Please... give me wedding advice!

In My Humble Opinion
41

Breathe, honey, just breathe.

First of all, it doesn’t have to be like this. It’s your choice, really it is. Yes, I know your dad will be disappointed if you don’t have a wedding. That’s part of what you need to factor in when you make your choice. But it is still your choice, and if you accept that you’re choosing this, then you’ll feel a lot more empowered.

All you’re doing is throwing a party. If the porta-poties, permits and prayers are a deal breaker for you, then invite less people. Most home septics can handle a group of 60 or so for an evening, it’s unlikely you need a permit for that, and you can do what you want.

Seriously, at the end of the day, all that matters is that you and your honey are married. And you know what? Even that doesn’t matter all that much really - you love him and he loves you and frankly in the eyes of whomever matters (you and him), you’re already linked, aren’t you? A wedding is just a party to tell everyone else the great news - that you looked into his eyes one day and knew you wanted to be with him. That’s it. That’s the real wedding. This is just a party.

If it’s easier and dad will pay for it, hire a planner and be done with it. Just show up on the day and they’ll tell you where to stand. Believe it or not, lots of us (like most of us in the thread) really get off on planning stuff like this. You don’t have to!

42

Don’t sweat it too much. Think of a safe fall-back plan you can go back to if all your plans get out of hand. If it is buckets of KFC, a barrel of cold Buds and lawnmower polo, then that’s what it is. Once you know you have that choice available, you can start thinking of more elaborate things knowing you can always just give up on the whole thing and go back to the miniplan if you are getting too much of a headache.

That’s how we planned our wedding. We decided saying “I love you - I love you” at the beach and then walk to a local place for breakfast. It grew from there but we knew that whatever we either forgot or couldn’t be arsed to do was not critical as long as we could exchange rings at the beach and then eat something with whomever could be there.

In the end it was a lovely event. Beautiful ceremony at sunrise on the beach, delicious breakfast buffet (and open bar, don’t ask), most of our friends and family present, a fantastic chocolate wedding cake and a jolly good time had by all. So what if her brother was hospitalized, we put mine (inadvertently) in the junkiest hotel in town and the night before we had no flowers, no vows and no clue where our JOP was? We knew the basics where covered and the rest would either be there or be forgotten. It was as zero stress as possible.

Voice of experience talking? :slight_smile:

43

I just know the kind of pictures I’d take at a party with an open bar.
Ruby, a party with 150 guests is a big deal, wedding or not. If you don’t plan it, the toilets overflow, you run out of beer, the yard is ruined and the cops come to break it up.

The wedding part can be easy, we got ours out of the way in 5 minutes, with our friends (ordained by an online church) doing the ceremony. Walk down the “aisle”, the guy blabs a couple of paragraphs about marriage, you say your vows, I do… I do, kiss the bride, YAY!

Once that’s out of the way, it’s just a party with a photo op or two (cutting the cake, etc.)

However, if you don’t put in the time to plan the party, you’ll have to deal with problems you didn’t anticipate. A stitch in time saves nine, and all that.

44

As someone who sells septic tanks, please don’t let people drive over yours…if so, it will certainly be a day you may never forget!

45

I didn’t read a lot of this thread, but I’m putting my two cents in because I planned my best friends very extravagant wedding, so this sounds a little simpler.

I’m going to concur with what someone else said - do NOT invite people you don’t want to share the wedding with to the wedding. Invite people you truly enjoy spending time with.

Do not bow down to anyone’s wishes. This is YOUR day.

The iPod idea is GREAT. I love it. Wedding music sucks anyway. Are you a Star Wars fan? A friend of mine walked down the aisle to the Imperial March - I suggest picking a song you really love that sums you and your relationship (or that you just really like) up to walk down the aisle to.

Catering isn’t actually that bad assuming you know you like the food from that place. If you like barbecue, get a barbecue place to come cater it. However, if you’ve got friends who are vegetarian that you want to come there, make allowances for that - not HUGE allowances, but make sure there’s veggies and stuff. Most carnivores will eat it too. It’s something a gracious host does.

As for the Bic idea, I kinda like it, but as you said, it seems kinda classless. If you decide not to go that route, my friends got match books printed up for relatively cheap with their names and wedding date. You can do this online - and it’s classy looking when it’s done.

I also like the Web site idea - if you don’t know what you’re doing, I’m a Web designer and I would be happy to set it up for you as a wedding gift. If you don’t want to do the Web site thing, that’s cool, too. It’s perfectly acceptable to put all of that information on the invite. I would say something like “The bride and groom request that attendees dress in casual, comfortable clothing.”

