(Closed) Married Bees answers to Planning Bees questions.

• jtsing
• 10 years ago

@romanticone5555: We had fun our wedding night!! I think the hardest was when my husband lost his job a few months after the wedding. But all is good now. I did email everyone in wedding party itineraries, but they were not fully detailed, just main points. I am sure some thought I was nuts, but was my Mother-In-Law doing! I didn’t cry during the wedding ceremony, I was too excited, and my husband kept choking up so I knew I had to be strong so we both would make it through. Just have fun on the dance floor, dance slow, things will be great!! I didn’t receive anything really weird thankfully, I think the thing we use most is the fridge we received for our garage!

• mightywombat
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: June 2011

@romanticone5555:

• After the wedding, did you and your groom have lots of energy to DO IT?! Haha. SO many people have told me how tiring the day is and how it flies by in a blur, and it leads me to wonder if you’re running on adrenaline by then or honestly if you went to bed and then had an extra GOOD morning.

We did!!  We had fun the night of. It helps that ours was not a really raucous or alcohol-heavy reception.  I did drink, but less than I expected to. I was having too much fun talking to everyone! And my DH doesn’t drink.

• What was the hardest thing for you and your husband when you were first starting as husband and wife? Whether you lived together beforehand or not.

Um, we’re dealing with combining finances.  There haven’t been any conflicts, but it’s a touch step for me, because we have slightly different habits and I’m really independent. It’s new for me to think that it’s “OUR” money; not “my” money. But ultimately that’s healthy and is reducing my frivolous spending.

• Did you hand out itineraries to those involved with your wedding, or just make sure they were aware beforehand? Some people believe that is micromanaging, but some would love to have a clue what’s going on.

No, but we have a very basic schedule. Nothing fancy. Small rehearsal dinner, so most people didn’t need to know about that; ceremony and reception in the same place.

• Did your SO cry as you walked down the aisle?

Nope. But he got choked up while putting the ring on my finger.

• What can you do if you’re not the greatest dancer? We’re not taking dancing lessons and Fiance is a good dancer, while I am not. I’m afraid to look awkward and step on his feet!

This won’t work for most people, but we just didn’t have dancing. Neither of us are confident dancers, and we thought it would be more stress than it was worth. So we just had a cocktail-party style reception.

• Did people buy you silly things for your showers? Things you would never use? What did you find really useful as a wedding present?

His mother’s quilting friend (who we’d never met and wasn’t invited to anything) gave us a random crystal tray.  It was a very sweet gesture, but totally not our style. Best gifts – his mom made us a wedding quilt, which is gorgeous. We’ve lived together for years and so we didn’t need much kitchen stuff, but if you like to cook, you can’t go wrong with a Cuisinart and Kitchenaid. You can also never have too many sheets and towels, as far as I’m concerned.

• mightywombat
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: June 2011

@Mrs. Meowerson: 

• some people have already mentioned this, but what specific items did you spend money on that you wouldn’t if you could do it all over again?

Beiieve it or not, I can’t think of a single thing. I just reviewed my budgeting spreadsheet, and everything on it I consider necessary (for US, that is, not for everyone!).  The one thing that I regret a little is that we didn’t make our guestbook prominent enough, so most people didn’t sign it. But I still don’t regret buying it; just that we didn’t make it more obvious.

• skipper2010
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: October 2010

@Cheesy Potatoes:

“- 1. We are having a tradional catholic ceromony ( full mass) starting at 2 with cocktail hour starting at 5. Our venue is about 35 minutes away from our church.I am worried about how much time we will have to do pictures. I am trying to plan a schedule for pictures but am unsure. Does anyone have any insight into this?”

We did our pictures during coctail hour. Servers still brought us appetizers and drinks so we didn’t feel like we were missing out. You could also try and do some family/bridesmaid pics prior to the ceremony to get some pics out of the way.

“2. Has anyone had a candy buffet? I am thinking of doing this as my favor. Any thoughts/suggestions/comments?”

I didn’t have one, but I’ve been to a couple weddings that did and I liked them a lot. It’s cute when you can pick out candy that’s in your colors or fits in with your theme.

“3. How did you deciede what gift to give your bridesmaids? What is an good/appropriate amount to spend? For  my flower girl/ringer bearer (3 and 7 ) I was thinking of possibly getting them gift cards to a toy store. Is this too impersonal?”

I got my bridesmaids a giftcard to the nail salon we were having our nails done at and paired it with a nail polish in their favorite color. I also bought them personalized martini glasses and filled them with candy, the nail polish, and the gift card.

A gift card isn’t a bad idea for Flower girl and ring bearer, but maybe you could pair it with a book or toy so they have something to get excited about. 3 years old may be too young to understand the significance of a gift card.  Best of luck and enjoy the rest of your planning!

