Weddingbee Blog

Boy do I hope I can get some help on this.

My best friend and I have been friends since before either of us can really remember. We’ve been BEST friends for over 10 years. When she got married last year, even though I wasn’t exactly in the best financial position, I flew down for her wedding (we now live across the US from each other). Now I’m getting married in August, and she says she doesn’t have money for a plane ticket OR a dress. Naturally I started researching ways to get her here for my wedding, and a few ideas came up and she shot them down soon after. I personally don’t have the funds to fly her down and buy her a dress, so that’s out, too. My parents offered to use their frequent flyer miles, but I don’t want to take away from what they earned… they were planning on going to Europe soon!

I feel like I have tried and tried and bent over backwards trying to get her to my wedding, but now it just seems like she doesn’t even want to go. Should I just forget about helping her at all?

Thanks for the help

Hi… for those more experienced brides out there… what’s the best way to start looking for a photographer? We’re leaning towards having a “destination” wedding (and I say destination in quotes because we’re not talking Hawaii or the Caribbean or something, but a weekend getaway wedding in the continental US that’s accessible to everyone). We want to have a photographer there to capture the weekend of festivities… but I don’t even really know where to start!

We’re in Manhattan, and our first choice venues are in Virginia so I guess if the photographer is based in NJ, PA, DC etc. we might save some money on travel expenses? How did you book your destination wedding vendors and work out travel expenses? Help. I don’t know what I’m doing…

Caroline

My fiance and I are forgoing the traditional wedding reception “events” such as the bouquet toss and cake cutting (we’re having cupcakes). Any thoughts on whether we should have timed “events” to keep the guests entertained, and if so, what those would be (we don’t want to do a first dance either as we both have left feet, but we have been informed that it is a “must” and that the guests “will expect it.”)

- Summer Bride

I have a dilemma now I didn’t expect to have. Until two weeks ago I had a location and was ready to sign a contract for an October wedding, when my mother in law sent an email to my fiance and I asking if we really insisted on having the wedding on a Friday, which posed a problem for her guests. I live away from the city, have had lots of promises of help with no follow through from her, and I loved the first place I saw. I also loved Friday for the price and fact that my out of town guests have the full weekend to see NY.

2 weeks and many fights later with my fiance, the date is cancelled to next year due to most Saturdays being booked up now. This was crushing to me to say the least but now my fiance tells me his mother is going to give us a lot of money. With my mother’s limited ability to help financially, I’m worried but don’t want to receive this large donation. My fiance would otherwise carry the largest burden since he makes more (his bonus is my yearly salary) and has the largest group of guests.

So with all this info as background, how do I make sure I control the wedding details and not offend his mother by not asking for her help in some items I simply want to control? I just am very hurt by what happened and don’t want this to happen again. The person who controls the purse has the say, and that is not me here. Anyway I appreciate your help as I am really conflicted about this .

Vanessa

I have a problem. It’s three weeks ’til my wedding and the venue just informed me that we can’t hang anything from the walls or ceiling for the reception. To save money (we are on a tiny budget), we are having our reception in the fellowship hall of the church where the ceremony is. (And after reading so many wedding sites, I feel like the only one out here having a reception in a church hall.) Anyway, they originally told me we could do whatever we want to decorate. It’s a very old church built in the 1930’s with a tiny old congregation to match and the trustees are scared we’ll ruin the wall or ceilings.

I’m so bummed because I was going to hang strings of globe lights and paper lanterns. I thought with those and some soft lighting, it might not feel so much like a basement.

I can’t think of anything way to hang them without building some type of poles or renting 12-foot trees of some kind to string them from across the room (though I’m sure we can’t afford either of those ideas, anyway). I don’t know if I should call and plead with them or give up.

Any ideas?

meredith

I have been following Weddingbee religiously for the last 3 months as I’ve waded deeper and deeper into the planning process. One of the biggest turn-offs to planning, however, has been the unbelievable cost involved! We are paying for the wedding ourselves (I have no parents, his are not interested in being financially involved), and are saving as much as we can from our scant paychecks, tax returns, and bonuses. Our savings account is still ailing from buying our first home last fall. I have taken every short-cut, DIY’d all decorations, shopped sales and discounts exclusively, trimmed the guest list, and scouted the caterer that will give us the most bang for our buck. But in the end, I am still left wondering: how do brides pay for their weddings?

Thanks!
farmgal

Hi, here’s my question:

If you have a guest list that’s prioritized into list “A” and list “B”…and you want to maybe not send out invites to the B list’ers until you start getting “no’s” from the A list’ers… do both A list’ers and B list’ers get save-the-dates?

If not, then how do you make sure that the B list guests also have ample time to coordinate accommodations and transportation given that everyone will most likely be traveling to the wedding (and it’s a holiday weekend). What is the proper etiquette to handle this situation?

Thanks!
Caroline

Dear weddingbee,

I want pocketfold invitations with 4 information cards to address all the info that I need to tell people. I got a quote of $1200 for 125 invitations from a company for all the sizes and colors that I want. Is this an ok price?

