As others have mentioned, you have to talk with your future wife about that. If she is going for that BIG wedding that you dread so much (which I’ve read somehow between the lines), you have to find a compromise that will suit both of you well. You will have to make many of those compromises in your future marriage anyway, so that’s a good way to start.
I would say try to make it as personal as possible. If your future wife insists on a wedding that’s a clone of whatever’s trendy, well, you’ll know in future what’s important to her.
The only fun weddings I’ve ever attended have been the most personal – the most attuned to the personalities of the wedding couple themselves… not what the wedding planner is pushing this season.
No, she doesn’t want a big-bash wedding; a modest one is OK with her. But even a “modest” wedding still entails 90-150 people, a whole lot of preparation, speeches, toasts, dancing in front of the gaze of an entire audience, etc…which to a strongly anti-social person like me still gives the heebie-jeebies.
Wait, didn’t you posted a question asking how people avoid marriage in long term relationships? Now you’re getting married. I don’t know if I find it funny or feel sorry for your girlfriend.
Could you elaborate a little more on what you dislike or dread? I have some contradictory thoughts about the best way to handle it depending on whether it’s the planning or the pomp and circumstance of the day itself you want to minimize.
I’m always a little dubious when I get an invitation, because I really don’t like most weddings. I put a lot of work into taking those elements out of my wedding and had a great time. There was no obnoxious DJ announcing the bouquet toss with “Single Ladies” or making us play the shoe game. Everyone was greeted with a drink before the ceremony, which automatically made it more tolerable. Between the ceremony and reception, instead of an interminable photo shoot with every conceivable combination of relatives and bridal party members, my new husband and I observed the Jewish tradition of a yichud, or sneaking off to a private room to spend some time alone together. We snuck a Dan Savage reference into our vows, which exactly two people got, but they still laugh about it three years later.
The planning was a lot of work, though, even though my mom did most of the heavy lifting. A backyard wedding may sound simple, but it’s actually a lot more complicated than going with a venue. If I had to do it again on my own, I’d just get one of those generic packages and grit my teeth.
I was a hotel banquet server and have attended my share of weddings, and I have NEVER seen ANYONE do that. I have known a few people who said that happened, and the wedding album was evidence that they told the truth, and all of them divorced after unhappy and often abusive marriages.
We were discussing this on another site, and several people (okay, women) said that they told their husbands in premarital counseling that if he did that, she would walk out of the reception and demand an annulment. They knew he wouldn’t behave so disrespectfully, but they did want to make their opinions clear.
p.s. To the OP: Just get married at the courthouse. Have a party later if you really want to.
Yikes! You call a wedding with 90-150 people a modest one :eek:? I rather thought of a compromise between that kind of thing and a modest wedding in the circle of your closest family, only parents and siblings.
having been in a vow renewal wedding that wasn’t mine (my mom and my stepdad pretty much a fiasco from start to finish much like the actual marriage ) id prefer the drive-thru ta the chapel o’ Elvis in las wages (vegas)
I agree with the “smoke as much weed as you can often as you can” advice
Admittedly, I’ve only seen it at one, 7 years ago. And the couple is still happily married. But my thoughts are/were still, “Why?”
Mr. Salinqmind and I eloped decades ago. There were several good reasons for this. One of them was, I could not bear the idea of planning a typical wedding. All that picking out a gown, and alterations, and color scheme, bridesmaids, music, venue. Could not bear it. Mr. Salinqmind and I had bought a house and I didn’t want to be a live-in; he said do whatever I wanted, just tell him when and where to show up. So, eloping it was - we went to the Justice of the Peace’s house on a Saturday morning with two witnesses, wearing our best office clothes, went out to breakfast, and were back at work on Monday. I don’t know if I would do that again, if I had to do it all over, a lot of people were mad about it, but at the time, there were reasons. Not much of a wedding, but I’ve heard of worse things.
It depends on your culture. Where I come from, 90-150 people is intimate, 150-300 modest, and 300-600 average.
Actually, I think the OP would prefer a 500-guest wedding, albeit probably not financially. Weddings of that size are self-perpetuating parties, and the bride and groom tend to get swallowed up in the fray. Getting 500 people to listen to a speech is like herding cats, so why bother?
My wedding had 350 people or so, and after the ceremony, my wife and I generally just partied with our friends.
Perhaps this is key. We tend to think of weddings as gatherings of at least a hundred (or more) people, ranging from Mom and Dad to great-uncles and aunts, to third-cousins-twice-removed, to the neighbors. In a way, it’s like public speaking: you’re the centre of attention (okay, as the groom, you’re the second centre of attention), and you don’t want to make a mistake, and you’re nervous about the hundred-plus people–many of whom you do not know that well–watching you.
