About the video–a couple of our friends shot videos of our wedding, as it was a very small wedding, and I didn’t want a professional there shooting videos. I loved watching the ceremony later, especially as Rick reached down and squeezed my butt after he kissed me. At the time, neither of us even realized that he did it. It was an automatic thing on his part, and I was just too hyped up to notice. Now it cracks me up.
Depending on what colour they’ve gone for, it can be a nice touch to have ties for the gents made from the same fabric - obviously it works better with deep purple than with light pink!
A little over five years ago, Cardsfan and I married. It took me longer to find the dress that I would wear, than to plan the actual wedding.
In fact, it took my mother and I a single day to get everything together. Here is what we did:
- Rent the town center Gazebo in the small town of Jefferson, Texas; known for it’s historical nature.
- Pick out the bridal bouquet, the groom’s lapel rose, flowers for the mom’s and arrange for the florist to put garlands on the above mentioned town gazebo.
- Arrange a horse drawn carriage to be used for the bride and groom’s arrival and departure.
- Arrange the reception at a gorgeous Victorian, bed and breakfast right across from town square. Finger sandwiches, punch, cake and veggie platter were served, and pictures were taken inside and outside this wonderfully restored house.
- Appointment for 8am to have the bride’s hair done
- Hire a professional photographer
- Arranged with the county cleric to be there to perform the wedding ceremony (this was easier than trying to satisfy 3 different religious breakouts from our current family)
- Arrange for a guided barge tour of the Caddo River for everyone that came to the wedding.
- Rented Tux and other groom things
- Reserved a private bed and breakfast house for the weekend.
- Hired a very talented lady that made our wedding cake.
Total cost of the wedding? $1,500 for 20 people, hotels, food, barge and also included my dress. Weddings do not have to put you into bankrupcy to be beautiful. The whole family had a blast and we have some great pictures. Cardsfan and I dressed in normal wedding formal and our guests came semi casual (we married in June with temperatures hitting mid to high 80’s so I didn’t want anyone passing out on us, since it was an outdoor wedding)
It was the most relaxing day of my life because I knew everything was going to be fine.
I don’t know how cash bars are received in Ireland, so that may be an OK decision. Deb and I paid for most of our wedding, so for the bar, we bought wine and some beer kegs and simply did not offer hard liquor. That kept the cost in line for our couple of hundred guests.
Think about kids. Want 'em there? (We did, but we did not know anyone with antsy toddlers at the time.)
The invitations should be pretty clear about who is invited (although in the States, there are a lot of people who receive invitations who have begun wreaking havoc by ignoring protocol–bringing extra guests because “of course, it is understood that I never go anywhere without sweetums” or, alternatively, not bothering to respond to the invitation “well, you knew I was coming” or failing to show up after accepting the invitation “we’d didn’t think you’d miss us and Terry got tickets to the game that day”).
Either have friends/family who are better sticklers for etiquette, or resign yourself to some oafs so that their absence or appearance do not spoil the festivities.
LOL, And if you dont get a wedding planner, have a good friend be designated as wedding enforcer=)
I was Tara’s wedding enforcer. She put me down as the alternate contact person, and I did nothing for the last week before the wedding except keep in touch with every vendor concerned, the hotel rooms, wedding party at the hotel details, musicians, church, hairdresser, tux shop…EVERYTHING=) She didnt have to worry about the small details as she knew I was riging their respective asses to make sure that there were no little hitches that were unadressed=). I got a hotel room out of the deal complete with my own roomservice account so I could get hammered after the wedding in private=)
Hell, I don’t remember if I had those things at MY wedding.
What I remember is that despite agnozing over my first wedding and having family and friends throw curve after curve and working hard to have “the wedding of everyone’s dreams” (I wasn’t bridezilla - my mother, his mother, the bridesmaids, and of course the groom had to be happy as well), the marriage was a dismal failure.
For the second wedding we got married in the courthouse with six guests and had a great party afterwords for a hundred or so, with a keg of beer and three of those sixteen foot long sub sandwiches and a DJ. A friend did the flowers, I baked my own cake and catered my own munchies (except for the sub). Friends pitched in to decorate the hall we rented. And, although I can’t remember now if we had a “first dance” or what color the tableclothes were, the marriage is still going strong after almost ten years.