Do you know of any actual stationers that I could try in Manhattan? I was thinking it could be good for my peace of mind working with an actual person that might be more flexible, than trying to modify a company’s samples into what I want. I’d really appreciate any pocketfold invitation advice.

c

I am wondering what the “stages” of marriage are? It was mentioned in a comment on this beehive when someone asked about unique guestbook ideas like wishbowls.

at my wedding, we will have what we are calling “wedding jars”. basically they are 6 vases with narrow tops that represent different stages that our relationship will go through. we will ask people to put advice, words of encouragement, quotes or prayers for a certain stage of our marriage into the jars. we will open the “newlywed jar” on our honeymoon, and then the rest of the jars we will save to open when we reach that stage.

There is also a deeper spiritual meaning to this- the jars represent the 6 jars of water that Jesus turned into wine at a wedding for His first miracle, but the idea would work just as well if you chose not to add that if you are not christian/religious. ~ Staz

I love the idea of having different wishbowls where guests can leave advice for each stage of a marriage. I am just unsure what they are. Can anyone help please? Thanks!

Marla

Hi all!

I bought an ivory dress (well, more cream-ish than ivory I should say), and now I’ve run into some issues that I hadn’t thought about when buying the dress.

Should I wear gold shoes and jewelry then so it matches the warmer tone? My rings are platinum though. Will that clash? And should the bridesmaids also wear gold shoes and jewelry? Their dresses are going to be teal blue.

Do the groom’s and groomsmen’s shirts need to be ivory as well? My grandfather gave him silver cufflinks as a gift. So then we go back into the gold vs. silver jewelry debate again. **Sigh**

Am I thinking waaaay too much into this? The more I think about it, the more confused I get. =( Help please!

Thanks!

Irene

Read more…

Hi bees!

I was hoping you all could help me out with suggestions on what to do about the owner of my venue (please!). She is upset with me, and is now uncooperative and making it impossible to plan things. The back story: Back when I booked the venue, we agreed on some different terms than her usual standard contract. One of those terms was that there would be no other event there that day. After signing our contract (with our terms), she called me a couple of months later saying that she was planning on booking another event on my wedding date. She thought I wouldn’t have a problem with it because it was not another wedding, just another event. I did have a problem because we had agreed there would be no other EVENT that day, not just another wedding. My picking this venue was partly based on that condition.

We discussed it, and in the end, I held her to the contract terms that she agreed to. She sort of gave me a guilt trip about how she was just trying to pay for the new facility that I was getting married in, and that I shouldn’t be bothered by the other event (but they were going to be where we were planning on taking most of our pictures!). It was obvious that she was very unhappy with me and I predicted this was going to lead to problems in the future.

Read more…

I currently find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have asked 3 people to be a bridesmaid for my wedding. Since then I have had a bit of a falling out with one of the girls, where I realised that I only asked her because we have been friends for so long and it was almost expected. I now find that I have nothing in common with this person and I’m not really a fan of the person that she has become. The ideal situation would be for me to only have the 2 bridesmaids (my best friend and sister), but I couldn’t imagine un-asking someone to be my bridesmaid because that would be so hurtful.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Em

Hi there,

I get my hair done at a fantastic salon in NYC, and I’ve been working with the manager there to arrange wedding day hair and makeup for myself, the bridesmaids, the moms and some aunts. However, I just got off the phone with her and she raised her original price from $80 to $100 for hair (no matter what style) and from $75 to $100 for makeup.

They claim it is because they have to open the salon early in order to accommodate us all, and my response to that was, well they are making money that they normally wouldn’t make during normal business hours. And their response to that was that they had to get stylists to agree to come in and be happy about it! I just know that most of the people I am trying to coordinate hair and makeup for are going to be upset about the price. It’s a lot of money!

My question for weddingbee readers is, are you coordinating hair and makeup for everyone? What was the average price? What should I do?

Thanks!
Sarah

Hi,

If you are having a Friday late afternoon/early evening ceremony (5pm), how much of a faux-pas is it to have light hors d’oevres and “cocktail” food reception? I am trying to figure out ways to cut costs, and most weddings I have been to, the grand cocktail hour was practically enough food to fill you up alone because they had carving stations, appetizers, pasta bar, caviar stations and the actual sit-down dinner has been mediocre / half-eaten at best.

I’m wondering if I can have light refreshments during the cocktail hour and then have all the grand “cocktail” stations in my main reception. We just wanted to make the reception less formal and more fun/relaxed since that is always our approach to things. That way everyone can mingle and dance. (Honestly, our style would be an outdoor picnic - if only we could make BBQ picnic sound and feel more elegant.)

Do you think guests will be appalled or disappointed or disgruntled about not having a full-on 3 course sit-down dinner for a late reception (starts at 7pm)?

Hi,

My name is Stacy and I subscribe to your blog. I am getting married next Friday and have a big problem. Yesterday, I had scheduled a meeting with my DJ, but he never showed up. He is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t answer my calls nor is he responding to my voice mails.

Stacy