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Mine would probably have to be my colors. That seems like it was the HARDEST thing to decide. I kept seeking for advice anywhere I could. Originally I had chosen brown & green because camouflage used to be my favorite color (YES, I know it's really not a color!) But then I realized I couldn't really do what I wanted with brown & green, so then went to orange & green...but then all I could think of were the Gators. Somewhere down the line I decided on pink & yellow & it stuck!!
What's the hardest thing you've had to decide in planning your wedding?!
The bridesmaid dresses. I wanted to find the RIGHT shade of champagne pink for 6 girls, affordable, cocktail length, and cute.
Mom ended up making them. But it was a dress SAGA at JoAnn. Esp when my parents kept making stupid suggestions and picking out the UGLIEST dresses, like my dad picking out a really slutty dress (i don't think he realized it'd be slutty on my girls but yeah, very very low cut and not good for all 6 of them!) and i said "dude i don't want their boobs coming out at my wedding" and he shushed me and got all pissy in the store about how he's just making suggestions and I should stop being a bia! Really i just had to tell them to STEP BACK and let me pick out the pattern. 3 people rummaging through 1 bin was too intense.
But yeah...those patterns were stressful. Then finding the fabric was a headache.
Oh the things I did to not stiff my friends with $150 dresses.
@ejs: Wow, yeah that sounds like a pain in the butt!!! I can't believe your DAD was picking out those dresses! LOL my dad would have picked out the kind of dress you wear to church! My dresses for my ladies cost $180.00. I felt bad :( But at the time people were telling me that wasn't a bad price. I hate making my girls pay for their dresses, plus the cost of shoes...but we're giving them a free meal @ the rehersal dinner plus the BM gift's are pretty good!!! :)
Glad you overcame that!!
@Corgi: Yup. I agree 100% with you there. It's so hard fitting everything into your budget.
So far, budget. Mostly because often, you get what you pay for, and I'm having trouble sacrificing quality to stay within my budget!
Also, choosing the wedding party...but only because I wanted more attendants than FI did. I won that battle. :)
in general, mine has been planning from a distance - everything takes longer when you have to send contracts back and forth through the mail! more specifically, we had a tough time finding a jazz band for our reception that wasn't prohibitively expensive or would have had to travel from pretty far away. In the end, we found a great band, in our budget and only an hour drive away!
Mine was definitely planning from a distance and the short busy engagement period. We had a 5 month and 3 day engagement and during that time we moved from Ohio to Chicago, both of us got new jobs, we had to live in temporary housing for 3 weeks when we got to Chicago, we bought a Condo, I hadn't started my job yet, so I pretty much had to move everything myself, oh and we bought a new car and got a cat. Lol. It was a BUSY 5 months.
I agree with BUDGET. There are so many things i want or that i would do differently, but i just cant fit it in my budget
Anyone else have severe problems with their parents and the guest list? We all agreed at the beginning to keep it 150-175. My fiance's family and friends is only 70 and that includes some of our mutual friends. We're 6 months into planning and my parents are now sending me their guest lists. They're inviting people I've never met! My mom is inviting her coworkers when I'm not inviting any of mine. My dad apparently announced to everyone at a lunch one day that they were all invited to the wedding. This was a lunch with people that are apparently his cousins but I have never met them.
These extra people my parents are trying to slip in will put us over 200 people. I have no idea what to do. I won a few battles with my mom on some people but with my dad, he has already told these people they are invited. We're barely inviting any of our friends because my family is so large. I really don't think I can cut anyone that I've added but I can't figure out how to get my parents to cut their lists when they are both paying for the wedding in a major way.
Any advice?
Overall, money was the biggest obstacle. Second to that, was my crazy psycho family, and the grooms friends acting like immature a-holes and causing problems. After that, finding a venue. It took six months to find one. Six months!
I would have to say distance (planning a wedding in MN from TX) and hubs fighting with his family and them no longer speaking to us like little children. Also, everyone feeling like their happiness should come before ours....
@Lees, yes, well, my dad is pretty clueless, LOL!ZWhen he found out I paid $110 for a pair of Big Star jeans, he commented that he couldn't figure out why I had such a hard time finding jeans that fit (I'm 5'11") because I'm not *that tall* and I should just wear men's jeans from WAlmart b/c they're only $15. When in reality, they're the only damn brand that fit. So yeh, clueless =]
I, too, felt SO weird asking them to spend money on me! On anything! I felt like a huge inconvenience for some reason. Totally selfish, lol. Even the whole "here i picked this out for you, wear this!" even though we all know that's the game =]
Dinero lol. Money has by far been the biggest challenge, and the root of any other challenge if you think about it. If money were not an issue, I could have everything I wanted, so I wouldn't have to worry about a thing. I should stop watching Platinum Weddings man, things never go wrong for them... at least from what they show us.
My mother. Seriously, I wish she could just be happy for me and stop being so negative.
ohhh for me, its been budget, guest list and bridal party (only having a MOH, and she's not my sister.... mum was NOT happy).
