Another wedding advice thread

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been reading the wedding threads here so thought I’d ask my questions. We are getting married on July 4th next year, so I’ll probably bump this thread for other advice as more questions/problems happen.

My first one: I’m going to get married 2 states away, and its possible (very likely) that I’ll move to that state in a couple of months.

I want to have a party for my local friends. Not a gift grab, but a celebration with friends. What can I call the party? My victim and I have all of the stuff we want/need but I’ve read that no registery means that we just want money…which we don’t. We just want to have a party with friends.

I’m planning to mail invitations for the party, but I’m not sure what I should call it. Do formal invitations mean that I’m asking for gifts/money or should I just email everyone? I do want to do the right thing. I also want to know how many people we are going to feed, I would be terrible embarressed if there wasn’t enough food for everyone. Can I demand RSVP’s through email?

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Will your party be before or after your wedding? Are your local friends invited to the wedding? Can you just invite people to a party and not call it anything, and then just tell everyone at the party how much you enjoy their company? If it’s after the wedding and you want to call it something, call it a reception. That really just means you’re receiving guests - no one has to show up in a gown with a big white cake.

No registry doesn’t mean you’re asking for money. I didn’t register and my nephew hasn’t registered. It means that people who are giving you gifts get to pick out something they’d like you to have. Sometimes it’s money. You can’t really say to your guests that you don’t want money or gifts because the thought of gifts is not supposed to cross your mind. If you have an immediate family member that people might call to ask about it, like your mom, she can tell them.

It sounds like you just want to spend time with people you really like before you move. It sounds nice. Emailing is a lot more casual than mail, and that may be what you’re going for. You can certainly ask for a head count through email, and that’s probably the easiest for everyone.

3

Call it a party, and send invitations but don’t go overformal (no caligraphed parchments with your coats of arms, hey?). And yes, you can ask for responses through email.

4

My local friends will be invited to the wedding and reception. I doubt that many of them will be able to attend, I certainly don’t expect them to take a time off work and fly to Houston for it. This is why I want to have a party for them.

My Matron of Honor is a very classy lady, who will tell anyone who asks that the party is because I want to celebrate with them and not that I want gifts.

We are now discussing plated vs buffet food. I like plated food better, but some of my friends are big eaters who might want to go through the buffet line a couple of times. Opinions, please.

A couple of my friends have severe food allergies, so they will get special food. I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable which is another reason I am leaning towards plated food. However, the ones who want a second dish might be embarrassed over getting another plate.

Every other party I’ve planned has been buffet and beer. My victim wants to impress them with his ability to provide for them.

Nava, I guess I shouldn’t use my kitty footprint note cards for the invitations? Bummer. Can I put kitty paw sprinkles in the invites

5

I would always go for buffet, it’s just easier to manage the wide variety of food preferences that you will find in any large gathering of people. You can have vegetarian-friendly options, pickier eaters can make a huge plate of plain rice if they want, people with allergies can avoid what they can’t eat and eat more of another dish, that kind of thing. If you’re worried about people RSVPing, it’s much easier to be flexible about the number of guests with a buffet. You can still have an extremely high-end buffet, if that is what you are after.

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Very good points,** delphica**. The buffets I’ve had in the past were always well recieved. We do them for the Marine Corp Ball, which is the most formal occasion I’ve ever attended.

I just want to be sure that everyone has enough to eat and has a good time.

My victim wants me to be happy, so his contribution is his credit card. Of course, he wants beef and lots of it. I’m the one who wants shrimp and salad.

Next question. We are getting married on the 4th of July. I want peach and turquoise for our colors. My victim thinks that we need to do red white and blue because of the date. Opinoins, please?

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Oh please, for the love of all that is holy and sacred, don’t do that to yourselves.

If you’re brave, look up patriotic themed weddings on google. It gets bad. Neither of you want to be that couple.

If you really want to show out, if the state you’re marrying in allows fireworks, give all of your guests sparklers to hold and let them sparkle at you rather than throwing rice or flowers. :smiley: Bonus points if it’s at night so they can write words in the air with the sparkle flares and smoke trails.

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Yeah, just make sure everything is properly labled.

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If you go for a buffet, remember that the caterers plan for a certain amount of food per guest. If some of your friends go through and really load their plates the way I have seen some people do, the people going at the end will have few or no choices.

I like plated food only because I hate sitting there waiting for my table to be dismissed to the buffet, if it’s a formal type affair, or trying to decide when I should go to the table if it’s not as formal and it’s my choice when to go. My husband loves buffets because he is one of those guys who would fill his plate sky high if I wasn’t here to make him stop. He will be first in line for seconds, too.

What will be easiest for you?

