Weddingbee Blog

Hi!
 
I am recently engaged, and my fiance has been chosen for a very prestigious position at work overseas.  He is there now and expected to be there for at least a year, possibly longer.  I just started a new job, so I wasn’t able to go out there with him.  I really want to meet him over there, and seeing as I just started my position I have no leave to take.  I will probably quit my job, but if I’m going to do that I think we should be married first.  Plus, I get the benefits of a spouse from his job.  I’m still young, and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.   

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Hi,
 
Please help me! I am desperate. I got engaged in March 2007, and we informed all of our attendants that our wedding would be September or October 2008. My best friend/MOH always said if and when she got engaged, her dream was to have her wedding in the spring. Then my MOH got engaged in mid July 2007, and immediately started saying how she wanted to get married Columbus Day weekend 2008 (October). My fiancé and I ended up booking September 5, 2008; my MOH started saying she wanted August, and ended up picking a date 2 weeks before mine!

I cannot financially plan my wedding (my fiancé and I are paying completely) and be a bridesmaid in hers as well.  When she needs help I have been more than accommodating, but she is never available to help me with my wedding. She already mentioned she will not attend my bachelorette party since she cannot afford it. I have given her the option to back out of being MOH, by saying that I understand that she has a lot on her plate and maybe she would like to just be a bridesmaid instead. But at this point I just don’t want her at all.

What do I do? My fiancé is very upset and said he’d prefer if she weren’t a MOH. I am desperate and don’t know what to do!

M

I had always planned on changing my name to my fiance’s last name. Recently, I’ve explored the option of moving my last name into a second middle name, as many have discussed on weddingbee before. For example, my new name would be myfirstname mymiddlename mymaidenname hislastname. My maiden name would literally no longer be my last name, but legally added as a second middle name.

I brought this up to my fiance, and he didn’t respond very well. Now, after he realizes I was serious about possibly doing this, he got extremely upset at me. He literally told me that HE WON’T MARRY ME if the marriage license says “Firstname Middlename Maidenname Hislastname”. He was yelling at me when he said this. He is normally pretty laid back about a lot of things, and is not abusive to me or anything like that. But, he was so incredibly serious about this that it scared me. No matter what I said, even when I reiterated the fact that my current last name would not even be my legal last name at all, and that everything I signed, etc. would be Firstname Hislastname. He basically said that I literally had no choice in this and that it is just what you do when you get married.

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A few months after getting engaged, my fiance and I asked a mutual fashion/costume designer friend if he’d make my dress. He’s someone we’ve worked with in the past (we’re in the theater) and had a great working relationship with, and he’s someone I’d consider a friend. Well… he agreed to make the dress. I gave him a budget, so he could be paid for his time (we’re more colleagues than friends, and he’s an amazing designer/dressmaker).

Now, with only 7 weeks left until the wedding… no dress, no muslin fitting, just a sketch and a bunch of fabric swatches. Our designer friend has been blessed with a very busy schedule, and while it’s great that someone so talented is in high demand, I’m starting to FREAK OUT. In the theater we are used to throwing things together in a crunch, but this is not how I expected to get my wedding dress. I’ve waited like 7 months for his schedule to clear (originally we were going to start in July), only to be told that we can’t really get started until after his current job is done on Sept 13th. The wedding is October 7th. The last conversation we had was awkward. He suggested that if I can’t wait that long, I should “start looking for a dress.” We set a date for a muslin fitting next week, but I’m not feeling so secure.

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Hello Bees!

I have an open question and need everyone’s help before I go ahead and book our venue. I need to decide this week so your help is greatly appreciated.

FI and I are thinking of having our wedding in December. We’d love to celebrate this joyous event with our loved ones around the holidays. We were thinking the first or second week of December to give way to those travelling from out of state.

My question is : Would you recommend a December wedding considering your guests’ holiday expenses being a factor in whether they can afford to come or not? This is something that’s been worrying us. To those who have experienced it, did you have more REGRETS than expected?

Thank you so much for your help and I’ll be waiting for your responses.

WinterBride2Be

I have a question on how to deal with my MOH who all of a sudden told me that she thinks my fiance “isn’t good enough for me”. And against my better judgment, I told that to my fiance. He’s not too happy and can rise above it and overlook the comment - but now I sorta regret having her as my MOH. I just find it ironic now that someone I cherish as a friend is now my MOH who thinks she is superior to my fiance.

What should I do? Leave it as it is?

Elle

What would you do if a friend was engaged to someone you disliked?  What if you knew that person to be different (in a bad way) than how your friend perceives them? (blinded by love or maybe the female is good at putting up a facade)

Would you disclose your knowledge to your friend?  Would you intervene and let your feelings be known?

What if you knew your input would have absolutely no effect?

PhatBoY113

Recently I became the MOH for one of my best friend’s wedding. I found out a week ago. . .the wedding is in two weeks. Basically, I’m the only bridesmaid home that isn’t AWOL or in the Navy, and thus floating somewhere out in the Pacific. The issue is with the AWOL bridesmaid. So far the following has happened:

1. We had to throw an intervention after the bachelorette party for the AWOL bridesmaid. This is a long story but the ending = the bridesmaid is now in AA (and yes this had to happen and all of us were in agreement that it had to happen even during the bachelorette).

