Planning a wedding f'ing sucks.

y2pascoe

Why do women turn into irrational, unreasonable suck-monsters when it comes to planning their wedding? The estimate my fiance got for the flowers she picked equals the cost of 75% of the venue, and she wants my mother to pay for the guests she wants to invite on top of the money my parents are already contributing. FML.

Steve2010

My wife was awesome about it. I told her "we're getting married by Elvis in Las Vegas". She said OK, and we did.

beatnic

I see trouble on the horizon. I'm just sayin. Hehe. If I have one tip to offer you it is to keep the decisions between you and her, and don't, I repeat, don't let one family make any decisions that affect the other. Those have to come from you 2. Good luck. Oh, and the wedding will fly by, everything will be wrong (from her point of view), and you will have just enough of a buzz on to deal with it.

The Sniper

My advice - keep reminding her that every dollar saved on the wedding is another dollar that can be put towards a kick-azz honeymoon.

Additionally, beginning a marriage with a low bank account or, worse yet, a mountain of debt is NOT a good thing.

Best of luck my friend.

robbyras

My wife and I were engaged for almost 2 years so we could have a "do it yourself" wedding, which we did... but the planning was almost unbearable... at the 6 month mark, I told her that if we make it through the wedding we'll make it through anything... I've been there my friend and fairly recently, so if you need to vent, let me know...

doromath

Hang in there. Remember that compromise is a pillar of many stable relationships. It's easy to lose sight of things during weddings, because they're typically "for the bride", but the fact is that this is a major expenditure and decision for both of you. Don't bite your tongue - express your opinions and concerns and work through them as a couple. It's good practice for later

Also, I fully agree with getting as little help from family as possible. My wife and I did ours with only minor help (it wasn't necessary, but appreciated) as this was about us and with money, usually comes ownership. We didn't want anyone with a say but us.

Here's a tip too: You will very likely find yourselfs 3-5 days away from the wedding with a list of things that still need to be done. It will be long and filled with things that should be "easy". If you get to that point and feel stressed about getting everything done, then burn the list and take whatever close family are in town out for a round of drinks. If it wasn't important enough to get done weeks in advance it just wasn't that important.

Bombay

I am sitting here laughing becuase all of it is true....I heard from a friend that if you can get through the planning of a wedding then you can get through marriage and secondly Doromath is right. wednesday night before the wedding, hella people in town I was sitting on the couch doing sh%^ for the wedding and looked over and said if it ain't done by midnight tonight it ain't getting done and I really don't care, I didn't do a thing on thusday and friday before the wedding.

jgibv

Best of luck to you and your fiance as you plan your wedding. So many decisions to make & things to do.

We are currently planning our wedding as well (for this fall) and have managed to keep our sanity (so far).
We're keeping the guest list short and everything pretty simple....but it sound like you might have a few more guests and not have that luxury - either way, good luck and I'm sure everything will fall into place.

Jetmech_63

The Sniper:

My advice - keep reminding her that every dollar saved on the wedding is another dollar that can be put towards a kick-azz honeymoon.

Additionally, beginning a marriage with a low bank account or, worse yet, a mountain of debt is NOT a good thing.

Best of luck my friend.

+1 I had to remind my wife of that when we were getting married. We still had a very nice wedding and reception but she turned into a complete bizznatch during the whole process, so much so i was having second thoughts. the 2 most stressful times i had with her were wedding planning and buying a house...

jasonusa1

Dude, walk away now. Seriously.

danielzreyes

The Sniper:

My advice - keep reminding her that every dollar saved on the wedding is another dollar that can be put towards a kick-azz honeymoon.

Additionally, beginning a marriage with a low bank account or, worse yet, a mountain of debt is NOT a good thing.

Best of luck my friend.

+1 on Being in debt as newlyweds. Thats not good. Remember though, she's been dreaming about this day since probably before her preteens. As long as you make her happy (with a budget) then it's a win win. That may sound near impossible, but that's the advice that I can give. Other than that.......
" Yes dear, sure dear, absolutely dear, anything you want dear"

Rail Jockey

Steve2010:

My wife was awesome about it. I told her "we're getting married by Elvis in Las Vegas". She said OK, and we did.

Got married in vegas also. Cost me about 600 bucks, then I won about 500. my wife and i and my family had a blast!

