Wedding advice sought fom non-bridezillas!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m getting marrried to irishfella next September.
Basically I’m looking for any hints/tips/ideas that Dopers found particularly useful for their wedding. Anything all would be welcome.

The reason I’m posting here, is because the wedding boards I have visited terrified the life out of me. They seem to be populated by women with too much time and money for their own good, and serious cases of Obessive-Compulsive Disorder.

These are women who obsess over exactly how wide the ribbon on their invitations should be, and I have no desire to hear anything that may pass for “advice” among them.

So, here’s hoping that Dopers can do better!

2

I don’t know what kind of wedding you’re doing, so specific advice won’t work. But I used to work in a bridal store and I do have a few bits of really important advice if you’re planning on buying a wedding dress.

  1. Trust them about the sizes. Yes, you may wear a size eight in regular dresses. Wedding dresses are fit differently. They will measure you and pick the size that’s closest.

  2. You probably won’t lose significant weight before the wedding, so don’t buy a dress that’s three sizes too small.

  3. They can’t guarantee that the bridesmaids’ dresses will match the invitations. They just can’t.

  4. It takes time to order a dress. Give at least three months.

  5. Being a bride doesn’t automatically make you a person of great importance to everyone. (Though it’s obvious from you asking here rather than at the bride boards that you know this already!)

  6. Don’t take ten people with you to try on gowns.

  7. They may stick a bag over your head if you are wearing makeup. If you don’t want a bag over your head, don’t wear makeup to try on gowns.

  8. The gowns in the store will probably be 8, 10, or 12. If you are larger than that, and most people are, expect the gown not to fasten. If you leave the dressing room with an unfastened gown, it is possible a man-type person could observe your bra straps. This is not the end of the world. :smiley:
    Congratulations, by the way.

3

Congrats!
Elope! :wink:

4

Here’s my vote.

5

Congratulations! The best advice I got was to pick the three most important things to the two of you and spend most of your money and time on those. (We picked location, food and drink, and music.) In six months, none of your guests will remember whether the table napkins matched the bridesmaids’ gowns. Most of them won’t care to begin with.

Gotta run to the vet, but I’ll post more later.

6

In the realm of Bridesmaid’s Dresses, here’s one thing I wish I would’ve done: just allowed them to come in a nice dress! BM’s dresses are typically non-reusable unless your BM goes to a lot of formal dances or something (and honestly, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the things even so.)
So my suggestion is to allow them to each just buy their own dress. A nice dress, obviously, and you can build in some sort of “veto power” into the deal if you don’t trust them to get one that’s not really…um…unsuitable (like a Slut Dress), but let them get their own. It’s not like you HAVE to have a “color theme”, and you don’t HAVE to have everything matching.
Barring that, if your heart is set on “matching set of dresses”, PLEASE include them in on the selection process! Lots of things scream “Bridezilla”, and one of them is the horrible Bridesmaid’s Dress that’s completely unsuitable for the bridesmaids.

Congratulations! :slight_smile:

7

Here’s a good place to get wedding invitations without having to deal with going to card shops. This is handy if, like me, you get nauseous in Hallmark stores. They also might be cheaper, and in my experience are delivered pretty soon after you order them.

8

This is really excellent advice.
My advice is for all the decisons that will start pinging your tension-meter, ask yourself, if this was my 30th birthday party would I care about the {colors of the napkins}? The people around you will have opinions about all sorts of things, and if you don’t care, don’t fight it.

9

Check out dresses online before you go to any shops. Find a few manufacturers who make some dresses you like. I liked Eden Bridals and Bonny. They both had dresses that I liked at not-outrageous prices (though I bought from Bonny USA, which may be different from Bonny UK). Much, much more on prices later, I promise.

Find authorized retailers for those manufacturers in your area. The manufacturers usually have a store finder on their websites.

Print out pictures of several dresses you like. This way, you can show the salespeople what kind of dress you are looking for. They might even have that exact dress.

If salespeople won’t tell you who the manufacturer of a dress is, or if it’s the dress you brought in a picture of, RUN AWAY. They are doing this so you can’t comparison shop at other stores. I, for one, think you have every right to know as much as you please about a dress you’re going to spend that kind of money on.

When you’ve got a short list of dresses you like, you should call several authorized retailers near you and ask for their price on that dress (if you’ve found the dress on the internet or in a catalog, you will know the style number). If a shop won’t work with you this way, they’re not worth patronizing.

