Tell me about your wedding...

JustaNoob

I've never really been all that interested in wedding details until now that I am planning one. I didn't have a wedding Pinterest board and my eyes always glazed over as friends described what they were doing for their wedding.

Now I realize there is a wedding worldview that takes up a ton of space in the mind for a season. So I find myself really interested in what other people did and how the wedding went. So... tell me about yours? Did you go small or big? Did you do traditional or wear all black? Did a ton of drama go down? Did you have an amazing honeymoon?

Tell me about it! I'm listening now!

piggy_smalls

She was late. Should've known then that she didn't want to be there. 😁

Miss_Chiev0us_

piggy_smalls wrote: »

She was late. Should've known then that she didn't want to be there. 😁

What?! Did she at least make it in time for the buffet?

JustaNoob

piggy_smalls wrote: »

She was late. Should've known then that she didn't want to be there. 😁

Note to self: Do not be late.

ExerciseExtraFries

We planned a small wedding at the waters edge in a park here in town. We had 20 guests total, family only except our wedding party which was our two best friends. I wore an amazing dress that was made to order in the Ukraine and shipped to me that I had saved in my Pinterest board for years. It was a white lace top with dusty blue skirt. My MOH wore navy as did my husband and his best man. My bouquet was light blue roses and eucalyptus. My song was supposed to be played live via violin and it was A Thousand Years but my husbands grandpa, who was supposed to play, couldn't make it last minute so I chose to walk without music because nothing would have compared to having him play for me. Honestly the silence and being able to hear my dad whispering to me the entire time was actually a nice moment. We wrote our own vows, and we live streamed it for everyone who couldn't make it. We intentionally wanted a small wedding as we have been together forever and already had two kids together so we really didn't want to make it a big thing but it also happened to be last year during Covid so it worked out that whatever we already planned was actually within our city restrictions so we got lucky in that we didn't need to make any adjustments to our plans. After the ceremony we did photos and then we took our 20 guests to a fancy restaurant downtown where we had a reservation booked. Our guests had the choice between chicken, steak or fish and then there was also an appy and dessert. Obviously there was also a full bar service as well. After dinner we had given guests the floor for their optional speeches. It was really really nice, the guests raved about the food and the live music. It was honestly just such a good atmosphere. After that we had an after party in our back yard with string lights and a Photo Booth and music.. it was a good little party. Not all 20 guests came because some of them were older, like my 77 year old grandmother. But it was nice for the younger people who wanted to keep celebrating with us. We had our first dance to You're Still The One by Shania Twain in the grass, I had changed into shorts and flip flops by this point because it was a long day in a dress and heels but I would not change a thing about it. We also cut our cake at the backyard party which I had ordered from Crave Cupcakes. It was a 2 tier red velvet cake with dusty blue marble buttercream. Our wedding was unique, definitely not everyones cup of tea but it was SO US and I loved every second of it.

Motorsheen

chocolate_owl

We had a tiny wedding before Covid made them cool. We had 19 guests, ourselves, the officiant, and our two photographers - 24 people in total. We picked a spot by the lake for our ceremony and paid the city $50 to reserve that spot for two hours, then we had our reception in a cheese shop. The only flowers we had were my bouquet and some rose petals to scatter on the reception tables. Our friend's gift to us was making the cake - she's a pro. Less than $1000 for the whole thing. Keeping it small meant zero drama, and we didn't have any hiccups on the day of. I'm super pale and was originally determined to not wear white, but after trying on a bunch of formal non-white dresses and some wedding dresses with black/color, I looked at the all-white ones, and I ultimately got a lacy white gown that I loved.

There were some screwups with the hotels, but they weren't things we could have prevented. Mom booked a reservation with a hotel a few months before the wedding with the intent that I'd get ready there, but they changed management somewhere in those months and lost her reservation. They comped her an executive suite in the end. Our wedding night hotel didn't put our champagne on ice, then brought us a cup of ice instead of an ice bucket, and finally got it right the third time. Had to wait 30 minutes to get nekked, but I guess that's a fair tradeoff given that everything else went right that day.