Unthought_Known

I'm planning a wedding for this August and thankfully my fiance is sane about the process. We'd like a buy a house in the near future and don't want to go overboard, and we're on the same page with that. The only real issue we've had is with the ceremony. We want to get married in a small ceremony at SF City Hall (about a dozen people) on Friday, with a larger reception at a normal wedding venue on Saturday. My mom insists that I have to invite the entire family (and her friends) to the ceremony because they're flying in from NY. "If they're flying across the country to see you get married, you have to let them actually see you get married. They can't just get an invitation to the reception." So even though you're only allowed a few people at city hall, I'll wind up with over 50 guests. I'm not comfortable with it and my fiance isn't comfortable with it, but sometimes you just have to give your mother what she wants. I just told her that she has to make the plans for that. I'm not blocking a room in SF for that Thursday night, I'm not telling people where to stand during the ceremony, and I'm not getting involved if they tell us we can't have that many people there. She can deal with that headache - I'm just showing up, saying my vows, then taking pictures.

Ken Light

"turn into"? Did I miss something? ;D

OchoZacho

I had 4 months, $5,000 and 350 guests. I am truly truly blessed to have a wonderfully calm and understanding wife (then fiance) and friends and family to help. We had a full reception, dinner, dj, dancing the whole 9 yards. With very very careful planning and hard work a big wedding on a low budget is possible. We made all of the food ourselves and froze it. Friends served it and ran the bar. Shopped around for flowers, made our centerpieces from candles and empty wine bottle and flowers, shopped around for a reasonable dj and worked extremely hard TOGETHER to get it done. It was a great time just learning how to work together towards a common goal for us. You will be fine and it will be over before you know it. I know all days consist of 24 hours, but I think the day i got married went by in 12. Best of luck to you!

Steve2010

Rail Jockey:

Steve2010:

My wife was awesome about it. I told her "we're getting married by Elvis in Las Vegas". She said OK, and we did.

Got married in vegas also. Cost me about 600 bucks, then I won about 500. my wife and i and my family had a blast!

I did the big wedding thing with my first wife. It was doomed from the start. The wedding in Las Vegas was ZERO stress.

clearlysuspect

Yeah, sorry guys don't know the feeling. Hope everything turns out well for you though. My girl and I decided to just skip the whole wedding/get married thing. Maybe one day. We've been together for almost 6 years, we have a beautiful little girl, and hopefully we'll be closing on a home here in the next month. We just didn't feel the need to complicate things. I call her my wife, she calls me her husband, we share in everything, and that's that!

JDH

After going through two weddings in the last 5 years, as father of the bride, I have come to the conclusion that weddings are an almost perfect reflection of American culture these days: an excessively extravagant show of wealth (whether real or imagined), and shallow, self-absorbed expressions of vanity with almost no connection to the purpose of commitment required by the act of marriage. My advice to anyone getting married is to have a small, sincere ceremony, a modest honeymoon, and save the $$$ for more important things. Commitment to each other is the only thing that matters, and all the hoopla and stress of these “events” is, in my opinion, little more than an embarrassing expression of materialistic narcissism.

jlmarta

JDH:

After going through two weddings in the last 5 years, as father of the bride, I have come to the conclusion that weddings are an almost perfect reflection of American culture these days: an excessively extravagant show of wealth (whether real or imagined), and shallow, self-absorbed expressions of vanity with almost no connection to the purpose of commitment required by the act of marriage. My advice to anyone getting married is to have a small, sincere ceremony, a modest honeymoon, and save the $$$ for more important things. Commitment to each other is the only thing that matters, and all the hoopla and stress of these “events” is, in my opinion, little more than an embarrassing expression of materialistic narcissism.

Well said, my friend. I couldn't agree more.

clearlysuspect

JDH:

After going through two weddings in the last 5 years, as father of the bride, I have come to the conclusion that weddings are an almost perfect reflection of American culture these days: an excessively extravagant show of wealth (whether real or imagined), and shallow, self-absorbed expressions of vanity with almost no connection to the purpose of commitment required by the act of marriage. My advice to anyone getting married is to have a small, sincere ceremony, a modest honeymoon, and save the $$$ for more important things. Commitment to each other is the only thing that matters, and all the hoopla and stress of these “events” is, in my opinion, little more than an embarrassing expression of materialistic narcissism.

You and I seem to seldom agree. This is not one of those instances! These are my exact feelings on weddings and marriage these days.

JDH

FYI - my wife & I have been married for over 36 years. Our "ceremony" was so small that there were fewer than 2 dozen people attending. We did not have a honeymoon, but we had commitment, and the vows were sincere.