Some of the shops might offer free alterations. If one does, you should probably take it. I paid as much in alterations as I did for my dress :mad: I’m 5’3", and the dresses are generally designed for someone 5’9". Mr Neville is 5’9", so obviously he was the one supposed to be wearing the dress :smiley: (Yes, I know it’s really for someone 5’7" in 2" heels)

If you’re not doing your wedding locally, get an agreement with the shop on whether they will deliver it to the location of the wedding BEFORE you buy the dress.

Pay for the dress with a credit card. Things happen, and paying with a credit card gives you more protection than paying by cash or check. If a shop won’t take credit cards, that might be a red flag. The ones I went to all did, so at least here it’s rare for them not to.

10

Pick your budget and then decide how many people you can have and at what expense per person.

For instance $2000 will host a very nice dinner for 15 guests, or a big house party for 300, but it will not host a very nice dinner for 300.

When your mother or his mother or whomever says “but you have to invite Great Aunt Edna” and Great Aunt Edna isn’t in your budget (and will start a chain reaction for twenty other people you can’t afford either), tell your parents what the cost per person is and allow them to stretch their guest list - if they cover the costs for their guests. I was happy to have my cousins on my guest list - but when we got to my Dad’s cousins, he had to open his wallet (wider than it was - he was paying for a lot of it).

Remember that the ulitimate compliment for a bride is that you were “gracious.” All brides are beautiful - anyone can manage that. The other thing I’ve loved hearing is “we had such a good time at your wedding.” Despite the fact that I had a very elegant first wedding, few people ever comment on it being elegant - or how well coordinated the bridemaids dresses were with the invitations.

On a budget, consider enlisting the help of friends. I’ve been known to bake wedding cakes, a good friend of mine did my flowersm, I’ve been to plenty of weddings where the dresses where sewn by a friend. Just make sure they are friends who will come through

11

If you’re interested in “The Perfect Wedding” you may as well cozy up with the Bridezillas. If you just want to have a great time with your friends and family while they share the experience with you, you will most likely have a much better time and be less stressed about the whole thing.

My wife did get a bit obsessed with some details, we weren’t doing a fancy wedding, but she wanted the little things to reflect her artistic bent. As a result we spent a lot of time on things like invitations, programs, favors, mostly to do the custom work she wanted.

Do you have any general ideas of what you want to do, how much you can spend, and how many guests you can have?

12

My husband and I got a lovely wedding on a $5,000 budget (that’s about $10 U.S. :wink: ). We cut a LOT of corners though. I’m a graphic designer so I designed our wedding invitations. Our wedding was in the spring and our bridesmaids all our flowers were white, so to go with the theme I went to the local gardening store and bought little packets of various white flower seeds. I wrapped those up in squares of tulle and tied them with small wire-stemmed flower picks, and they made lovely favors. I made the wedding cake. My uncle is a professional photographer so he did our photos as a gift, and they were great. My dress was a discontinued style and I got it for only $200, regularly $950. So, if you want to save some money, the tips I’d give are:

  • Find friends or family who are artistically or culinarily gifted. If they are coming to the wedding, ask them if they would consider doing floral, decorations, cake, photography, invitations, DJ, makeup, etc. as a wedding gift, or for a small fee. Most likely they will be flattered that you want their talents in your wedding and will be fine with that.

  • Try to get the best deal on a wedding dress that you can. Why pay $1000 or more for the latest style? You’ll only wear if once, and if it looks good on you, and you like it, it doesn’t matter if the style isn’t current. And don’t be afraid to try to barter the salesperson down a bit! Since my style was discontinued, the saleslady wanted to get them out of stock and cut $200 off the already discounted price of $400. All I had to do was ask.

-Shop around for prices for halls for the reception. We were able to get a hall for the evening, seating and catering included, for $2000.

-Definitely go for fake flowers. They are much better made now than they were a decade ago, and you can get incredibly real looking flowers for a fraction of the price of the genuine thing. Plus, you can keep them forever! And no bees! :slight_smile:

13

True, but don’t make the mistake some women do of calling every day trying to get us to lower the price on a gown that only we carried in the area. Salespeople (I was one!) will go out of their way for a nice customer. They won’t go out of their way for someone who is badgering them.

Oh, and don’t do what some woman did to me. Don’t call and say, “I was wondering if you have a dress I would like.” Not only could I not answer her question, I’ve been laughing about it for the past ten years. :smiley:

14

My best advice is to be flexible and ready to make changes on the fly. We got married out of state, so we had to do most of our planning by phone. We had a couple of problems that had to be solved quickly, but they weren’t insurmountable (wrong size shirt with Mr. M’s tux, big ol’ crosses in the “nondenominational” outdoor chapel, lost reservations for the rehearsal dinner). The important thing was that on the day of the wedding, everyone had fun, the wedding was beautiful, and all the earlier problems turned out to be no big deal.