Our money went to our honeymoon - we went to Turtle Island in Fiji. You get a private beach every other day. Just saying.

JustaNoob

ExerciseExtraFries wrote: »

We planned a small wedding at the waters edge in a park here in town. We had 20 guests total, family only except our wedding party which was our two best friends. I wore an amazing dress that was made to order in the Ukraine and shipped to me that I had saved in my Pinterest board for years. It was a white lace top with dusty blue skirt. My MOH wore navy as did my husband and his best man. My bouquet was light blue roses and eucalyptus. My song was supposed to be played live via violin and it was A Thousand Years but my husbands grandpa, who was supposed to play, couldn't make it last minute so I chose to walk without music because nothing would have compared to having him play for me. Honestly the silence and being able to hear my dad whispering to me the entire time was actually a nice moment. We wrote our own vows, and we live streamed it for everyone who couldn't make it. We intentionally wanted a small wedding as we have been together forever and already had two kids together so we really didn't want to make it a big thing but it also happened to be last year during Covid so it worked out that whatever we already planned was actually within our city restrictions so we got lucky in that we didn't need to make any adjustments to our plans. After the ceremony we did photos and then we took our 20 guests to a fancy restaurant downtown where we had a reservation booked. Our guests had the choice between chicken, steak or fish and then there was also an appy and dessert. Obviously there was also a full bar service as well. After dinner we had given guests the floor for their optional speeches. It was really really nice, the guests raved about the food and the live music. It was honestly just such a good atmosphere. After that we had an after party in our back yard with string lights and a Photo Booth and music.. it was a good little party. Not all 20 guests came because some of them were older, like my 77 year old grandmother. But it was nice for the younger people who wanted to keep celebrating with us. We had our first dance to You're Still The One by Shania Twain in the grass, I had changed into shorts and flip flops by this point because it was a long day in a dress and heels but I would not change a thing about it. We also cut our cake at the backyard party which I had ordered from Crave Cupcakes. It was a 2 tier red velvet cake with dusty blue marble buttercream. Our wedding was unique, definitely not everyones cup of tea but it was SO US and I loved every second of it.

Love this so much! We actually wanted to do something like this at his house originally! We had to change plans because there were more family people who HAD to be there vs. the people we actually wanted there. Like my nana and my aunt-- they have super loud personalities and would overtake the whole day, but I couldn't not invite them if we went small.

JustaNoob

chocolate_owl wrote: »

We had a tiny wedding before Covid made them cool. We had 19 guests, ourselves, the officiant, and our two photographers - 24 people in total. We picked a spot by the lake for our ceremony and paid the city $50 to reserve that spot for two hours, then we had our reception in a cheese shop. The only flowers we had were my bouquet and some rose petals to scatter on the reception tables. Our friend's gift to us was making the cake - she's a pro. Less than $1000 for the whole thing. Keeping it small meant zero drama, and we didn't have any hiccups on the day of. I'm super pale and was originally determined to not wear white, but after trying on a bunch of formal non-white dresses and some wedding dresses with black/color, I looked at the all-white ones, and I ultimately got a lacy white gown that I loved.

There were some screwups with the hotels, but they weren't things we could have prevented. Mom booked a reservation with a hotel a few months before the wedding with the intent that I'd get ready there, but they changed management somewhere in those months and lost her reservation. They comped her an executive suite in the end. Our wedding night hotel didn't put our champagne on ice, then brought us a cup of ice instead of an ice bucket, and finally got it right the third time. Had to wait 30 minutes to get nekked, but I guess that's a fair tradeoff given that everything else went right that day.

Our money went to our honeymoon - we went to Turtle Island in Fiji. You get a private beach every other day. Just saying.