@fanatic- i hear you on this one! my FI and i so far, have only invited 20 friends (10 each) with family being the rest of the guest list.. our parents too, have said 'i need another table for so and so'. URGH. we've sent out 130 save the dates (we wanted to try to keep it at 130), but there seems to be more people we HAVE to invite, so its looking like 150, but due to our venue, we really can't go beyond 150.
We had a really hard time finding a minister to marry us. As we decided to live together, the church that my parents attend and we started to attend would only marry us if we either got married within 3 weeks (!?!) or immediately moved apart. We didn't like either idea, so we struggled with finding a solution for a few months (like 6). We thankfully found a wonderful minister who was willing to marry us.
Definitely reception venue. We toured probably 4, and I talked to coordinators from about 10. What made it so difficult is that we had one chosen, but the coordinator was fired before mentioning the MASSIVE food and beverage minimum.
Invite/Guest list, HANDS DOWN! We just want to have a smaller wedding, but how to do that when my mom has 7 sibs (+ 7 spouses, with an average of 3 kids each, all of whom I know & half of whom I grew up with), dad has 6 sibs (+ 6 spouses, with an average of 3 kids each, ALL of whom I grew up with), & grams has 4 sibs (you get the drift)? My side alone would be 100 people...I just don't see how I can exclude people who I grew up with, but I don't want to change our wedding plans (which we would have to do in order to budget for an extra 80 guests).
@ fanatic: I totally hear you. We solved the problem by giving our parents a number limit & let them know that x number for each of their own guests was all we could afford (we're footing the entire bill, our choice) & all that would fit into our small wedding theme. We're rather independent children (with loving parents who have let us have our independence - maybe their regreting it now? :D), so we put our foot down on the number. Don't know if that will work for you, but it did for us. My problem above stems not from parental pressure, but from my own.
@fanatic: Yeah, that seems like a tough battle. Are you & your FI paying for the majority of the wedding, or is your parents? Have you told them that you aren't really liking the idea of people you don't even know coming to the wedding? If you haven't, I would seriously sit down and talk to them and let them know it's YOUR wedding, and especially if you're paying for it...you don't want to have to foot the bill for people who have never been in your life & who will NEVER be in your life. & my guess is that these people won't even appreciate you getting married, or get you a good gift for all the work you put into the wedding.
I would sit down and have a talk with them, and if you have done this..& they don't listen, it's up to YOU who you invite. Just don't invite them! They don't really know you & vice versa. If your moms co-worker & the people who were at the lunch with your dad ask why they weren't invited after your parents told them they were, just tell them that you didn't know that your parents invited them...it may seem rude but hey...gotta do what yah gotta do. Or just tell them your sincerely sorry, but your budget only allowed you to invite a certain number of guests. They should understand.
@Lindsay- Yay for Missouri girls! Is this venue you're talking about in StL?
Definitely the budget has been the biggest obstacle. We've really had to be creative and shop around for vendors that were willing to do things a little cheaper.
The other main obstacle is planning this whole thing while being in an LDR. I'm in StL, he's in Florida in military training. He works long hours so I only talk to him at night, uisually only an hour or so a day over a webcam.
Guest list for sure. Fanatic, I totally feel you on parents inviting people you've never met. It really really made me mad at first, but I just had to breathe and accept the fact that my wedding is not going to be small or intimate. Plus, my parents are paying for the reception, so the more unknown guests, the more money they have to pay--if they're okay with it, then who am I to complain?
In addition, my FI's family's list is like twice the size of my family's list. His parents are inviting their third cousins twice removed, and everyone else! And they don't seem to understand that if you invite people, you have to plan on them coming. They keep telling me, "Oh but so and so isn't coming, don't worry!" But what if they DO come??? They refuse to even recognize that it's a possibilty that everyone they invite will come. It drives me crazy.
Besides guest list, finding an officiant was a huge problem. My dad basically flipped out when we told hiim we weren't sure if we were having a rabbi. He said he wouldn't come to the wedding. So that was fun. Luckily, it mostly got sorted out.
@zippy: Wow! I give you guys props for handling a LDR. I don't think I could do it, honestly. That takes a lot of patience. Go you for doing it basically all by yourself!
The venue.
We can't find anything outside of the city that suits our needs and FMIL & my mom's needs. FMIL wants us to get married in a church, my mom wants us to get married in a garden, and we want something unique in the city (zoo, library, art gallery, etc.)
Plus, our parents' guest list is bigger than our own, so that rules out everything we like in our price range for the most part. But since they are contributing, they should get the guests they want. But at the same time, neither of us is religious and so we don't want to get married in a church. Eeeek!
@Lees- Patience is definitely a must. It's hard, it sucks and I miss him all the time, but the times I do get to see him are amazing because of it.