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If this happens at an event, you have a very shitty caterer. The majority of weddings I’ve been to (including my own) were buffets, and this never happened. There was plenty of food for seconds, and thirds if people wanted.

Plated food is always lukewarm, and, despite the higher price you pay for it, usually inferior in quality to a buffet by the time it gets to each guest, because it takes too long to serve. The higher price you pay for plated food is for the staff needed to serve it, not for for the food.

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Congratulations!! :smiley:

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Its a reception or open house. Or, if you want “party” is fine.

Technically, its tacky to mention gifts on the invitation at all, but I am of the opinion that “no gifts” is acceptable. “We only desire the pleasure of your company, no gifts please.”

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I’m confused, are you seeking advice for your wedding? (How big will it be? What’s the venue?) or the ‘party’ for friends unlikely to attend the wedding? (Again, how many people, what will the venue be - basic starting points for offering advice.

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Lasciel HOLY COW!!! Red, white and blue is totally off the table now. Some of them were worse than terrible. But, to be honest, some of the other themed wedding pics were terrible. Disney weddings? Really?

I think that peach is a very flattering color, I want my attendents to be able to wear their dresses more than once.

Pai325 Thank you for the advice. I will discuss the big eaters with the caterers and if they want extra money for that, so be it. I want our guests to have a good time, which means I want them to eat as much as they want.

I like plated food better for the reasons you mentioned, my Matron of Honor says that a buffet will be the way to go.

Queen Tonya Thank you! I’m really excited and happy. Of course, its not official yet. Yes, I have the ring, and a on bended knee proposal. Yes, the announcements have been published in both of our newspapers. Yes, we’ve booked the venue. But…and this is a big but…his cat hasn’t met mine. If the cats don’t approve, everything is off. :smiley:

elbows I’m only starting to plan, there will be lots of wedding questions as well.

The party for my friends will be at a historic hotel in Prescott. Looking at my list, I’m expecting about 150 people.

The wedding and formal reception will be in Houston, my victim has already booked that place. This isn’t going to be my day, it will be OUR day and he knows the venues there. He already knew where he wanted to have it. I’ll be flying out in a couple of weeks and we will go to see it. I’m sure it will be beautiful.

I’m considering hiring a wedding planner, but I’ve read some pretty awful stories about them. I know that people complain more than they compliment, but how can I find a good one?

About my wedding dress…I have seen some beautiful wedding dresses at thrift stores. I’m a tree hugger, I try to reuse, repair, recycle. Would it be tacky to buy a thrift store dress that I love and have it cleaned and altered, or should I buy something new that I’ll never wear again?

I have only been a bridesmaid once, and the attendent gift was jewellry that I was expected to wear at the wedding. Is this standard? I haven’t worn that jewellry since, but I also got rid of the dress right away. It had a big buttbow…where’s the puky smiley?

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There are all sorts of archived awful themed wedding pictures online. I really can’t imagine what people were thinking most of the time.

Suggestion for bridesmaids dresses - if you really want them to be able to wear them more than once, go to a local hardware store and visit their paint-chip section. Pick out about half-a-dozen peachish shades of paint chip that all look good with each other. Range from really light barely there blush, to that almost tangerine color. Then take as many of each chip as you have bridesmaids and honor maid, hole-punch them, tie them with a ribbon, and give them to your maids with your blessing to find a dress that they like that matches one of those colors. It is helpful at this point for the maids to know what level of formality the wedding will be, but otherwise, let them decide their dress because they’ll know (or have strong opinions about) what looks good on them, and what they like to wear (the two aren’t always the same thing).

It wouldn’t be tacky, but you want to be careful about what you get. If you are getting from a consignment shop or from a “never worn” dress place, that’s one thing, but if you’re actually getting previously-worn dresses, take a hair-dryer with you when you go look. You don’t want to be the person who buys a dress, gets it home, wears it while it’s being altered, and THEN notices the nearly-cat-pee-level underarm stank that’s permanently etched into the polyester fabric of the bodice. (pukey smiley indeed!) Bring the hair dryer, be honest that you’re checking for scents (it could also be something like awful perfume - that happened to an acquaintance, and it gave her a migraine! :frowning: and make sure that you check those suckers carefully. Be willing to consider dresses that aren’t exactly wonderful if something easy could be changed to make them so.

My wedding dress was bought at a discount place, and the very first thing I did when I bought it was divest it of the three ginormous “cat toys” (random pendants of feathers, tulle, and lacey shit - they really did look like cat toys) attached to the chest !! and hips. That dress looked 1000% better after those horrid things were gone.

I’ve gotten bridesmaid jewelery once. It was meh. The pictures of all of us in our matching jewelry and similar hairstyles and all-of-one-fabric-but-different-style dresses were really very pretty. I have one on my fridge, and I hate pictures of myself. On the downside, the jewelry wasn’t my style (or really, any of the maids’ style) so we all ditched it afterwards.