Port a potties are a good idea. Most likely your water or sewage company could refer you to a good, respectable place. They can run on the pricy side but they’re usually pretty reasonable.

Unless you live somewhere where July is overbearingly cold, I suggest getting a large EZ-up or something instead of a tent. Tents are HOT. You can usually book them from the same place you would book a tent from - check into it, and see if they would allow you to do something like set up for an EZ up awning and change to a tent in the event of inclement weather like rain or wind.

If you have a lot of friends, see if some of them could come over and help you with things. I got a party of friends together with some munchies and sodas, and we folded self-printed wedding invites and programs ourselves. It was actually kind of fun. I have no idea where you are located, but if it’s near where a bunch of Dopers are I’m willing to bet some of us would come over and help.

Also, if you want lots of pictures, we got disposable cameras and put a few on each table with instructions for the guests to take pictures and leave them with the family so that we could put together a scrap book. It turned out great - and if no one you know has a penchant for scrapbooking, I’m willing to bet someone on the Dope does (I do, so there’s bound to be someone else).

Most importantly, CALM DOWN. You have six months to plan this, and at least four of that is going to be getting the petty details settled. Don’t cave to anyone else - this is YOUR day. You’re going to be getting married to the person you’ll be spending the rest of your life with. You want it to be perfect for YOU, not your family.

Congratulations, by the way. :smiley: It’s not as hard as it seems - make a list and it makes it seem 10x easier because you can just cross off stuff you’ve done.

Best wishes.

~Tasha

46

Don’t let it turn into something you don’t want, I didn’t.

I seriously hate weddings with a passion. What I did both times was get married by our mayor with only immediate family in attendance.

I didn’t have 150, maybe 50 people but my first wedding was at my parents house which was large but it was outside with a tent that was rented. We used a catering service that had a couple waitresses, and bartender. And a DJ.

There were no chicken dances, etc. It was just more like a dinner party period or I wouldn’t have done it. No wedding song, none of that crap.

My second wedding I again got married by the mayor with just parents and immediate family and had dinner in a country club that we belong to. That was it.
Everyone had a great time, no crying, no speeches or I would have been the Runaway Bride.

47

This may sound counter-intuitive, but holding a casual party in the backyard for 150 may very well be MORE trouble for the bride than a formal wedding for 150 held at a banquet hall…because the banquet hall does most of the work for you! Forget the fact that it’s a wedding, as Cheesesteak points out, it’s not the wedding that’s the hard part, it’s the 150 people! The key to a wedding that is fun for YOU is to keep it simple and to get as much help as possible from professionals, so you don’t have to worry about most of it.

Since you aren’t into elaborate ceremonies, keep it short & sweet…but do the walk down the aisle for those who like it to seem “wedding-ish.” Really no extra planning for you, but makes it more of an “event.” Forget the song or the unity candle…a lot of that stuff is pretty hokey, and you clearly are not that type.

Keep the food simple, but get a caterer to do it, regardless of how simple it is. Here in Chicagoland, when someone wants to do a casual backyard meal, the caterer will send trays of mostaccioli & Italian beef sandwiches (don’t ask, it’s tradition here…BBQ would work just the same…have chicken breasts & BBQ porks sandwiches or some such.) I think a lot of times you can rent the tent, tables, & chairs through the caterer as well. They set it all up, the guests serve themselves, and the caterer takes it all away at the end.

Order finger desserts so you don’t have to have anyone cut cake.

Your plan for photography sounds good…just be sure whoever is “officially” taking photos gets the shots you want…write it down for her, so she is sure to know.

For music, if you don’t want dancing, don’t have it. But maybe have a friend make some mixes of good “party” music, just to be playing. Music helps set the mood you want.

Just don’t stress yourself out…it isn’t worth it. The idea is to have a fun, celebratory day for you and your guests. Having the kind of party you don’t want isn’t going to be fun for anyone.

48

Here’s some advice from me. My mom threw her own backyard wedding last year.

  • Don’t cater. As has been noted, the food quality sucks even if it’s expensive. Instead, can you pay a few friends - my mom paid my sister’s friends - to just be around to put out pre-made stuff? We ended up using those gigantic Ziplog bags - the ones as big as a suitcase - and put them in a big tote, and just tossed in ingredients for stuff like pasta salad (a whole bottle of dressing, containers of veggies, and so on.)

  • Costco or Sam’s Club! Costco’s cake is cheap and good for a sheet cake - you can get a small wedding cake as well and not have to feed it all to guests. Stuff is cheap enough you can buy one package in advance and see what you like. Costco or Sam’s has some great frozen hors 'deurves. They have great veggie trays. They had these mini cheesecakes in different flavors that went over quite well. They bought one of those things of mini-butter-pats that restaurants buy, and so on.

