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Wedding planning


ButterflyWrists

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Congratulations!! That’s so exciting!!

 

Having been a guest at sooooo many weddings, in my opinion, the most important thing for guests is the food. I don’t remember any of the dresses or the hairstyles or the makeup or the flowers, etc. I remember the food lol

 

Please make sure there are enough hors d’oeuvres. They usually run out quick. There is nothing worse than standing around for a couple of hours, being staaaaaarving and having nothing to nibble.

 

And for the main meal, try not to get too fancy. One of the worst weddings I went to, the meal consisted of a very odd pâté, followed by squab, followed by the worst cupcake I have ever eaten. It was basically a stick of butter sitting on saw dust. 70% of people did not eat/like the meal and the bride was confused because tons of people left early (they were hungry). Fancy doesn’t mean much if people don’t eat it. Simple but tasty is better.

 

Everything else, quite frankly, is for you. The food is for the guests.

 

Happy planning!! It sounds like you’ll have so much fun planning all the details :)

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Hey guys. So I'm recently engaged, planning a wedding for some point in 2021.

What is your must haves for a wedding? What would you change? Just a thread for fun.

 

I'm feeling caves myself. I'm very alternative and shun tradition.

 

Hi and congratulations! I planned one "traditional" wedding which was cancelled last minute (and I married him 11 years later!!) and in hindsight, now married 10 years, here are my must haves for a wedding reception.

Having the people I love the most from family and close friends (in addition to the groom!) be there.

Having very few guests. We had 10. (so yes some people I loved a lot were not there and my priority was small gathering)

Having the vows be meaningful (we did not write our own because I loved our religious ceremony).

Good food and a pretty cake - I really liked the cake cutting /feeding part - we have a photo where my mouth is wide open while my husband laughs at the camera (inside joke-ish about how much I love to talk - it was my turn to feed him and I couldn't stop talking I guess!). Also hopefully a restaurant/food type that means something -we chose a small Italian restaurant in the neighborhood where we'd been many times and it felt like family there.

Very low maintenance plans so the focus is on the wedding vows, getting married to your love, feeling the magic inside hopefully and being able to experience all that rather than any stress over intricate or complicated planning -been to many weddings and seen brides get so stressed/argue with people they love day of or before, etc. Not worth it IMO - 5 minutes before my ceremony (tradition was he not see me until the ceremony) my sister and I were joking around in my inlaws' kitchen (we got married at their house).

 

I will add - even though the plans were: meet at inlaws house, have a little breakfast, get married, go to restaurant one mile away there was still stress in planning because my mother in law "forgot" to make the lunch reservations at the right time and my wedding cake was delayed, and my sister got first dibs on staying at our parents' house the night before - but such small stuff in the scheme of things didn't phase me and I'm type A (so yes it depends on your temperament).

 

Other huge planning requirement - takes a short time. We got engaged 7 weeks before the wedding. First time around we got engaged 4 months before the wedding. We chose our wedding date within weeks of getting engaged. My husband was up for having a larger reception after the wedding but I wasn't into it. We did have a large party for my inlaws' 50th 6 months later so we got a chance to see more of our people then.

 

As far as your being alternative and shunning tradition does your future husband feel the same?

 

Good luck!

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We kept our wedding small and paid for everything ourselves mainly so my mother could not tell us what to do :-) We lived together so we had a reception/party in the backyard and I'd recorded a ton of music that we liked. It was not traditional other than getting married in a church in a simple ceremony. Be true to yourself, do things your way, dont be bullied by anyone to do something you dont like or agree with.

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So food is a focal point, that's something me and my partner kind of have focused on a little, just depends where he plans reception lol. I'm planning ceremony because I want it small and he's doing the reception because he wants a big party lol. We're both alternative, he's nerdy and metal in more gothic.

It's exciting planning, at least currently because it isn't in earnest yet, hoping to keep the wedding to 5k.

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Honestly I would make your DJ try out for the gig. I’ve been to several weddings where the DJ just played songs that were on the radio, not songs people can dance to, so no one danced at all. This made the biggest difference between weddings I had a blast at and weddings that were just dinner and conversation.