Get something useful and pretty like a monogrammed jewelry case, or certificates to a local spa. Unless you really really know your maids’ personal preferences for personal adornment, you’re not going to get that right, and it won’t be enjoyed or used.

16

I consulted with the “learn me a book” kitty currently grazing my computer’s desktop and she says that kitty stationery is ok, but!

Its use must be accompanied to scritches to any kitties in the household. Those are absolutely compulsory unless you wish the party to be a complete disaster due to the presence of scritches-deprived felines.

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There’s nothing at all tacky about recycling wedding dresses, it’s a great idea on so many levels. Just beware of hidden potential problems and follow the wise advice of Lasciel when shopping. That’s a good time to bring your pickiest most blunt friend along to help you shop.

Jewelry is a pretty standard bridesmaid gift, with engraved key fobs, money clips and flasks being bog standard for groomsmen. The mani/pedi or spa day would have been a lot more fun for me the few times I was a bridesmaid. Photos are plenty memento enough, no need for additional swag.

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Not an attempt to discourage you, but something to keep in mind, is that this will really depend on your attendants’ skin tones. Personally I can’t wear anything with substantial yellow undertones (such as peach), because it picks up the yellow undertones in my skin and makes me look jaundiced. (I also can’t wear yellow without looking sick, obviously.) You can always ask your attendants about this, they’d know if there’s a color that looks awful on them.

Why is this even a question? It’s your dress, you’re paying for it, if there are any “shoulds” here, it should be what you want. Just do your due diligence when buying and check for tears, lost beads, or other flaws, so you can figure out if you have the means to do those repairs, or if you’re better off finding a different dress.

19

The kindness of strangers never fails to amaze me. I just got an PM from someone offering me her wedding dress. Which sounded beautiful, but was too small, so I had to refuse. Names won’t be mentioned, but that was such a kind and generous offer and I’m so grateful.

Lasciel, thank you so much for the excellent advice. I would have never thought about using a blowdryer to see if a pre-worn dress would smell when it gets hot. I also wouldn’t have thought about paint chips, I was going to go to a fabric store and get fabric. I so love the things I learn here.

I also like the idea of spa day certificates. My attendants will be flying to a strange city, sleeping in a hotel instead of their beds and eating out instead of home meals. They will deserve some pampering afterwards.

The wedding will be formal, and Bill will be buying the dresses. I think I’ll find several styles and let them pick which one they want to wear. My bridemaids are not shaped the same and I don’t expect them to suddenly look like clones for our special day. I’m planning to grow my boyshort hair out so I can have an up-do, I won’t ask my short haired friends to grow theirs out. I will ask the hairdresser to work with what she gets and try to make us look sort of the same.

Kaio, you have a very good point about the colors matching their skin tones. I’ve seen them all wearing pink at one time or another (I hates pink), so I think that peach will work. I will ask them. If not, we will discuss turquoise. Rose would work for me as well, so before I do anything else, I’ll be sure that my friends have colors they like and work from there.

As to the pre-owned dress question…well, this will be the first time I will be meeting most of Bill’s friends and co-workers. There is an age and money difference between us and I only get one chance to make a good first impression.

I don’t want them to go home and whisper that I’m a white trash trophy wife (gold digger)because of mistakes I’ve made. Bill can easily afford to buy me a new dress, it just bothers me to buy a new dress that I’m going to wear for a couple of hours and then put away forever. This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but its how I feel.

And yes, I do know that Bill’s friends will all be delightful people who will like me, or pretend to. Its his professional contacts that are scaring me. ( I might have ticked his boss off while Bill was recovering from heart surgery. I didn’t let Bill read his email, listen to demanding phone calls or do any work related stuff for 3 weeks.)

Does anyone have any experience with those beautiful antique lace dresses I see at estate sales? I fall in love with each one I see, but I worry that they will fall apart due to age.

Nava, there will be plenty of kitty scratches happening. Bill is flying out with his kitty next weekend. I do know how to suck up to kitties! (Actually, one of the discussions Bill and I have had is about my ratty kitty trees. Bill wants me to just trash them and buy new after I move. I think that will upset the cats, they need their stuff in their new home. I also plan to move their litterboxes instead of buying new ones.)

Now to shoes. One of my bridemaids wants high heels. I think this will be a mistake, but she insists that they look better. Do people really look at the shoes? Can that one have high heels and the rest and me wear flats or low heels? We will be buying the shoes and paying to have them dyed to match the dresses, but I want my attendents to be comfortable and still be able to wear the shoes later.

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“The people who matter won’t mind; the people who mind don’t matter.”