Yeah see my issue is that my parents are footing the bill for the whole wedding basically. My dad is paying 1/3 and my mom 2/3. I think I'm going to figure out the exact number per head it is going to cost (food, bar, extra table) for every extra person and tell my parents to either fork up the money, or don't invite them. I'm not worried about my parent's cousins or friends asking me why they didn't get invited because they don't know me to even find me and ask. One of my church friends just had her wedding and was talking about how wonderful it is that those people at her wedding will be there for her and her husband throughout the rest of their lives. When my parents start inviting people I've never met, do I really think they're going to be there for us if we ever need them just because we invited them to our wedding? Doubt it.
MONEY! it's very hard for me to look at and design all of these quirky couture touches for other people's events and not have them for mine. sigh, i always say it's the details that make a wedding special. people may not notice them and think they are a part of the over all look, BUT if the details aren't there the day wouldn't be so finished.
@lees: you're from the south, are you doing escort cards? i have been toying around with this idea...
My biggest obsticle was definitely my mom. There just aren't enough words to convey what a stressor she was!
For me, the biggest obstacle is even talking about planning a wedding with my parents. Don't get me wrong, they are happy that for us and are happy that we are engaged, but they would definitely prefer if we waited to graduate (in 2.5 years) to get married. My dad is more open to discussion, but everytime I bring it up, my mom freaks out. So for me, it's even beginning the wedding planning process, haha. Though we had a serious talk over break, and they seem to be open to the idea of discussing and we have possibly set a tentative date in a year and half!
Mine has been logistics! Trying to figure out where all 175 guests can stay, since there's very limited space in the area, coordinating two different shuttles and just trying to organize the whole event has been very overwhelming and has produced many a tear on my end...Oooof!
@crebre: I don't think we are doing escort cards, although I'm not opposed to the idea!! I think they're cute...we just didn't find them necessary. But if it's what you want I say go for it girl!! It could be a fun addition & add more character to the wedding. I've seen some pretty cool ideas on Southern Weddings & Style Me Pretty for escort cards in the past. I guess I didn't feel like bothering with it...but hey, there's still 2 months till' the wedding..things may change! But if they do, it'd need to be quick!
@zippylef - nope, not STL. We are in Columbia. FI went to college in STL though, so I spent many a day there! He lived in the Chesterfield area :)
@zippy: Aw, I bet the times you do get to see him you cherish it SO much more. And you definitely don't take it for granted. That is one of the postive's about LDR.
The invites. FSIL volunteered to make them for us as her wedding present and we were so excited. We were going to be able to design them and approve them and then not have to do any of the handwork and we'd still have beautiful invites.
Well the short version is she kept changing stuff. She never showed us a finished version on card stock, only on white a4 paper. She tried to cut corners by using twine instead of ribbon (which is cute but not the soft, vintage glam look we're going for). Then she promised she'd have them ready before Christmas and never did. Then it took us another 2 weeks before she sent us a version via email for us to do ourselves. We ended up having to redesign part of it, do all the printing, buy all the card stock and envelopes and ribbon and do all the assembly ourselves.
They're beautiful. I love them. I hate the stress that FH and I went through having them done though.
I'm surprised more people haven't said the guest list! That has been a huge headache for a thousand different reasons. The worst part is, its never really over... people just got their save the dates and are asking who they can bring!
wouldn't gators be orange and blue? miami is orange and green. either way i'm a nole so i'm against both of them!
i think my biggest issue (though there are many!) is trying to balance getting what i want and not being a bridezilla. i absolutely hate confonting people, telling people what to do, and i'm terrified of being called a bridezilla. but i also don't want to just give into all of my family members who have all of their opinions about how OUR wedding should be. sadly i tend to just give in, not worth the fighting, and i feel that it will still be a beautiful wedding. as long as i get to be married life will be good.
Making priorites and sticking to them.
I am very easily distracted by all the pretty, fun things you see on blogs and whatnot. It makes you think you NEED them, or 2nd guess what you've already done. We just can't afford to do everything. Sometimes I forget.
Also, choosing a bmaid dress has been a really difficult decision for me. We still aren;t there, but I am hoping a shopping trip this weekend will settle it. I've found SO MANY different things I like, I don't know how to pick just one.
@artbee: Opps!!! You're right. My bad about the orange & green!
For me was finding a building and the date that we need. To make th e long story short.. My FI is in CHP Academy (California High Way Patrol) right now.. he graduates July 9th.. After his graduation they will give him 8-9 days to move out from where we are now (Sacramento) to most likely LA.. Well the problem is we needed to do the wedding in those 8-9 days and go to a honey moon...
We were looking for a place to do it ( we started looking in Nov. '09) and everything we needed was booked! I was freaking out no joke.. basiclly.. we found a place and we were set on it.. but the problem was.. we couldnt have our honeymoon..FI would have to go to work the next day.. i almost cried.. ok fine i did cry..lol..
But than luckily we found a beautiful place.. and the date was perfect.. July 11th.. two days after he graduated.. its gonna be hecktic but worth it! So for now..most problems solved...
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