Haha! The dang icebucket! We are definitely going cheap on the wedding and trying to plan an amazing honeymoon. ... well depending on Covid restrictions.

goal06082021

So, my husband and I dated/cohabitated/basically did everything but make it official in the eyes of the state for 10 years before finally tying the knot last year. We had a lot of conversations about it, and eventually realized that while we wanted to be married, the idea of getting married (i.e., having a wedding, with all the attendant party planning activities) was basically our biggest nightmare. Neither of us like to be the center of attention, and neither of us is particularly religious or "traditional," so a quasi-religious party where everyone we know comes to pay attention to us for several hours as per tradition sounds like The Worst Possible Scenario. I won't lie, COVID did provide a pretty convenient excuse for not having a big to-do and just doing the dang thing - basically the only thing that made our wedding not an elopement is that we told our families beforehand.

I did buy a dress (turns out Torrid also does wedding gowns, 10/10 would recommend, fit perfectly right out of the box and I looked and felt like a princess), he bought a suit, we took pictures and had a very small party with our bubble (basically just my inlaws - we live with his parents, mine are far away). I did not wear my wedding gown to the courthouse, so I actually Got Married wearing a different dress. Because of COVID, the courthouse conducted the ceremony at the little bank-teller window where you go to pay parking tickets or whatever, instead of in a separate room like they would in normal times. I couldn't tell you what my actual vows were but I remember them being very nice, and certainly better than anything I could have written - I was too focused on listening to the officiant and repeating what she said while staring directly into my beautiful husband's eyes, LMAO. We both teared up a little. My in-laws came with us to the courthouse and documented that, then my MIL had photo albums made and I sent them out to my family.

All things considered, I feel good about how we did it, although I do wish I could have had at least one of my parents there. My SIL and her fiancé are currently dealing with the logistics of planning a hopefully-post-COVID 2022 "traditional" wedding; for them, they were planning a long engagement and 2022 ceremony date from the jump, so at least their reservations are already in place as everyone who opted to postpone their 2020/2021 weddings scrambles to rebook everything. But now they're having to double-check guest lists and those kinds of logistics to comply with new COVID regulations.

Edit to add: We're postponing our honeymoon until international travel is safer and more restrictions are lifted. Hubs is in school right now anyway and can't be away for 2 weeks. The plan is to tour the UK and Ireland.

SuzySunshine99

I hate weddings...at least the ones I had been to. All the "traditional" things people feel like they need to do...throwing bouquets, cutting cake, first dance, smashing cake in each other's faces, clinking glasses, horrible speeches...always seemed forced and dumb to me. Like...."Well, it's a wedding so we have to do these things..."

So, for my wedding, I didn't do any of that crap.

We invited 50 people. We had a Best Man and Maid of Honor, but no other "attendants". They could wear whatever they wanted to wear...no theme colors or anything.

Our ceremony was a traditional Catholic Church wedding.

For our reception, we rented the bar space and a private room at a nice restaurant. Mingling, drinks, and appetizers happened in the bar area, and then we went into the private room for dinner. We all sat at regular tables...no elevated platform where we look down upon our guests like the King and Queen and their court. Just sat a regular table with my family.

Everyone could order what they wanted from a paired down menu, with 4 entrée choices. We ate, had cake, took a few photos, enjoyed each others company, and then everyone went home.

No DJ, no band, no dancing...that's not our style. We'd rather be able to hear conversations than blast "YMCA" at everyone.

We had a great time, and all our guests told us that they did, too.

LoveyChar

It was summer 2014 and we had a small caravan of vehicles with seventeen people, only immediate family and one set of grandparents, drive an hour away to a wedding chapel. We'd been together 5 1/2 years at that point, but engaged for less than 8 months and we knew we wanted something small and meaningful.

Prior to, I considered getting married in an ultra tacky Vegas Wedding Chapel. I'm still in love with the idea but to get everyone to Vegas would have been a challenge. So I found a chapel within driving range of husband's parents house. I bought a lovely white dress, not sold as a wedding dress but it was perfect for me! I wore 5 inch wooden clogs! I bought my girls some pale yellow, super fluffy dresses. Husband bought a Gray suit.

