So lettuce discuss getting married

[TXRams86]

so to kick this conversation off, i'll start by saying that i've begun to embark on the magical journey that is getting married. i proposed to my fiancee in early March with the understanding that we would wait to have the actual wedding after I graduated (I graduate with my Bachelors in Business next May). we already had a trip planned for our daughters, we both have one from a previous relationship, so that was already going to set us back financially. no big deal though, we both understand that it takes time to plan the whole thing out and of course we need the financial backing.

the tentative date for the wedding is sometime in September of next year. most people consider this an adequate amount of time to plan a wedding but lets talk a little about me (i'm Albert by the way).

i'm a pretty analytical thinker and i rarely let emotion guide my decisions. the fiancee on the other hand is very conscious of people's feelings. this has caused some disagreements early on in our discussions. i believe in planning out all the little stuff now (guest list, theme, date, etc etc) which she's happy to do. but she keeps throwing out the fact that we need to reserve a venue for the reception well ahead of time. i know this as well, hell i have 3 sisters who have all been married. but being me, i tell her we need to get this trip paid for and out of the way before we start discussing big financial investments like paying 3-4 thousand on a hall. remember, the wedding date is TENTATIVE because of how expensive a wedding is. am i being insensitive here? i know a woman gets really anxious and excited over a wedding. i'm just trying to be sure everything is taken care of on the financial side first.

i could go on and on and on about the planning and how i see things a little differently than she does. but! i wanted to get some ROD member input. does this whole planning thing get easier? my understanding is that once the hall (and dress) are out of the way and paid for, it's all smooth sailing. now, keep in mind, my fiancee is pretty level headed and isn't a bridezilla by any standard lol. my heart is set on having a decent honeymoon but that may come at the expense of some luxuries of the actual wedding. anyone with experience in this? i keep tossing around the fact that the reception is more for family and friends than it is for us. compromise is hard to find in wedding planning hahah.

oh and poll created for fun.

 

[fearsomefour]

eloped dude.
Had a casual BBQ with fam and friends when got back....avoided the stress and expense.

 

[RamFan503]

We planned and catered ours back in '87. 3 - 4 thousand for a deposit on a hall? Yikes! We had our wedding on a private beach that a friend of my dad owned. It was black tie/shoes optional. My dad and I went out the day before and drug drift wood logs around with our 4x4s to form an aisle for my bride to walk down with her dad. We dug out a big hole in the sand and built a structure to put the generator behind so my friend's band could play during the event without hearing the generator. We even had otters playing in the background as the minister gave the vows.

We took a few trips down to Mexico and bought booze while down there so our full bar at the reception didn't cost an arm and a leg and I had my college roommate play bartender. I cooked all my own meats and then went to a restaurant I used to work at to slice it and a bunch of cheeses and stuff. Meanwhile, Becky was decorating the hall the day before. My brother did a few tapes for dancing at the reception and brought his studio system down. Becky even made our cake and going away outfits. We looked very Miami Vice.

All in all, everything went really well. We got a lot of help from relatives and did most of the major stuff ourselves. Not sure I would try that again but we couldn't really afford a wedding and reception for 250 people by hiring someone to do it.

Our honeymoon? A week driving and camping around Northern California in my wife's old Plymouth Sapporo with a leaky radiator. Had a great time though and even got in some trout fishing.

 

[TXRams86]

sorry, there was a typo in there.
the hall is going to run $3-4 total, but the reservations vary from 600-1000.
still a chunk of change to put down at once.

@fearsomefour i threw the idea around with her about just getting married, nothing big and maybe having a dinner for family. hell, even having them over for a Saturday and just grilling. the weather here in Texas is beautiful in September. but we have a mutual understanding that we're only doing this once (getting married) so she wants it to be special.

@RamFan503 the idea of getting married on a beach is awesome. sounds like you guys had an awesome wedding and didn't break the bank. the whole idea of spending a ton of money on a party that's really more for family is not appealing me to say the least. but i side with the fiancee because it's important to a woman. and we're both going to be having family fly in from across the nation, some even from Canada. it's only right to have something they will all enjoy. now the honeymoon, that's where i personally thought we should break the bank. like i said to fearsomefour, if it was entirely up to me, we'd get married on our own and then just have something small with close family. then have an awesome honeymoon in the bahamas or something.

 

[bluecoconuts]

I haven't been married, but I'm getting ready to propose to my girlfriend pretty soon. I know she doesn't really care for a big show, and I certainly am not all about a big show.. However her family probably will be. Which is a shame, because I'll probably have about 10 people I want to invite to a wedding, and wouldn't enjoy a big thing.

Personally it probably depends on how much you care about it. When it comes to planning I'm pretty flexible about things, so I'll let her plan it. I just want to make sure I get some good food out of it and I'm happy. That and an awesome honeymoon.. I either want to go scuba diving around Truk Lagoon, or go to Tahiti... Again, I'd be happy with just about anything.

If you're the same way, I'd probably try to relax more. Personally I think if you're going to book a venue you gotta have the date first. Maybe start there and work backwards?

 

[RAMSinLA]

RUN! RUN! RUN!

View: https://youtu.be/ePXBlD5VH0E
just kidding...

 

[Selassie I]

The stress and planning difficulties will be a bitch. I hope that isn't the case for you,,, but my advice would be just to plan on things being more and more stressful up until the actual wedding and reception are over and you are about to hop in the sack with your new bride... that will be the moment when you'll finally be able to take a deep breath and receive some relief.