 

Also, I wish I would’ve set up an online honeymoon fund instead of registering for wedding gifts. The honeymoon was more important to me than the party was, and we already had lived on our own for a few years so we didn’t really need gifts.

 

Bring snacks for yourself. The day will go quickly and you’ll be pulled in several directions so you may not have time to sit down and eat.

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We're thinking of having a band over a dj, partner is in a band and it would be a lot more personal to us. But yeah worth checking out songs that can be danced to (and nosh pits). I'd feel awkward asking for specific gifts or money, I think generally in uk guests give money, at least all the weddings I've been to anyway.

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Hey guys. So I'm recently engaged, planning a wedding for some point in 2021.

What is your must haves for a wedding? What would you change? Just a thread for fun.

 

I'm feeling caves myself. I'm very alternative and shun tradition.

 

I had a big wedding. I thought that's what you were supposed to do. 350 people and 10 piece band. People talked about it for years.

 

Looking back, it had absolutely nothing to do with my husband (at the time) and I. For that matter, I barely saw him that day.

 

I don't really care for being the center of attention and my mother kept getting after me, because I was spent most of the evening sitting in the back of the room with my friends, when I should have been circulating.

 

What I didn't expect was that everyone wants to touch you, pull you every which way. At some point I hit the wall and hid.

 

If I could do it all over again, I might invite just immediate family and a best friend or 2. No more than 30. I'd put my focus on the special-ness of the union and make about my husband and I.

 

Either that or elope.

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My favorite weddings have all been destination weddings. They feel like an intimate adventure and an adventure that celebrates intimacy. They don't need to be big and extravagant; in fact, for many of my friends, they kind of opted for destination weddings knowing that only the people they really wanted there would show up. They picked—well, most of them—places that were pretty affordable to get to and places where people would naturally want to go for a vacation, so the wedding became an excuse to take some vacation days and have a blast.

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We wanted to focus on the celebration, so the ceremony lasted all of five minutes, if that. Straight to vows and then to eating and drinking. My family's Spanish Catholic, so I've had to endure numerous mass + long wedding combos. Ours was a welcome change of pace for pretty much everyone. Also I, like you, am not the biggest fan of being in the spotlight, and I really did want the evening focused as much as possible on everyone enjoying it together. My aunt had her wedding a few months later and it was about 30 minutes of vows and close to an hour of friends telling incredibly uninteresting inside jokes and stories. She's a huge poet and romantic, so it is what it is.

 

I don't know the size of your anticipated guest list, but $5k can be a bit ambitious if you wanna go with the traditional bells and whistles, especially if by food being the focal point, you're talking a higher-end 3-course meal. Our open bars ran us a few bucks as well. Not saying you can't do it, though. We didn't hire a florist and I ended up organizing the decor and buying pieces on my own to incorporate. Though we consciously chose a venue that spoke for itself and didn't need much love. You can also save money if you're willing to chance it with an iPod DJ.

 

We spent more than I was terribly happy to, if I'm being honest. Especially when it came time to move out of NYC and buy some property, you could feel that extra several thousand bucks missing. Still, I never spend more than I know I'll regret. It was definitely a night to remember. I'd just keep that hypothetical balancing act in mind. It can be hard to once you're finding out what $5 extra per guest or $3 extra per guest gets you.

 

Also, since you've given yourself plenty of time to prepare, I'd look into non-peak seasons and / or a Friday wedding if you think people wouldn't have a problem making it. That slashed prices by a decent bit with most venues and services.

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Nothing traditional for us, I've been looking at a cave or haunted jail wedding, max 1.5k for general hire I think, at least for the ceremony. Fiance wants reception in a marquee in a field *eyerole* it needs to be accessible and have loos.

Luckily in the UK open bars aren't really a thing, so we don't need to worry about that, other than making sure the venues doesn't charge a crazy price for drinks. My fiance is in a band, and has a few connections for bands to play our wedding, we want a band, and rock music ideally, obviously with something you can dance to thrown in. I mean if I had my way we'd elope, I don't like the idea of spending such a huge amount of money on one day, when there is the future to think of and save for. Mind you, I'm not fussed about marriage anyway, other than my grandparents and his posted and maybe a couple others, every marriage I know if has ended in divorce lol.

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