Wedding was perfect. Simple. Everyone was happy, no stress. Ceremony was beautiful. Preacher was super nice, calm. Chapel was tiny, very lovely. I held a bouquet of hydrangeas. We rang the bell on the way out. It was one of my favorite things, unique.

Afterwards we drove to an upscale restaurant overlooking the lake. Everyone ordered whatever they wanted to off of the menu. Some people walked out to the pier. Everyone laughed, conversed, and had a nice time.

Photography was included in the chapel package price. Plus most of us took pictures and shared.

After the dinner, we all went back to my husband's parents house and cut the cake and drank champagne. Husband toasted, cried as he did so, and it was so sweet. Cake was only price regret I had. It had fondant, gray and yellow, and I think it fed 30 but it was very expensive and I think we spent close to $200, which is high. Plus I really don't even think anyone ate the fondant. Beautiful yes, but it was a waste. I believe the flavor was white cake with raspberry cream.

If I had it to do over again, though, other than the cake...I would not change anything!

GymGoddessGoals

Definitely splurged on my daughter's wedding last summer; she's an only child though.

JustaNoob

@goal06082021 Thank you for the Torrid tip! I'll definitely have to check it out. We are just a hair too late for using Covid to our benefit. Had we been earlier, I thought about just having a small ceremony and sending off pictures and a letter to everyone saying we did it. Our state is now pretty much fully open.

I want a small wedding feel, but I just have too long of a list of people I'd like to invite.

@suzysunshine99 What a great idea! As a person who has been single at many weddings, I hate the bouquet toss! Especially because I'm the last of my friends to get married and stood out there solo a number of times!

@LoveyChar That sounds so so sweet! I recently watched someone who made a gorgeous cake out of styrofoam for her wedding, then took it to the back to "cut it" and brought everyone sheet cake slices that she got for super cheap! I thought this was genius!

@GymGoddessGoals So lovely!!

ladyoftherocks

General Summary:

I got my hair done by a professional but had my makeup done by a friend after getting an AWFUL test run from the person the hair stylist suggested like I looked scary. I think my friend did a perfect job. The dress was from a normal bridal boutique but veil headpiece thing I had custom-made by someone on Etsy based on a photo I saw in a magazine.

We had about 50 people at our wedding, we had it at a hotel. The ceremony was outside in front of a gazebo, we hired two musicians to play music for the ceremony and a family friend was our officiant. It was a brief non-religious ceremony. We both wrote our own vows. I had a beautiful bouquet that I kept and didn't throw, there weren't many single people at my wedding anyway.

The reception was in the hotel ballroom and we did it buffet style and also had an open bar. Our wedding colors were navy, gold and white and I made big ostrich feather "bouquets" in vases and put lights inside them for the centerpieces. Next to the gift table we had photos of my dad and my husband's mom who had already passed. Instead of a traditional guest book, guests sign the record jacket of I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty. My husband and I sat at our own "sweetheart" table which I am so thankful for because it would have been really difficult to deal with everyone stopping by otherwise, and even though it was a buffet the hotel staff brought us plates (thank god, or we never would have made it.)

We did toasts but only planned ones, no random people. Our first dance music was "O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me" by Father John Misty. We had a DJ but chose many of the songs for him to play (we're really into music, it was even mentioned in both of our vows). Then we hosted a "worst dance contest" in which our guests had to dance as badly as they could to the song "You Never Can Tell" by Chuck Berry (from the dance competition scene in Pulp Fiction) and the 3 worst dancers won prizes (my mom was 2nd place! Ha ha!). I was absolutely obsessed with both the look and flavor of our cake, it was decorated in our wedding colors in an art deco style, and had two layers of vanilla-almond and one layer of chocolate all filled with raspberry. Seriously the best cake I've ever had, it was from a small local bakery. I'm so glad they sell cupcakes too so I can revisit! It was such a great night but it went by incredibly fast!