The solution? Ignore all those people by not inviting them. Keep the wedding small.
At my own wedding, which had all of twenty guests, we deliberately chose not to invite all kinds of relatives. We got a little pushback on this from various relatives, most of them distant (one third cousin twice removed phoned us to ask, “We invited you to our wedding, and now you won’t let us attend yours?”), but our budget simply would not allow a big (i.e. a 100+ guest) wedding. Outside of closest relatives, such as my Dad and my aunt and my bride’s sister, all the other guests were friends.
I could easily be relaxed and casual among close relatives and friends. Nobody whom I did not know well was there–and I didn’t need to worry about second-cousin Rob the Known Drunk, whom I saw only at weddings and funerals, making a fool of himself. I actually enjoyed the day.
OP, how would you–and just as importantly, your fiancee–feel about a small wedding?
There is no law that a reception has to have dancing. I went to one that didn’t - the floors couldn’t handle it or something.
The thing about really big weddings, though, is that nobody really cares about the bride and groom. They’re just a formality you have to observe before you get to par-tay. So there’s not much pressure on the whole speech and first dance thing, because most people aren’t really paying any attention to you. It’s actually pretty liberating.
If I hear someone was at a wedding, you know what the first thing I ask is? How the food was. After they’re done with that, I ask about the dancing and the venue, and at the end, if I remember, I ask about the bride and groom - and which point they usually shrug and say that they looked like a bride and a groom, what do you want me to say?
That’s not a requirement. We dispensed with a lot of the traditional “wedding” stuff - no bridesmaids/groomsmen, showers, bachelor party, daddy/daughter dance, “first dance” - well, we kind of did a first dance, but it was the two of us for about 10 seconds because we picked a tune that we knew would get everyone up and dancing. (Several of the guests were part of a Balkan dance troupe that was instrumental in facilitating the beginning of our relationship.)
Do what is meaningful to the two of you - you don’t have to do things just because “everyone else does.” Of course, if the bride wants these things, that’s another story…good luck with that!
I’m sorry, I need to set the record straight about something. I looked up my old thread just to see if my memory was accurate, and no, it wasn’t. The fine people of the Dope did not tell me to suck it up, and gave me various ideas about how dancing might be avoided. It seems that in the end I caved in to pressure from the people I know in real life, so that’s all my own fault.
Wife and I were not interested in a big fabulous wedding. We got married by ourselves at a Las Vegas casino. Sounds cheesy like that, but it was a nice outdoor-garden venue, and she had a nice-but-budget-friendly wedding dress, and I had a rented tux. The only people at the ceremony were the officiant, the casino’s wedding coordinator, a violin player, and the photographer. After the ceremony, we had a photo session at some of the flashier spots around the casino, took a nap in the afternoon, had a nice dinner, and then that evening we went to a Cirque du Soleil show in our wedding attire. All in all it was a good day.
OP, you gotta check with your wife and see just how minimalist she’s willing to go. Maybe she’d be OK with something like this?
We did. It’s by far the best photo from the wedding. My wife’s rule was not in her hair. which I avoided nicely as she ground cake into my face. We almost to 7 years and doing well.
Remember feeding cake to each other is weird having a food fight is fun.
You have to talk to your fiancé about this. What are her expectations for the wedding? If they conflict with yours, which I’m going to assume is the case, either you can come to an agreement on it (she tempers her expectations and you put up with a few you’d rather not), or she understands that this planning process is on HER.
If you decide you’re good with her planning exactly what she wants and figure you’ll just deal with it, maybe schedule things that you find relaxing or enjoyable throughout this process, including after the wedding? Your fiancé shouldn’t force things like a bachelor party or a wedding shower on you if that’s not your thing. She can do those if she wants, but if it doesn’t directly involve you don’t feel like you NEED to contribute.
Depending upon your personal beliefs, and those expected by the family, do it all at one venue.
Some like a formal church wedding followed by a reception somewhere else. You lose people by moving from the church to the reception. And the church is not the place for people, who may not have seen each other for years, to socialize. They may see someone that they want to talk to a few aisles over and never get to.
We had ours at one venue, with a one hour social hour before the wedding. The guests arrive, are greeted by the bride and groom, and people visited for an hour. Snacks, drinks, and talking to family and friends, like one big family reunion, because that is what it is, not a reunion, but a union of two groups of family and friends. By the time of the ceremony all were enjoying the day.
Then we stopped, held the traditional wedding that everyone expects, followed by the reception, dancing, etc. We got rave reviews for this idea and everyone had a great time. So much more relaxed for everyone involved. Over-planning leads to expectations that just cannot be met.
Maybe something like that would ease your concerns. It actually was the best day of our lives.