Things I do remember from weddings I’ve been to:
One of my girlfriends had really beautiful flowers.
Another one had her father officiate
In Kenosha Wisconsin, they put cherries in the beer
My husband answering his cell phone in the middle of the toast (he was the best man) at one reception - it was the back of the room calling to let him know to speak up.
Grabbing the “extra” cameras from the tables towards the end of the night and having a drunken great time posing for very odd photos (about seven of us) - that probably scared the bride’s mother when she had them developed.
In New Jersey, many of the guests changed from church clothes to evening clothes for the reception.
The Buddhist ceremony where frineds got married in a garden - and hand wrote vows that made him into a complete doormat!
We didn’t either. I always look so awkward on video, so no way did I want a wedding video.
You may also want to consider doing something we did. We had an open beer and wine bar, but a cash bar for mixed drinks. That let people get something for free if they wanted, but helped to discourage people from getting really smashed and kept the whole thing within a reasonable budget.
We didn’t throw either the bouquet or the garter. I think throwing the garter is just tacky, and I remembered the bouquet toss reminding me of my single status (and I didn’t need or appreciate the reminder).
If you do, be sure to specify what you do and don’t want filmed. I’ve heard more horror stories about videographers being intrusive in the ceremony, enough to be really disruptive. And clearly some go way overboard; in fact, some neighbors got married last month, and the bridal party left the house down the street in a Rolls Royce with the videographer riding in the back of a pickup truck in front of them filming the car on the way to the wedding. I don’t even want to think how much he was charging them for something like that! :eek:
Hurray! And congrats to you both.
My advice is simple: Do everything you want to do. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.
And that’s it. Looks like you’ve got it covered already.
I did an beautiful, extremely inexpensive wedding, so I have money-saving tips, but it looks like you’ve got most of that covered.
Tiggrkitty, what a lovely set of pictures. You look radiant.
Now I’m a little tearful.
irishgirl, I don’t know whether you’re going to get the church choir, or other musicians, to sing at your wedding. If you are, then from my experience (which includes singing at many, many, many church weddings) I’d suggest:
- if you’re going to have hymns that the congregation is expected to sing, then put the words into the wedding booklet. Include all the verses that you want to have sung. Most people can only remember the words to the first verse.
- if you particularly want some non-religious music during the ceremony, check with the minister to make sure that he’s happy. Some priests/ministers won’t allow “popular” music at weddings in their churches.
- if you’re not sure what particular music you want, the musicians will be able to provide plenty of material from their repertoire, but you should give them some general description of what you want (e.g. hymns, psalms, traditional, contemporary etc).
- if there are pieces you specifically **don’t ** want, then inform the musicians about those too.
Thanks again everyone, and thanks Kal!
Was thinking about drinks compromises, and came up with two big bowls of punch; one alcoholic, one non-alcoholic, plus the cash bar. That’s if the venue allows us, they might not.
Most of our male guests will drink between 7 and 12 pints of beer…at £2.50 ($4) a pint, having an open bar for beer and wine still isn’t feasible. Telling Irishmen that they can only have a certain amount of drink is asking for trouble.
But it’s not really the “done thing” here to have an open bar, so we won’t be thought of badly for it!
To be honest, it sounds like you’ve got most of the potentially big problems out of the way already. You just need to check up on things now and again over the next year to make sure they’re still on track (like your minister is still alive, the caterers haven’t double-booked, etc…).
You should think now about music-- DJs and the like tend to vanish fast, but if you’re concerned about saving money, it’s easy to find a friend of a friend who will spin tunes.
Invitations are often ridiculous-- consider having people email or call you to confirm, instead of including a teeny SASE.
One thing that made the two weddings the missus and I had last year easier was delegating certain things in toto. Don’t care about table toppers? Know someone who does? Presto-- give them a budget and leave it entirely in their hands-- and when they call wondering if you like a certain colour say: I put you in charge of it because I trust you, and I’m busy doing other things. Whatever you decide will be fabulous!
Then go off and drink a pint. 
If you’re getting pictures taken, have some taken before the wedding, just after you’ve dressed and your hair and makeup is done - when everything is fresh. Makes for better pictures. You might have some worries as you try to avoid seeing your fiance, but really, have some taken before. Then have more taken afterwards.