What Went Wrong

• Thankfully our wedding wasn't a disaster but I think something has to go wrong at every wedding! Hotel staff were supposed to set up the tables and do the decorating. I had labeled everything and written out detailed instructions which I left in two different places that morning! Somehow, they had absolutely no idea what they were doing, and the person who we had been working with who was supposed to be there wasn't at all the whole day. My mom and a friend were frantically trying to do the decorations in time since we didn't find out about this until pretty late in the day, and she also had to keep calling me while I was getting ready to ask me questions because no one could find the written instructions I left.
• She had to get back to helping me so then the gazebo still wasn't decorated and all the boys went down to do it, which apparently was hilarious because they were very bad at it but eventually another guest helped them figure it out lol.
• I had made these cute little boxes with a bunch of different things inside for the party favors and it included these really cute mini soaps that smelled good and multiple people thought they were edible lol.
• When everyone went in for the dinner the wrong number of chairs were at a bunch of the tables, so everyone was moving those around.
• Apparently right before I came out to walk down the aisle a piece of the roof fell off right where I was about to be!
• We had paid for a certain number of hours of open bar, but were supposed to receive one more hour for free in compensation for something that happened earlier in the process (which now I can't remember???) but the event planner/manger wasn't there and the bartender refused to keep going and didn't believe us, worst of all she was REALLY mean about it. I actually cried! I had this in writing so I tried to pull up the email on my phone but of course my internet wouldn't work. While I was then talking to some of my older relatives a bunch of our friends went out to a nearby liquor store and brought a bunch of stuff back and we did shots outside on the balcony, and then continued the party with all of the guests around our age in our hotel suite until I don't even know what time in the morning.
• I did drunkenly fall into the bathtub at the end of the night and my butt was SO BRUISED omg, but it was funny.

One thing I wish we did was ask someone to take a video at the ceremony! We were really surprised no one did because usually you have to tell people to put down the phones lol. A videographer would have been super expensive but just some fun videos would have been nice. At my moms 2nd wedding they just set up a video camera and it caught people's random conversations and people coming up to the camera and stuff, wish we would've done that!

Here's a picture of us


Trying to get back down to that weight again! Started gaining not long after the honeymoon, which everyone warned me of and I didn't believe them.

Here are some more photos which include the decor: https://postimg.cc/gallery/mCPFwVS

JustaNoob

@ladyoftherocks First, you look stunning! Love the gazebo look. I totally see now how big of a pain it can be to decorate yourself-- mostly because YOU know what you want but you also have to be getting ready the whole time.

We have a free venue-- ceremony and reception area with round tables and chairs and all that. We just need to figure out everything else-- we have a budget of like $2500 so we are trying to do as much ourselves as we can.

chocolate_owl

@JustaNoob If you haven't found them yet, Offbeat Bride and A Practical Wedding are great resources. They focus on weddings outside the norm - low-budget, DIY, themed, small, queer, etc. - and try very hard to not feed the Wedding Industrial Complex. You might get some good ideas from browsing there.

goal06082021

JustaNoob wrote: »

@ladyoftherocks First, you look stunning! Love the gazebo look. I totally see now how big of a pain it can be to decorate yourself-- mostly because YOU know what you want but you also have to be getting ready the whole time.

We have a free venue-- ceremony and reception area with round tables and chairs and all that. We just need to figure out everything else-- we have a budget of like $2500 so we are trying to do as much ourselves as we can.

Oh, awesome! Free venue is great. Do check out Torrid's wedding shop; my dress was only like $200, which is probably the most I've ever spent on a single article of clothing at all, much less one that I only intend to wear once, but that's practically free as wedding dresses go.

OpheliaCooter

ladyoftherocks wrote: »

General Summary:

I got my hair done by a professional but had my makeup done by a friend after getting an AWFUL test run from the person the hair stylist suggested like I looked scary. I think my friend did a perfect job. The dress was from a normal bridal boutique but veil headpiece thing I had custom-made by someone on Etsy based on a photo I saw in a magazine.

