Weddingbee Boards

Definitely, from my close family.

Mother and grandmother keep trying to talk me out of doing what I want to do only due to price. As far as I am concerned, I graduated college, immediatly got a full time job, and now have enough money to do whatever I want to do.

And I tell them as much. I tell them it's my wedding, I tell them I will do it how I want to, I'm rude on purpose.. but it doesn't really phase them. Wedding planning has really made me see how alike the two of them really are.

But you gave me a good idea... to not tell them how much anything costs. It is not their business, and I will actually them that to next time they give me a hard time spending money!

My parents eloped and my mother says it was one of her best decisions.  My FI's parents had a big wedding and say they wished they had just eloped, because the wedding did them no good (they were pressured into a wedding by FI's grandparents, so they couldn't afford a honeymoon or a place to live and wound up living with FI's grandparents for a while).  My FI and I decided to do a low budget thing, knowing none of this will matter to us in ten years (no matter how we do it, we'll still be married, and that's the only part that matters to us).  We're really practical, both of us, and the idea of spending money on things we'll never use again makes us sick to our stomachs.  So we're going really low-budget (as much under 5k as possible) on the wedding and saving up for furniture and things we can actually use.

Oh, I'm not complaining.  They're philosophy is that it's my wedding and I should do what I want.  My parents were happy they didn't listen to their parents and my FIL are disappointed that they did listen to theirs, so they're all just letting us do whatever. 

We're going to have about 200 people to feed and so far and we're still under our $5000 budget.  Though, my dress cost $500, so there's no way you would do a whole wedding for that much (my dad was SHOCKED when he found out my dress was more than $100).    We're going to make all the food ourselves (my FI and I love to cook, so that's no problem), plus we live in a small town.  Venues are cheap, cakes only cost about $100-$150, and we're intending to spend more on alcohol than anything else (really, no one will even care about how everything else looks, as long as they leave good and sloshed).  We're doing the centerpieces and other decorations ourselves, also.

The very first thing we did was get a wedding planning book.  We read over everything they said you should have and crossed off almost the entire list.  Not because we couldn't afford it, but because we couldn't understand spending that much money on it.  Like...programs (not that there's anything wrong with them, we just decided we didn't need them).  We're doing a very quick ceremony, everyone has been to a wedding before.  They know the drill.  Also, we're not decorating the church.  My Mom really wants to put a little something on the pews (we have an agreement that whatever she decides she wants to do, she can pay for herself), but churches are just naturally pretty and we'll be there for less than twenty minutes, so we didn't see a reason to decorate it.  It really helped us 1) put the wedding in perspective and 2) stay under budget. 

If you "register" with JCP (just sign up, you don't actually have to do anything), they give you a print-out coupon to take into the store and get a free book.  If you're having problems, you should get one and just look at what you need.  Write down your expected cost and then the real cost of each item you buy.  It really helped us.  We'll probably spend somewhere between $3000 and $4000 for the whole thing.

I hope the planning goes easier for you!

We get indirect commentary, which is pretty weird. We live in NYC and this is where I am from, but we are having our wedding near where my fiance is from. For here, our budget is low, but for there? They think we are extravagant, with our cocktail hour plus 4 hour reception and our open bar. It's a little uncomfortable for people to act like we're being all flashy, when this is just tradition for me. Again, we are paying most of it ourselves, with some help from my parents, so when his parents have something to say about how they want to add 20 more people? Ugh. (Because clearly, we could not spend so much on the reception and just allow them to invite everyone they've ever met by making it cheaper). 

One of our obnoxious groomsmen made a rude comment to me about how we should just have a "Shotgun Wedding" and put our money towards a house instead. First of all, he is such an idiot because Shotgun Weddings only pertain to a pregnant bride, and I'm not even pregnant. I know he meant to say "Civil Ceremony" because that's what he and his wife had, and she was pregnant at the time. They served stale chicken wings and carrot cake at his wedding, and until now they're still living in a dump.

My point is that there will always be people out there who will disagree with what you're doing. It shouldn't matter, because you don't live for them. You don't wake up every morning asking yourself "What does so-and-so think I should do with my life?" This is your life, and a wedding is a monumental event in one's life, it's an event that deserves to be special. However way you want to make that special is totally up to you. If you want to hire a marching band and have fireworks, that's your prerogative. Everyone else should just be supportive. And to those who aren't supportive, let them be.

You can always buy a house any time in your life. But you can only be a young, fresh bride once! I'm almost thirty. I am not going to buy a house now and have a nice wedding when I'm wrinkly and sixty five years old. Best of luck to you girl :)