  • We did a lot of things for sandwiches; panini bread and croissants from Panera, meat and cheeses from Costco, huge condiment things from Costco, with egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, and so on. People liked it, though you could grill instead or also, if that’s your thing. Oh, they grilled some kind of slab of meat, but as the resident vegetarian, I wasn’t paying attention.

  • Rent tables and chairs from someplace, but for plates it was actually cheaper for us to buy them. My mom bought about 60 swirly, thick-plastic-that-looks-like-glass plates (looked nice, actually) for $1 each at Wal-Mart, several times less than the cost of plate rental.

The food was great and we had a lot of booze money. It still cost several thousand all totaled but it was a great day.

49

All catered food is bad? That’s interesting. Some of the best restaurants and chefs will cater.

50

While most people will tell you it’s your big day and you should do what you want, you are also the hostess of a party and (within reason) responsible for your guest’s safety and comfort.
If you are going to have an outdoor party, make sure everyone knows. If you can’t bring yourself to have it printed on the invitations, put it on the back of the map (you can include a map to your place in the invites, right?). You might consider having a little FAQ on the back of the map that tells people to wear casual clothes and low-heeled shoes.

Here’s my most important piece of advice, if somebody tells you that you HAVE TO HAVE [fill in the blank] at the wedding, make them do it. Favors? Sure, Auntie Gertie, if you want to spend several days wrapping pastel mesh around Jordan almonds, you go right ahead.

51

I’m starting to think I can’t have this at my house. 100 people at my house. Am I nuts?

I’m afraid if I have this at a banquet hall, I’m sucked into the wedding bullshit nightmare that I don’t want. I was looking at banquet hall type places tonight online, though, and I felt queasy, literally. I really, really don’t want that, though I’m getting a lot of pressure from all around to have it someplace like that. There are advantages, like set-up and clean-up, parking, plumbing, etc. We could have everyone on the guest list be invited. But… UGH.

Should I stand my ground, make Mike’s mother trip her list down from the whopping 70 that she gave me, and get it down to 75 TOTAL so I can have it here? I’ll trim mine down too, make it much smaller. I already decided, no kids, even though his Mom had about 15 or so kids on there. Not into that.

Worries about having it at my house in July: the weather: too hot, rainy, etc. The possibility of something, like the plumbing, fucking up at my house. The clean-up (can someone be hired to do that? is it worth it?) The parking. Offending my future in-laws… how much do I need to worry about that?

Yeah, I’m freaking out. Maybe we should just call the whole thing off. The wedding, I mean, not the marriage.

52

Look into a nice, big restaurant in the area if you’re doubting having it at home. Or, you could look at a local winery (I don’t know if this is something you have local to you, but it’s worth a shot) for the casual, outdoorsy feel you’re looking for.

However, a great wedding we went to in the past few years was at a friend’s childhood home, under a tent, in the backyard, overlooking the cornfield. It was a “dessert reception” where they only served light hors d’oeuvres, cakes, pastries and booze.

She definitely made the right choice by renting a port-a-potty like this one so that her house’s plumbing was not taxed. She also hired a valet to park people’s cars in case it rained so that guests didn’t have to walk all through the mud. (It’s worth mentioning that her wedding was a little more formal than what you’re thinking, but the location has the same challenges.)

I got sucked into the wedding industrial complex this past year, but I still managed to keep a bit of my head about me and had a wonderful time. In the end, you wind up married to the person you love, and none of the details really matter.

53

Take a deep, calming breath.

Now then - if you invite 150, expect between 65 and 75 percent attendance. So around 100 - 112 people.

Assess your yard - it sounds like a lot of people, but you know almost all of them, right? They want you to have a nice day so it’s not like 100 strangers are going to be milling about your yard.

Finally - don’t panic. You can hire someone to take care of ALL of this you know. Call a wedding planner. Say “Casual back yard BBQ, 100 people, this is the budget, GO!” There are people who do this sort of thing all day for their job - for them this isn’t stressful - it’s just what they do. Wedding planner does not necessarily have to mean fussy-froo-froo.

Personally, I would hire people to do everything - hire a caterer - I’ve had some very tasty catered food. Hire a set up/tear down crew. Hire someone to do music. Hire, hire, hire. Honestly it won’t make things that much more expensive and it will make your life 100X easier.

And take Tashabot up on her offer up thread to set up a website for you. That really will make things easy.