We had about 50 people at our wedding, we had it at a hotel. The ceremony was outside in front of a gazebo, we hired two musicians to play music for the ceremony and a family friend was our officiant. It was a brief non-religious ceremony. We both wrote our own vows. I had a beautiful bouquet that I kept and didn't throw, there weren't many single people at my wedding anyway.

The reception was in the hotel ballroom and we did it buffet style and also had an open bar. Our wedding colors were navy, gold and white and I made big ostrich feather "bouquets" in vases and put lights inside them for the centerpieces. Next to the gift table we had photos of my dad and my husband's mom who had already passed. Instead of a traditional guest book, guests sign the record jacket of I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty. My husband and I sat at our own "sweetheart" table which I am so thankful for because it would have been really difficult to deal with everyone stopping by otherwise, and even though it was a buffet the hotel staff brought us plates (thank god, or we never would have made it.)

We did toasts but only planned ones, no random people. Our first dance music was "O I Long to Feel Your Arms Around Me" by Father John Misty. We had a DJ but chose many of the songs for him to play (we're really into music, it was even mentioned in both of our vows). Then we hosted a "worst dance contest" in which our guests had to dance as badly as they could to the song "You Never Can Tell" by Chuck Berry (from the dance competition scene in Pulp Fiction) and the 3 worst dancers won prizes (my mom was 2nd place! Ha ha!). I was absolutely obsessed with both the look and flavor of our cake, it was decorated in our wedding colors in an art deco style, and had two layers of vanilla-almond and one layer of chocolate all filled with raspberry. Seriously the best cake I've ever had, it was from a small local bakery. I'm so glad they sell cupcakes too so I can revisit! It was such a great night but it went by incredibly fast!

What Went Wrong

• Thankfully our wedding wasn't a disaster but I think something has to go wrong at every wedding! Hotel staff were supposed to set up the tables and do the decorating. I had labeled everything and written out detailed instructions which I left in two different places that morning! Somehow, they had absolutely no idea what they were doing, and the person who we had been working with who was supposed to be there wasn't at all the whole day. My mom and a friend were frantically trying to do the decorations in time since we didn't find out about this until pretty late in the day, and she also had to keep calling me while I was getting ready to ask me questions because no one could find the written instructions I left.
• She had to get back to helping me so then the gazebo still wasn't decorated and all the boys went down to do it, which apparently was hilarious because they were very bad at it but eventually another guest helped them figure it out lol.
• I had made these cute little boxes with a bunch of different things inside for the party favors and it included these really cute mini soaps that smelled good and multiple people thought they were edible lol.
• When everyone went in for the dinner the wrong number of chairs were at a bunch of the tables, so everyone was moving those around.
• Apparently right before I came out to walk down the aisle a piece of the roof fell off right where I was about to be!
• We had paid for a certain number of hours of open bar, but were supposed to receive one more hour for free in compensation for something that happened earlier in the process (which now I can't remember???) but the event planner/manger wasn't there and the bartender refused to keep going and didn't believe us, worst of all she was REALLY mean about it. I actually cried! I had this in writing so I tried to pull up the email on my phone but of course my internet wouldn't work. While I was then talking to some of my older relatives a bunch of our friends went out to a nearby liquor store and brought a bunch of stuff back and we did shots outside on the balcony, and then continued the party with all of the guests around our age in our hotel suite until I don't even know what time in the morning.
• I did drunkenly fall into the bathtub at the end of the night and my butt was SO BRUISED omg, but it was funny.

One thing I wish we did was ask someone to take a video at the ceremony! We were really surprised no one did because usually you have to tell people to put down the phones lol. A videographer would have been super expensive but just some fun videos would have been nice. At my moms 2nd wedding they just set up a video camera and it caught people's random conversations and people coming up to the camera and stuff, wish we would've done that!

Here's a picture of us


Trying to get back down to that weight again! Started gaining not long after the honeymoon, which everyone warned me of and I didn't believe them.

Here are some more photos which include the decor: https://postimg.cc/gallery/mCPFwVS

I am in LOVE with that bouquet! 💐