We also economized and spent less than $5000 on our wedding, so that required us to be creative. It actually made it more fun, because the wedding was very much “ours” rather than cookie-cutter.

Congratulations! I hope you have a wonderful time on your big day!

15

Find an officiant you like and who will work with you. If you already have a priest or pastor who will perform the ceremony, that’s great. If not, feel free to interview several until you find one that clicks. Don’t feel bad about rejecting them because they’re too flaky, too cold, etc. What works for one couple won’t work for another.

Think very carefully about writing your own vows. Most people aren’t experienced writers, and something that sounds sweet when you say it in private to your fiance may make people giggle or groan when said in public. The traditional “love and honor, in sickness and in health” vows have a resonance and meaning to them that, IMHO, self-written vows seldom do. (But, hey, feel free to disregard my opinion, since this is your wedding!)

16

Disclaimer: I have never been in a wedding.

That being said, I think just about the best thing you can do for your bridesmaids is give them a few guidelines and then let them pick their own dresses. If you have certain color scheme, for example, blue, then tell them they can choose any blue dress that they like. That way, they have a flattering dress that they can wear again and that they feel comfortable in, and they match the color scheme.

Also…butt bows are EVIL.

17

First off, relax. It’s just a day. A big day, yes, but certainly not the best day of your life. That would mean that it’s all downhill from there on out, after all. So don’t sweat it all that much.

Each of you sit down, by yourselves, and think about the things that really, truly mean something to you. Make a list. Make another list of things that would be nice but not necessarily meaningful. (These could be big stuff or little stuff–one of my big deals was having my grandma make our cake, so I spent god knows how much time and energy finding a way to transport the thing from Kentucky to Louisiana.) Then get together and sort through your lists. The combined meaningful list is where you spend the bulk of your time, energy, and money. Any leftovers go to the “it would be nice” list. Everything else, ignore. You won’t miss it anyway, so there’s no point in worrying about it.

Always be very, very nice to the ladies at the bridal shoppe. Consultants are often willing to ask the owner if they can offer a nice customer a discount. The nicer you are, the bigger discount they’re willing to try and get for you. If the ladies at the bridal shoppe aren’t nice to you, leave.

When you go shopping for gowns, wear underpants with a seat. Many shoppes require that the consultant be in the dressing room with you, as it’s very easy for a layman to damage or stain a dress putting it on someone. They don’t get paid enough to look at your bare ass. I’m sure it’s a very nice ass and all, but they still don’t want to see it.

Most of all, though, don’t be afraid to do what works for you, whether it’s traditional or not. Let who you are shine through and you’ll have a wonderful wedding.

18

Check out Etiquette Hell for some ideas of what NOT to do. Plus, they have a Delphi forums message board linked to the site where you can get some more specific wedding-related advice (and they’re very, very anti-bridezilla!)

19

Bear in mind that I am seriously cheap!

If you don’t want to get married in a church, check out local community centers. They range from tawdry to elegant, and if you like the one where you legally reside (or maybe someone close does), you usually get a really good price. If there’s one you like but don’t reside in that town, it may still be much cheaper than places marketed to the bridal trade (which can also range from elegant to tawdry!)

The invitations for my first wedding I designed and took to a printer shop. But if you do that, stick with cream or white paper - silver ink on teal paper wasn’t very readable! My current wedding I’m designing and making the invitations, because I’m nuts.

I like having kids at weddings - they always do something that you will talk about for thirty years.

20

Remember at all times that it is YOUR wedding. Yours and your fiance’s. It is not your mother’s wedding. Or your future mother-in-law’s wedding. Or Aunt Mimsy’s. It belongs to you.

The highest compliment jeevwoman and I received about our wedding was that it reflected us. We’re not unity candle, reading from Corinthians, bridesmaids in taffeta people. We deliberately eschewed a lot of what was traditional because that’s the kind of people we are. You may be more traditional, and that’s fine. But don’t simply accept traditional things because they’re traditional or because other people want them. If you don’t want a unity candle, don’t have one. If you want your reading to be Maya Angelou or Dr. Seuss, make it so. If you want to walk down the aisle to “Honky Tonk Woman,” do it.

Other than that, a good planner is worth his or her weight in gold. A good planner is one that realizes that their job is to execute your vision for the wedding and to take care of the logistics.

We had an absolutely butt-kicking planner, who freed us up to plan more important things, like the honeymoon.

Oh, and enjoy the tasting at the caterer. It’s the only really fun part of the planning process.