54

:eek: That is one of the most attractive washrooms I have ever seen! It’s nicer than the one I have at home! When people mentioned ‘portapotty’ I was thinking of those plastic phonebooth-sized things…

55

Ruby, you sound like this is really upsetting you. Can you take a half-hour for yourself and just relax? Soak in the tub, take a nap, watch some TV, whatever. Just take a little while and don’t think about the wedding at all.

Now, why does the thought of this freak you out so much? Do you not want to be the center of so much attention? The cost? Afraid of turning into a bridezilla? Phobia of tulle? There’s nothing inherently scary about banqueting halls – they’re just spaces where you hold parties for lots of people.

Why don’t you sit down, once you’ve had a chance to calm down a little, and make a list of what would be the ideal wedding for you. To hell with logistics, what do you want? Once you’ve got that down, you’ve got room to start finding a middle ground with your fiance. After him, come your dad and your in-laws.

Another poster earlier in the thread mentioned hiring a wedding planner if your father was willing to pay for it. That way, you just give some initial input and the planner takes care of everything else. I think that might be a good option for you. Hiring one doesn’t mean that you’re going to be recreating Charles and Diana’s wedding. It just means you don’t need to worry about all the attendant crap of planning a wedding.

56

Maybe tomorrow. :frowning: IM’ing my SIL, who just berated me for wanting to have the rock-n-rolls playing while old people are trying to eat. Sigh.

All of the above, including phobia of tulle. Please do not think I am kidding here. I have developed a horror of weddings. I don’t even think horror is too strong a word here. That’s why having it in the yard, my safe place, and calling it just a party, was making it easier to accept. But it might be more stressful in the end, ultimately, and my mental problems are stopping me from believing that.

It feels so… fake to me. I have structured my life in such a way that I rarely have to fake it anymore. I deal with kids all day and I keep it real with them. My friends are all used to me. I have very little family and none of them are anywhere around here. It’s taken me a decade but I’m finally comfortable with my set-up here. Having 70 strangers (I don’t know any of Mike’s family) ogling me in some white monstrosity of a dress, being expected to dance like a trained monkey, fake it… it goes against my entire life philosophy.

Everyone else keeps saying to me, “It’s just one day-- why can’t you just go along with what your parents want? Why can’t you compromise?” And then I feel like an asshole for freaking out like this.

My ideal wedding would be 50 people. It’s not going to happen. I can’t get the list down to that without getting medieval on someone’s ass. When I said backyard wedding, I didn’t realize his mom was going to go hog-wild ape-shit fucking nuts with the guest list. And Mike secretly wants all that, even though he can’t quite admit it. I might be the only girl in America who doesn’t want the wedding. Even the boys want it. I must be crazy.

Will they resolve the parking dilemma somehow?

57

Absolutely. If I knew what town you lived in, it would take me 20 minutes to find people to take care of it. Licensed, bonded professional valets who will valet park every car and fetch them at the end of the night OR a couple of local guys to set up a parking lot with traffic cones and guide your guests to their spots OR set up a shuttle bus from the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot and get clearance from the manager to park your guests there. Really, whatever you want. That’s exactly the sort of thing wedding planners are for. There’s nothing they haven’t seen, nothing they haven’t dealt with, nothing they haven’t thought of, including very very nervous brides.

Oh jeez, I never do this, but I’m compelled to just this once:

{{{{{{{{Rubystreak}}}}}}}}}}

58

Yep. And the porta-potty issue, and the food issue, and all the other issues.

59

WhyNot and alice are exactly right…a wedding/party planner will handle ALL the details for you. You just tell them what you want & need, and they will handle the logistics. It may be the perfect solution for you, because the planner works for you and wants you to be happy, as their customer…they won’t care what your MIL thinks! Considering that the wedding in general will probably be relatively inexpensive, you might consider the planner as part of the budget…it will take a lot of pressure off of you, so you can enjoy yourself.

60

Wow, thanks. And thanks alice, and everyone who’s being so tolerant of my bullshit nervous breakdown.

Wedding planners… I have to tell you guys something. There isn’t even a bridal shop in Ithaca. I am not kidding, I’m holding the Yellow Pages in my hand. No wedding planners, or even party planners, in the book either. Unbelievable. Maybe one of you ladies could move here and start a business. There’s got to be a market niche that could be exploited somehow.

Honestly, not sure what I’m going to do. My dog just got sick in a big way all over my living room, too. We’re like the freakin’ Corsican Brothers here. Better go clean it up. Will meditate (I accidentally wrote “medicate” at first… Freudian slip?) on your advice and try not to lose my mind completely. Sorry about the meltdown. My fiance is a saint.