the marriage license signed until the next day).  My dad is doing much better overall, although he still really has trouble moving.  It was hard to leave to go to wedding number 2 without my parents, but they were really supportive of the whole thing and we saved lots of cake and flowers for them and will be making them a photo album.  2 days later my husband and I hiked to the top of Half Dome (about 17 miles roundtrip, and the last part requires climbing up loads of stairs and then cables), which we considered a big accomplishment since he's afraid of heights and I'm afraid of falling down stairs.  But in the grand scheme of things, it seemed like a good way to remember not to stress about the little things and a great way to celebrate getting married.  And we called my parents from the top (there's cell reception up there--crazy!) and my dad was very excited that we'd made it.  So anyway--sorry for the super long update, but I just wanted to say thanks again and let you know that things worked out amazingly well, thanks to everyone's help and support, and that my dad is continuing to improve.  So thanks, everybody!

Congrats on both of your successful weddings!  Most of us can hardly pull off 1, let alone 2!

@WeeBirdy: Your wedding(s) sound amazing!  I'm very sorry about your Dad and hope that he is feeling better.  But I'd love to see photos of your two weddings!  It sounds like you were able to remember the actual reasons behind all of the hoopla. 

Congratulations on getting married, and handling a difficult situation with grace (with your husband)! 

Thanks so much, everyone!  

@dance: yep, I am so lucky to have the family I do!

@Leah, ha ha, I can barely pull of one also :)  By the time of the first one though, we didn't really care what happened, as long as my dad was doing ok and everyone could make it to at least one of them.  So we let all the little details slide, but I think no one cared that I forgot to label the less obvious food or that we forgot to leave at the end of the ceremony, or that we forgot about a cake topper until 5 minutes before the reception.  I could go on and on with the things we forgot to do or just totally bungled, but hey, the idea is to have a good celebration with family and friends, and I think that worked out just fine.

And thanks so much everyone for the advice and support!  Yep, it was not what we expected, but everyone understood the reason for all the last-minute plans, and the efforts of so many people (including perfect strangers) made all the difference in the world.  And I know it cheered up my dad and the rest of us to see such support from so many people.