• skipper2010
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: October 2010

@Cheesy Potatoes:

“- 1. We are having a tradional catholic ceromony ( full mass) starting at 2 with cocktail hour starting at 5. Our venue is about 35 minutes away from our church.I am worried about how much time we will have to do pictures. I am trying to plan a schedule for pictures but am unsure. Does anyone have any insight into this?”

We did our pictures during coctail hour. Servers still brought us appetizers and drinks so we didn’t feel like we were missing out. You could also try and do some family/bridesmaid pics prior to the ceremony to get some pics out of the way.

“2. Has anyone had a candy buffet? I am thinking of doing this as my favor. Any thoughts/suggestions/comments?”

I didn’t have one, but I’ve been to a couple weddings that did and I liked them a lot. It’s cute when you can pick out candy that’s in your colors or fits in with your theme.

“3. How did you deciede what gift to give your bridesmaids? What is an good/appropriate amount to spend? For  my flower girl/ringer bearer (3 and 7 ) I was thinking of possibly getting them gift cards to a toy store. Is this too impersonal?”

I got my bridesmaids a giftcard to the nail salon we were having our nails done at and paired it with a nail polish in their favorite color. I also bought them personalized martini glasses and filled them with candy, the nail polish, and the gift card.

A gift card isn’t a bad idea for Flower girl and ring bearer, but maybe you could pair it with a book or toy so they have something to get excited about. 3 years old may be too young to understand the significance of a gift card.  Best of luck and enjoy the rest of your planning!

• pinkb
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: April 2011

@romanticone5555: 1. Dd we have lots of energy….. nope but we did di it anyway! You only get one wedding night right?!

2. We haven’t really had a hard time with anything. Been together 7 years and living together for 6 and finances combined for 4 years. For me changing my name was a biggie.

3. I did not hand out an itinerary. I just made sure everyone knew what was going on. I did tell the guys to be in town 3.5 hours before the wedding just incase 🙂 They were coming from an hour away. My girls were my sisters and they came the day before to help and stayed in the hotel with me.

4. Nope he did not cry at all.

5. We are not good dancers at all. We just swayed and talked.

6. I didnt have a shower so no to that. And wedding gifts the cash was great. We used most of while on the honeymoon. We did whatever we wanted and had such a great time! LOVE the dishes we got and silverware.

@mile end: I was busy all day with setting everything up so I didn’t have any time to stress or worry about anything other than the set up and being on time. And I wasn’t around anyone exept my family and I told all of them no tears we were there to celebrate!

@Cheesy Potatoes: The only question I can answer is the last one. I got my maids each a necklace that was something I knew they would like and could wear in the future. They were different for each girl, nothing for the wedding.  I set a limit of $50.00 I had 2 girls and it was a what I could afford and what I thought I could get a nice gift for. I wanted it to be something special for them.

• Cheesy Potatoes
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: September 2012

Thanks for the responses girls!

• Kathers01
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: April 2012

Another question 🙂

Did anyone have the ceremoney and reception at the same place? And if so, what did you do for transportation? I want to take a limo to the ceremony but not have them sit there and pay them for 6 hours…

• PitBulLover
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: August 2010

• After the wedding, did you and your groom have lots of energy to DO IT?! YES we did! We were up until about 2:30 and still had enough energy to do it. You only have sex on your wedding night once, why not do it?

 

• What was the hardest thing for you and your husband when you were first starting as husband and wife?  To be honest, nothing. We have had an extremely easy first year of marriage. We had a very difficult engagement year so I think we were already past that phase. Other than normal arguments, we haven’t had any hardships this first year.

 

• Did you hand out itineraries to those involved with your wedding, or just make sure they were aware beforehand? Yes, I did, but NO ONE paid attention to their itinerary!! It was annoying. I made one for everyone in the bridal party with contact numbers, addresses, times of events, directions to places and I can’t even tell you how many phone calls I got (even from my MOH) saying “where is this” “what time is that”

 

• Did your SO cry as you walked down the aisle? no, but I wouldn’t have expected him to!

 

• What can you do if you’re not the greatest dancer? Just sway back and forth. The first dance is going to be a bit weird no matter what, just enjoy holding each other and talking to one another. Dont take lessons, its not worth the money and people watching you can tell when youve taken lessons – at the last wedding we went to we heard the B&G counting their steps and they looked even more awkward than usual

 

• Did people buy you silly things for your showers? Things you would never use? What did you find really useful as a wedding present? Yes, some people got us random shit. My great aunt got us a Lands’ End mini tote bag. WTF. The most useful things we got are our dishes/glasses, our Dyson vacuum and our pots/pans set

• jazzy14
• 10 years ago

• Wedding: May 2013

If any of you had long engagements, how did you handle it? I just got engaged last month, but we’re not getting married until May 2013. I want to start planning now, but I feel like it’s too far away to do much!