Theedge

You folks spend more time planning weddings than anyone in my family spends being engaged. My brother got married a year back, first time for both of them. No flowers, no band, cookies and punch were served. I guess he was lucky and married a penny pincher. I heard she was clothes shopping at the goodwill last week. They aren't hurting for money. Pretty much the same story with my sister, but we did go to a little steak house.

gmill880

It will be 30 years for me and my wife this December . Only family that offered either one of us money ... her side for her ... for her NOT to marry me because I was 23 and she was 18 and they thought I was a dirty old man !!! We all have a big laugh over it now but I didn't think it was f'in funny at all 30 years ago LMAO ( Now ) !!!

laker1963

gmill880:

It will be 30 years for me and my wife this December . Only family that offered either one of us money ... her side for her ... for her NOT to marry me because I was 23 and she was 18 and they thought I was a dirty old man !!! We all have a big laugh over it now but I didn't think it was f'in funny at all 30 years ago LMAO ( Now ) !!!

The funny part is that now you are a dirty old man eh Gene? LOL

gmill880

laker1963:

gmill880:

It will be 30 years for me and my wife this December . Only family that offered either one of us money ... her side for her ... for her NOT to marry me because I was 23 and she was 18 and they thought I was a dirty old man !!! We all have a big laugh over it now but I didn't think it was f'in funny at all 30 years ago LMAO ( Now ) !!!

The funny part is that now you are a dirty old man eh Gene? LOL

I hadn't thought about it but you are absolutely correct my friend lol !!!

clearlysuspect

Theedge:

You folks spend more time planning weddings than anyone in my family spends being engaged. My brother got married a year back, first time for both of them. No flowers, no band, cookies and punch were served. I guess he was lucky and married a penny pincher. I heard she was clothes shopping at the goodwill last week. They aren't hurting for money. Pretty much the same story with my sister, but we did go to a little steak house.

See, I definately have a total penny pincher! She always calls me the woman in the relationship because I have lavish hobbies like golf, cigars, wine, and scotch. She's a little tom-girl from the country and if I let her get away with it, would wear pajama pants, a hoody, and some flip-flops everywhere she went! Don't get me wrong, she fixes up really nice, she just never would if I wasn't on her about it.

For some reason though, I have this feeling that if we ever do get married, she's going to completely flip script on me when it comes to the wedding. I don't think she'll go overboard on cost, but she will want everything planned to perfection!

Shaun.Harrison87

I'm going through the wedding plans currently as well, 6 months out for me. It's no wonder money problems account for over 50% of divorces.

JDH

y2pascoe:

Why do women turn into irrational, unreasonable suck-monsters when it comes to planning their wedding? The estimate my fiance got for the flowers she picked equals the cost of 75% of the venue, and she wants my mother to pay for the guests she wants to invite on top of the money my parents are already contributing. FML.

Could it be that deep down women are really irrational, unreasonable suck-monsters? Nah.......I didn't say that!

ENFIDL

I'm planning mine right now as well man. I'm about 6 months out and honestly besides the guy who owns the venue it hasn't been bad at all. My fiance and I have tackled everything as a team and when one of us think one thing is too expensive or that we should do something different we talk about it and find a nice middle ground. Then again I'm getting married in a tuxedo t-shirt so I'm a pretty lucky guy to have someone that chill lol Best of luck to you guys on getting it all planned!

gmill880

ENFIDL:

I'm planning mine right now as well man. I'm about 6 months out and honestly besides the guy who owns the venue it hasn't been bad at all. My fiance and I have tackled everything as a team and when one of us think one thing is too expensive or that we should do something different we talk about it and find a nice middle ground. Then again I'm getting married in a tuxedo t-shirt so I'm a pretty lucky guy to have someone that chill lol Best of luck to you guys on getting it all planned!

tuxedo t-shirt and " The Shorts " ... right ???

ENFIDL

gmill880:

ENFIDL:

I'm planning mine right now as well man. I'm about 6 months out and honestly besides the guy who owns the venue it hasn't been bad at all. My fiance and I have tackled everything as a team and when one of us think one thing is too expensive or that we should do something different we talk about it and find a nice middle ground. Then again I'm getting married in a tuxedo t-shirt so I'm a pretty lucky guy to have someone that chill lol Best of luck to you guys on getting it all planned!

tuxedo t-shirt and " The Shorts " ... right ???

No I have to wear pants, they're jeans, and a black blazer with it.