Wedding How long did it take you to make final decisions?

[Shoopy]

One day I''m the "let''s go all out" bride. I want an evening five hour reception with a great DJ. I up the guest list to 100. I talk about pictures and flowers and dancing.

Then the next day I''m the "let''s go away with our family" bride. I look up DR and Hawaii. I talk about how cool it would be to get our immediate family somewhere for a mini-vacation instead of spending all the money on one day.

After that "let''s elope" bride. We can go to Vegas or the Keys and just get married by ourselves.

Then there''s the "let''s go to court" bride. I can wear a fab outfit, we can go on a honeymoon right after, and then concentrate on finding a house.

And finally I want to get married in a Spanish church with our immediate family, go to dinner, and party with friends.

I seriously cannot decide and it makes me sad and frustrated. Not to mention that my poor FI''s head is spinning with all of the ideas being thrown at him. We decided that we dont want to wait to have children which means we need to get into a house (or bigger space) ASAP. Then I feel that so what if our condo is small, people have done bigger with less space so we can wait for a house and just have the wedding. People ask me all the time well what do you want to do? And I honestly have no idea.

So how long did it take you to decide what kind of wedding you want to/can have?

 

[cara]

ya know, the big traditional wedding is enough money that if you don''t know you want it and you''re not rich, you should try to find another way. No point throwing that kind of $$ at something your not sure you want.

Some people *know* they want a more expensive wedding - they want to invite those people, they want to treat their guests or themselves to a nice party, they want the fancy dress or whatever.

If you aren''t one of them, then do consider saving some money for other priorities, such as kids and house stuff.

That said, I also thing getting married is one of those few opportunities in life to gather the people around you that you care about in celebration. I also don''t think people should elope and miss that opportunity unless they know eloping is the right choice for them.

There is a big range between elope by yourselves with little fanfare, and a big wedding with all the trimmings. That will require some personal input from you, but I would urge you to consult your FI some more. Make a useful groom out of him. There is all this hogwash about it being the bride''s day, but its his wedding too and he hopefully knows you and can help you make sense of your conflicting thoughts. Talk it out with him and see if you can come to a joint understanding about what you want from the wedding, who should attend, how fancy, where it is, etc. This is a good opportunity for you two to discuss things and plan your own celebration.

 

[marchswallowbird]

It was extremely easy for me. FI and I both already knew that we wanted to get married in Yosemite Valley, since this is a place that has a lot of meaning for us. After that, the expense of the reception venues made it easy to decide to do a smaller wedding there and a larger party with friends once we get back to Los Angeles.

What I''m hearing from your post, Fiery, is that the most important thing to the two of you is starting a family, and having a house to raise your kids in. I think that should be your guide. What do you have to do financially to get into a house right away, and then, what can you afford for your wedding? Big? Small? Medium? Also, try really visualizing yourself in each of the scenarios you outlined, and then listen to what your gut reaction is.

 

[MaggieB]

I''m an older bride AND I''ve dated my fiance for close to five years, so I''ve had a lot of time to think, and to live through the weddings of others to know what I REALLY wanted. My fiance and I have approached this whole wedding with the idea of screw what we are supposed to do, what makes sense to us? So, we are doing a bunch of stuff that people think isn''t correct.

I think that all the voices in your head are drowning eachother out. Take a break from it. Don''t think about it at all for a couple of weeks. Come back and ask yourself the question: What makes sense for us? What makes sense for our personalities, our finances, our goals? The answers will present themselves.

 

[hthip]

I completely feel your frustration.

I will be engaged a year come October. I''m shooting for spring of 2009, but we still haven''t commit to any venues or vendors yet. My problem is seeing the cost of it all and thinking where else the $$ can go. I have done my research for each of the bride scenarios you''ve mentioned. Both my FI and MOH heads are spinning from all the different scenarios.



Where are you with the venue that has the beautiful view?

 

[AlliMay]

Fieryred, I was in the same boat you until this past weekend...I can totally relate!

FI and I got engaged in June and since then have gone back in forth between elopement, destination wedding, church / banquet hall wedding, backyard tented wedding, etc.

What really helped was when we started to think back to the days immediately after we got engaged and remembered what we had originally discussed / envisioned our wedding to be like. For us it was a beach wedding with close friends and family...

I completely understand the feelings of being overwhelmed by all of the possible choices...but a lot of times its best to go with what you wanted in the first place.

What did you and your FI originally dream your wedding day to be like?