Weddingbee boards

First, I'm not asking for any sort of medical advice.  

Last night I woke up at 3 am in a panic over how I was going to pull this thing off. I have a ceremony site I have been wanting ever since they built the place, but it's on the expensive side for my area and we are only having about 10-20 guests at the ceremony. So how do I justify spending $550 plus w/e the cost of an officiant (who I also don't have yet)? I thought well I can buy a cheaper dress...

But I'm in love with Vera Wang and nothing else seems right to me. I have seen many cute dresses, but nothing jumps out at me like her designs do (except for Rosa Clara, who is also expensive). I'm very picky: I despise beading, pick ups seem too trendy, my wedding is so scaled back that a ballgown would be ridiculous, but most A-lines seem so blah to me. No offense you have any of these things; I just want the design/construction of the dress to be WOW, not the accents. Right now I'm stalking POWD and Bridepower, plus other sites, because I'd like to buy and have it done. But Vera is coming out with a David's Bridal line in the spring so I'm thinking of waiting... or settling for something else.

My other issue is photography. Our ceremony and reception are 76 miles apart, so having the same photographer is unlikely. I found a girl in my ceremony town whos portfolio I like, but her prices start at $1600. I'm not paying $1600 for an hour of photography just to turn around and pay another $1600 to someone else for an hour or two (our reception is just a dinner at our fave restaurant).

Lastly, I don't want a regular guest book and found two alternatives. One is a pizza stone with our names and wedding date that guests can sign. The other is a leather bound photo album, the pages are aged and have quotes on them. Either option costs between $100-$200.

Gosh that feels good just to get it all out! I feel a lot of pressure to make this work. My oldest sister eloped so I'm the first to have a wedding with guests and the family doesn't seem to care what I do. Oh, and FH mom is engaged and told her friends they were going to try and get married before us because it would be funny. So I really want to do something impressive on a small scale.

First of all breathe... Panic attacks are horrible. I know exactly what you went through :(

Second, I think it's important to realise that nearly ALL brides will have a moment of panic because there is a huge amount of pressure to make it perfect. Writing it out seemed to help you so maybe start carrying a little notebook with you so that you can write down your feelings when you start to get panicky, it will also stop you from feeling like you might forget a brilliant idea etc which is something I always worry about.

I would also talk to your family and FI about how you are feeling, is there anything they can take care of for you?

With the photography issue, I would suggest giving them both a call and asking if it woud be possible to have a cheaper package since you don't want them for so long, might not work but it's worth a try.

I think maybe you should also decide what your priorities are.. pick your top 2/3 things that are important to you and focus on them (i.e. for me personally, photography is more important than a guest book so I would spend the $100-200 on photos and maybe make my own guestbook or come up with a cheaper alternative.

Good luck! xx

Thank you ladies. I know everyone goes through this, but this is the first time I've really stressed out. We've scaled back so much that I feel like the things I mentioned above are all important. I think I'm going to call about the ceremony site next week and if it isn't available I'll find something else. I think that's how I'm going to handle that problem. There are pics at these links if you want to see why I want it so badly: http://www.rose-hulman.edu/whitechapel/gallery.htm

http://theroxystudio.blogspot.com/2008/06/white-chapel.html This one is the photographer I was looking at. Her site says her prices start at $1600, but there is a bridal show next week so I'm going to talk to her and other photographers then and see what they say.

As for the dress, I'm dropping my budget to $1000.  I love that you gave me other ideas for guest books! I'm def. going to take a look. I was leaning toward the pizza stone because it was the cheaper of the two and I was going to keep it on display in the kitchen.