2. The bridesmaid is still in the wedding and hasn’t called the bride since the above mentioned event.

3. I finally got the bridesmaid to get her dress and shoes a week ago. The dress is currently in a ball in the back of her car. . .but heck at least it’s in her posession.

4. Today I find out that the bridesmaid has failed to make hotel reservations and thus is now at another hotel, not the hotel the bridal party is booked into.

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I need help/thoughts on how to tell our guests that gifts are not expected. My fiance and I are so happy that nearly everyone is able to come to our wedding - over half of our guests are flying across the country for the weekend. We were told by people that we would have to have some sort of a registry, so we did create a modest one for people who really wanted to give a gift. However, we’ve been trying to tell folks that their presence at our wedding is a gift to us, and that we aren’t expecting gifts. It all feels so contradictory (we have this registry for those who want to give a gift yet we are saying something else).

Has anyone had to deal with this? How do you get your message across graciously?

keh

Recently I’ve been feeling very guilty about the cost of my bridesmaid dresses ($200 before alterations), and fear that I am asking my ladies to do too much. I would love to create a bridesmaid budget and stick with it. With that said, for those of you who have been in weddings before, how much have you paid for bridesmaid dresses and how much did you spend in total as part of the wedding party? 

I’d really appreciate if you could share the cost of attire, events, and travel in your total.  Thanks!
 
-Fallon

Hello All,

I have a dilemma I’ve been pondering for a while and wanted to get everyone’s honest opinion. A little more than a year ago, my FI and I found out that his mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Out of respect for her and the fact that she was going into operation, we halted all wedding planning and basically delayed the wedding for another year. We wanted to wait for her to get better before proceeding with the planning since neither of us were really in the mood at the time. My FMIL’s operation was fairly successful and she went on to start her chemotherapy. Months into the treatment, she was doing very well. We took this as a good sign and began wedding planning again. We’ve been able to book a few things so far - venue, band, and church.

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My sister is supposed to be my MOH, and she’s purchased her dress. However, she and I have almost NEVER gotten along; especially now. It’s always better when she’s away at college. I don’t think I can take much more butting of heads with her and need to decide whether or not I should ask her to step down from her duties as MOH (7 months till the wedding). Doing this would also alleviate the problem of her always being out of state for college when I need help with wedding related stuff, and her having to try to put together a shower and bachelorette party.

I don’t want to go all bridezilla on her (shudder) and leave fresh family wounds, but I really don’t know if I can deal with the stress the relationship is putting on me on top of the planning and my job as a teacher. Help? Suggestions???

-Karen

I am having the HARDEST time. My fiance is not a wedding person. He is also very non-traditional. If he had his way, we’d elope or have a very intimate, family only, non-traditional wedding. I, on the other hand, am very traditional, really want a full-on wedding (not huge, mind you, but I want all my close friends and family to be able to attend.). My fiance believes that the significance and all that’s sacred about weddings has been lost because it has turned into an “industry” and weddings are now not at all meaningful.

So, my impression was that if he didn’t care about weddings, then he wouldn’t care about the decisions I made about it. Was I wrong. He now believes he is an “accessory” to MY wedding, not OUR wedding. And please believe me, I’m not disregarding his feelings nor am I having an extravagant, expensive, bridal-magazine worthy wedding! So now, whenever I ask for his opinion about things, he likens it to when he asks me for my opinion about what kind of motorcycle parts he should buy. In other words, he doesn’t care and thinks I don’t care about him or his opinions either. Totally indifferent.

We are now less than two months to the wedding date and he has yet to put together his guest list or pick his groomsmen. He did, however, take care of photography. Other than that… I don’t know what to do. He wants untraditional, intimate, small and meaningful… I want traditional, friends and family, meaningful. I don’t know what to do or how to reach a compromise!

HELP!?

Shara

No one but my best friend, Paul, has ever come into mind when thinking of the Maid of Honor. We’ve been friends since the tender age of three and we’ve been inseparable since. The problem? Well, obviously, he’s more like a MAN of Honor, rather than a Maid. My parents have no issues with this because Paul’s like a son they never had. My In-Laws, however, seem to be very suspicious of us two despite how many times my hubby-to-be has assured them. They’ve even suggested that I take Paul out of the entire wedding party. I was extremely annoyed, but being Korean, I knew better than to retort back at elders. I don’t want to upset the In-Laws, but Paul is one of the most significant people in my life, someone who knows me just as well as family. What should I do?

- Emily

Hey girls!

My fiance is having cold feet and he’s very open about it. We’re taking a break from planning right now not to add to any more stress he’s going through. He didn’t say he wanted to cancel it. He just said that he’s a little scared. We’re not fighting or anything. We’re just trying to enjoy ourselves wedding-planning-free.

Should I continue planning or should I take my time? I have 7 months to go and we pretty much have everything booked. I don’t wanna continue planning if this will just add more pressure on him but if I don’t do anything, it might bite us in the butt in the end for acting so last minute. Please help.

Confused