Wedding Planning is a Nightmare!

[weddinghelp]

This wedding planning stuff is horrible! I am trying to plan a wedding in the Fall and nothing is coming together. My fiances best friend is having a baby in early October, and there are 2 other family weddings in Sept. and Oct. Plus, every place I call is booked a year in advance. Who are these people! All I want is to be surrounded by family and friends and have a great celebration with the man I love. But all of these negatives is making me think about delaying the wedding until the Spring. Any suggestions?

 

[Nicrez]

Well, this is NOT uncommon. My friend booked her place last month for her wedding in May 2006. Her first date was taken.

People need time to plan, and so weddings tend to require quite a bit of work and preparation, and most people like having the time to make that easy and stress-free. The details of a wedding tend to be VERY volumnious.

As such, what are you looking at, what do you want in terms of where to get married, reception, where do you live, where would you like to have the wedding/reception, what's your budget?

 

[chialea]

There's always the option that my bf and I agreed to before we started dating: we're going to have somewhere to dance (we're salsero/as) and a band, and dress up somewhat nicely, but beyond that it'll likely be potluck and people can just come have fun. Weddings in general have too many details from me, and it seems to detract from the meaning of the occasion. This varies widely person-to-person, of course, but for me the important parts are standing up in fromt of some friends and family and saying we're going to spend our lives together, and all of us being happy about this together. Perhaps it would help to think about what you really want to get out of this, and figure out what's extraneous to you? Maybe this would give you more place options (like a park)?

I've been threatened with dire things if I elope, though, (by my mom) so I would have to say that threats of grevious bodily harm should perhaps be considered as well in your wedding plans.

 

[Nicrez]

Chialea, I AGREE!!! I would LOVE to elope, though I want to have some friends and family there to make the ocassion extra special. I am trying to kill all the details that actually detract from the joy of the day and let me enjoy the emotional and exciting new phase that will begin in life!

Parks ARE a great way to save money and have a unique wedding. Also, my friend contracted the Women's Republican offices in NYC for her reception and not only did she get it cheap, but we're talking RIGHT next to Rockefeller Center, and the place was SO elegant and lavish we all thought she paid a fortune and she paid half of a catering hall's price! They did offer catering, but she provided the rental tables, with linens that she priced out and made all the runners for the table, the centerpieces, and all this in a span of 9 months.

Her was detailed and LOVELY, so she was hardcore. E-mails, and persistance and reasearch!! Good luck!!!

 

[phoenixgirl]

Hi,

Have you found a place by now?

I had trouble finding a place too. I don't mean to insult anyone, but some people are engaged for a long ass time! We've always felt that being engaged should mean that you were dying and ready to be married and would just leave yourselves enough time to make all the plans, but other people, especially if they live together, seem to put it off for years. As long as they're already comfortable living together (which I am not looking down on at all . . . I'm not morally against it, it would just be a pain to have family members disapprove, and we can both afford our own places, although he's here most nights), I guess there's no rush. But still, my fiance and I both said that we would never have a wedding so far off that we'd have to stipulate the year when telling people the date. You should just be able to say the month, not "October of 2006."

Anyway, we finally found a country club that a family friend is sponsoring us at. A coworker told me that she didn't even have to have a sponsor to get another private country club -- the club assigned her one (then what's the point?). Have you checked out country clubs?

I know how you feel. I was so desperate I called the Holiday Inn. And not a nice downtown one either, a suburban motelish one. And it was booked!

 

[Mara]

Everyone has various reasons for waiting on engagements/weddings, but I agree that 2-3 years off or something is a little too long for me. We did a year and a half which was a bit too long, a year would have been perfect, but we wanted time to save so the fall was out of the question...and so that just naturally meant spring but well into spring so that the weather would not be dodgy. So that just ended up being a year and a half..sometimes the month/weather plays into things as well as saving and/or time for planning.




Some venues are actually booking 2-3 years out here in SF Bay! Our photographer is getting bookings for 2005, 2006, 2007 etc! So everyone has their own way of doing things. I think what would worry me are some couples that are engaged for years and don't even have a DATE! My neighbor is like that...I asked why they are waiting and he gave me some sketchy answer about her schooling and something else. But why do you need to wait for schooling to finish? Kind of odd and I didn't press.

 

[chialea]

about the schooling thing... I'm in exactly that situation. as to why we're getting engaged, it's a choice we made, to publically commit (which is particularly useful when looking for professorships -- the reasons behind this I won't get into here).

however, I promised myself long ago that I'd finish my PhD before getting married. I'm stubborn, and it's the way I was raised. thus, since I'm in a PhD program, I can't put a precise date on when I'm going to graduate, only an estimated one. of course, we'll marry quite soon after -- it's only the PhD that's variable!

 

[Genafrgh]

I agree that there are too many details when it comes to planning a wedding. It's supposed to be meaningful in that you're professing your lifelong love, but then it starts getting fouled up by the fact that most halls request you give them 12-18 months notice. And forget it if you're not a religious person; you want the person who marries you to have some meaning, not just any ol' JP, and if you don't belong to some established religion upon which you visit regularly, you have to get creative.
The best book I've found on getting creative & thinking out of the box, so to speak, with wedding planning is the "Anti-Bride Guide". It gives all sorts of suggestions as to where you can have the reception, etc.
I've been engaged for a year & a half with no wedding in sight due to financial difficulties. We bought a house first, which doesn't leave much money for the very expensive wedding. THe U.S. ave. for a wedding is $20,000! I'm sorry, but I think that is just terrible, you don't want to start your life together in debt!

 

[Nicrez]

I TOTALLY agree. I know people who went into major debt just to put on a great wedding front. What is THAT about? Me personally, I would rather exclude all the details, like flowergirls and party favors, just to be able to have a better honeymoon or a bigger down payment for a house. Plus, extra schooling, for both of us will cost us a pretty penny, so a big fancy wedding is just a financial nightmare we aren't willing to have.

If it were up to me entirely, I would just elope with a few friends to a gorgoues troical island and do it there, no frills, no fancy things, just him and I and our closest... (I am still pushing for that...)

 

[foundnemo]

I'd love to get married ASAP but if I want to have our dream wedding then we'll have to wait to save up for it. Also, the hotel is already booked for our choice date and it's usually booked two years in advance for a wedding. We could compromise and change the date and the day or the time, but I had always wanted our wedding to be by the ocean on a Saturday afternoon and have a nice sit-down dinner.

Sometimes I wonder if it's spending too much just for a few hours event, but it's only once in a lifetime, right? (Besides, we can't really spend LESS on our wedding than on my engagement ring?!) It had crossed my mind to just elope but I think our parents and siblings will be deeply disappointed (and deep down inside perhaps I will too).

So, while we can get married now, we'd rather get married later without compromising what we (I?

) want for our wedding.