Congrats, Lass!
The best piece of advice about my wedding day:
Take the time to enjoy it, to really live it, to appreciate it. If things work out, you’ll only be doing this once…
A few, more pragmatic, hints:
-If you’re hiring transportation to convey the bridal party to/from the church to the reception, and possibly to a picture taking site in between, having a single, larger vehicle that can take everyone will make sure everyone gets there in time, and will offer a wonderfull, intimate celebration of the recent wedding, and a chance to say: “whew, we did it!” before the bigger, more public reception.
-Having disposable cameras with flash on each table is a great way to get some really nice, funny, sometimes outrageous memories of your reception, which you will not be able to take in personally in its entierety.
-Asking guests to sing a song with the word “love” in the lyrics, or to compose a lymeric, to get the happy couple to kiss will help everyone break the ice, be outrageously funny, and avoide the annoying sound of cutlery hitting the stemwear. (one of our tables sang a church hymn “How great His love for us”. Folks almost fell off their chairs laughing…)
I wish you all the happiness in the world…
PS. “Green Fields of France” is coming along swimmingly. Thanks again.
We sang both of those at our wedding. St. Patrick’s Breastplate (the hymn) has difficult music, so the minister had everyone practise before I came up the aisle.
Dunno if you want to do this, but we stood at the back of the church and hugged everyone as they left. It was fun. We only had about eighty people, so it was all friends and family and cosy.
Sounds great. Congratulations.
Ok, I don’t know from weddings but “Be Thou My Vision” is one of my favorite hymns and “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” is really good. I never thought of it as a wedding prayer but as I think of the words, I think, how cool irshgirl!
It’s cruel, but I can’t help chuckling at Anne Neville’s suggestion that a free beer/wine bar would stop people getting drunk…(7 to 12 pints? At a wedding? Call that drinking? 
)
The priest/vicar/etc will be able to give you detailed advice about the protocol for what to write in the order of service.
Good suggestion from Snickers to get photos done beforehand if possible, but it depends on the amenability of the photographer, and on whether you’re likely to get everyone’s hair and makeup done in time.
As for music/DJ/etc, try to make sure there’s separate (ie acoustically independent!) rooms for the cheesy disco and for the people who want to sit around and chat/smoke/drink/be sullen. (I’d be doing three of them )
I will tell you what the pastor told us before we got married.
The only thing that makes a marriage is the right signatures on the right paperwork.
EVERYTHING else is optional.
We made up the whole wedding ourselves and we just had our 32nd anniversary in September.
So make something up that satisfies the two of you, and just make sure someone signs the forms when it’s over!
Me, too. And I just had the ‘big’ wedding two months ago.
I was one of those brides who planned every detail, but that’s just because I’m obsessive-compulsive. By the end, I was handing it all off to my sister to make final decisions. I don’t think I was a Bridezilla, though - the first ‘fit’ my mother saw me throw was AT the wedding, and that was a joke fit because we were taking pics beforehand, and my aunts kept yelling “he’s not supposed to see you!” - a little late 
.
Do things the way you WANT to do them. I’m not saying to trounce over everyone else’s feelings. Take everyone into consideration. But there are a lot of things I regret not doing OUR way, like using the Simpsons Season Three Box set for our ring pillow - my mother and sister had such a horrible reaction that you’d think I wanted to use a fresh heart. There are little things that won’t make a damn bit of difference on the day.
Don’t spend a lot of money on the little stuff, like toasting glasses or a cake server - in fact, don’t buy them at all unless they’re really important to you. I bought cheap Renaissance toasting glasses from The Knot to use. Guess where they were left? In my parents’ garage. Guess what we used? Regular old champagne glasses. No one noticed, including us. I bought an engraved cake server - stupid idea. Now we can’t find half of it.
If you want to elope, elope. Our initial plan was to do Vegas with ten friends, but then more and more people started planning on Vegas, so we decided to do a wedding in my hometown. I wish we’d done the Vegas wedding as planned with a reception later at home. Not that I don’t cherish every minute of my wedding day, but I look back now and realize how much time I wasted on the planning.
Congrats and have fun!
Ava