Wedding Planning Advice

[Maritime Q-Scout]

hulkrogan's wedding ceremony thread got me to thinking.

Is there any advice you guys have about planning a wedding? What did you do that you thought worked well? Didn't work well? If you could do things over what would you change?

[surferguy]

I am getting married in one month. It is a busy busy busy time.

You must understand this: The wedding industry is full of vultures.

My advice: Tell the problem family members on day 1 that you will put up with no BS. Set your ground rules and go from there.

Shop around - the internet is your friend.

Start planning and do any crafting projects early so they are completed before your last month. Stuff will always come up and not having projects to do in the last few weeks is a god send.

Etsy is your friend

Pintrest for ideas

Video invitations! we did ours on the Youtube and saved about 1K. I am not ready to release our videos yet, probably wont do it until after the big day.

June 9 is coming quick!

[Ace]

If budget is at Play, ditch the cake...nobody notices if you don't have one, and cakes are rediculous price wise. Plus if you have one you'll be tempted to smush it in her face which will seem funny in your head...but trust me she will not find it very funny.

[Cheese]

E l o p e
s a v e
t o n s
o f
m o n e y

[bomber317]

If by any chance you are getting married in Maui, I have an awesome wedding planner to refer.

I just got married about a month ago and it went very smoothly. My wife wasn't as stressed as I thought she would be mainly because of the wedding planner.

[Traditional_Ale]

Run for your life.

[Northendzone]

My wife and I got married on the shore of lake invermere. My sister and BIL were there and we went out for dinner.

It was the second time around for us and neither one of us felt like spending a few thousand on one day of our lives.

[You Need a Thneed]

Pick the things that you really care about, and don't worry about the others. My wife didn't see or plan any of the ceremony decorations until she walked into the ceremony.

Simplfy.

Don't worry about the little hiccups that do happen along the way. People won't notice or remember anyway.

Enjoy the time. If you are getting too stressed out, you are doing it wrong.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

My wife and I got married on the shore of lake invermere. My sister and BIL were there and we went out for dinner..

Bill was at your wedding too?

He's a great guy.

[PsnaP]

figure out a guest list.. and cut it in half.

Also get referrals, find someone in the wedding industry that you can trust and get contacts from there. Our Wedding was small and everything worked out great.

[Ashartus]

Don't worry about little details - no one is going to care what varieties of flowers you have or what shade the napkins are. Keep things simple. Check references for your service providers. Decide what's important for you and your significant other. You may have to make some concessions to parents (particularly if they're paying for some or all of it) but remember it's your day.

[tete]

In the immortal words of my husband "you can plan a funeral in three days, you can plan a wedding in three days". While our engagement was longer than three days (it was 5 months) - we had the wedding planned in a weekend - the only two things that had to be finalized a couple weeks later was the band and the caterer. It was awesome - there was no time to second guess or to take any crap from most of the normal pitfalls - family, wedding vendor vultures, etc. We just plowed ahead and did what we wanted.

Darnitall, did I just admit my husband was right about something? Crap.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

My wife and I got married on the shore of lake invermere. My sister and BIL were there and we went out for dinner.

It was the second time around for us and neither one of us felt like spending a few thousand on one day of our lives.

Lake Windermere maybe?

[Bunk]

Spreadsheets/checklists. The best thing to do is just understand what needs to be done 9 months, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month, 1 week out etc. Or, just ask your fiancee to do it.

[Regular_John]

Every little thing you forget will be $200. I don't know why, it just seemed like everytime I said "oh, we hadn't thought of that" I ended up writing another cheque for $200.

[Mazrim]

I did most of the planning for my wedding in July online. Haven't had any problems yet, and everyone I've dealt with has been good. Use theknot.com to get ideas and it also has a good list of things you should remember to do.

[Bill Bumface]

In my experience, a great wedding requires fun people, tons of booze, and edible food. I don't think I've really cared about another single detail about any wedding I've attending, so I'm planning mine as such. All money I can save on the other crap goes straight to booze.

[iggyformayor]

Smile and nod. Mix in a mmhmm every once in a while for best results.

[Russic]

I had a great wedding and it was a lot of fun, but looking back there was no need to go as expensive as we did. I think many have that opinion, but not until after the wedding. In hindsight it's easy to see things like the cake not mattering or the buffet having beef AND salmon. It's such a high stress event and for that reason it's over before you know it. You spend thousands of dollars and it more or less ends up being a blur.

If I could do it again I'd totally elope and then invite friends and family to a group camping site to set things on fire and play music at a high volume.

[Otsy]

My wife was amazing at making a bunch of the decorations and finding great deals on everything else. Did everything fairly simple, didn't have a cake, just desserts with the meal. We did splurge fairly last minute though on a photo booth. Easily the biggest hit of the reception. They had tons of hats, glasses, props, wigs and people packed the thing all night, there was constantly a lineup of people to get in. It was tight, but you could cram 10 people in the one we had for some fun photo ops. Everyone got a strip of the 4 photos they took and one copy went to us + a dvd with all the pics as well.