Good Luck Brudda

 

[PhxRam]

so to kick this conversation off, i'll start by saying that i've begun to embark on the magical journey that is getting married. i proposed to my fiancee in early March with the understanding that we would wait to have the actual wedding after I graduated (I graduate with my Bachelors in Business next May). we already had a trip planned for our daughters, we both have one from a previous relationship, so that was already going to set us back financially. no big deal though, we both understand that it takes time to plan the whole thing out and of course we need the financial backing.

the tentative date for the wedding is sometime in September of next year. most people consider this an adequate amount of time to plan a wedding but lets talk a little about me (i'm Albert by the way).

i'm a pretty analytical thinker and i rarely let emotion guide my decisions. the fiancee on the other hand is very conscious of people's feelings. this has caused some disagreements early on in our discussions. i believe in planning out all the little stuff now (guest list, theme, date, etc etc) which she's happy to do. but she keeps throwing out the fact that we need to reserve a venue for the reception well ahead of time. i know this as well, hell i have 3 sisters who have all been married. but being me, i tell her we need to get this trip paid for and out of the way before we start discussing big financial investments like paying 3-4 thousand on a hall. remember, the wedding date is TENTATIVE because of how expensive a wedding is. am i being insensitive here? i know a woman gets really anxious and excited over a wedding. i'm just trying to be sure everything is taken care of on the financial side first.

i could go on and on and on about the planning and how i see things a little differently than she does. but! i wanted to get some ROD member input. does this whole planning thing get easier? my understanding is that once the hall (and dress) are out of the way and paid for, it's all smooth sailing. now, keep in mind, my fiancee is pretty level headed and isn't a bridezilla by any standard lol. my heart is set on having a decent honeymoon but that may come at the expense of some luxuries of the actual wedding. anyone with experience in this? i keep tossing around the fact that the reception is more for family and friends than it is for us. compromise is hard to find in wedding planning hahah.

oh and poll created for fun.

Get married on a cruise. All of the planning is taken care of and it allows guests to have a little vacation on the side.

 

[HeiseNBerg]

Me and the Mrs. ordered our wedding online -- seriously. My wife's father had seen a show on the Travel channel about destination weddings in Italy, and he told her to look into it....so she did. My participation was more in the way of concurring with what she wanted (let's be honest -- the wedding is all about the bride).

Now, having said that -- since we got married in Italy, very few people were able to attend the actual wedding. So we also planned a "re-reception" about a month later, back in our hometown. It was more of a casual affair, but we rented a local fire hall that had an exclusive deal with a particular caterer -- their food was quite good and reasonable priced, about $12 a head.

 

[Dieter the Brock]

Yes - but it was the eloping kind

Me and my wife were married in a converted bank a block over from city hall in Vegas
We were chaperones for a young couple - through the church - and what we did was when they went to the concert together (like Sting or Sedaka or some shite) we drove to the courthouse and got married
$50 for the license
$50 for the wedding
I was totally sick as a dog too so nothing cool happened that night...

We knew it was about as low as you could go getting married - nobody knowing, for $100.... But we've been going strong for two decades

 

[Selassie I]

My wife and I went off to the Atlantis in the Bahamas and got married by ourselves. We did it up very nice and even had a steal drum band just for us. We spent a couple of weeks over there stress free.

About a month after we returned we had a giant party to celebrate. We have a huge clubhouse in our neighborhood where we threw the party. Totally casual, free booze and beer, food, and a bad ass Reggae band. Our family and friends had a great time... and so did we.

 

[CGI_Ram]

I've been married twice, so you might be best to avoid my advice.

My situation was much different as I was financially established at the time of my second marriage. Still yet, we got a significant amount of financial gifts that took a sizeable dent out of the wedding cost.

So... you should expect a little boost there, when planning your budget.

Congratulations!

 

[TXRams86]

thanks for the input guys. really appreciate it!
maybe i'm just thinking into this too much and i should just step back and let her take care of things.
i'm sure the consensus amongst us men is we don't really give a damn so long as there is good food, drinks, company and we aren't dressed in a terrible looking tux.
i've always been the type make sure a financial decision makes sense...maybe i should curb that and just give her a budget to run wild with. (some may argue getting married is a bad financial decision to begin with lol).

i'll take on the challenge of planning the honeymoon because that's what i'm looking forward to.

 

[IowaRam]

My advice

Keep the engagement period as short as possible , three weeks , that is all you need , any engagement period that last longer then three weeks , you're just asking to trouble ,

I was engaged for two and a half years , and my wife was border line nuts by the time we finally got to the wedding

I started dating my wife back in High School , and then after graduation , she went to college and I joined the Navy , about half way though her schooling and my enlistment is when I finally proposed , but we had already been dating for three years , but we weren't going to get married until after she graduated and I returned from the Navy , which was still another two years away

I wasn't much help with planning any of the wedding , I spent a lot of that last two years on a Air Craft Carrier out to sea , so our communication was limited

You would have thought having two full years to plan the wedding would have made things easy , but nope , at the time , she was still going to college , trying to plan a wedding , and me , who was never around to talk to

But that day is still the happiest day of my life ............................pretty much ,

 

[RhodyRams]

Wifey and I got married on the beach in Naples Florida with only 8 people plus the JOP. We arranged everything via email and phone calls from Connecticut and it went off without a hitch. Only problem was the weather..it was only 50° at sunset and my wife was in this short little almost see thru dress and I was in khakis and Hawaiian shirt. Had dinner in a local restaurant and the next morning we headed off to Disney for 5 days. Hit Pleasure Island on Fat Tuesday and got hammered lol

 

[Mackeyser]

Okay, analytical thinker....former network engineer here.

Here goes.

1) Get your timeline. Even if you have rough estimates, having something penciled in beats the snot out of shooting blanks at air.

2) Get your budget. You HAVE to know where your bottom line is. Trust me that there will be things that come up that will stretch your budget. FLOWERS can absolutely WRECK you. Don't ask. I dunno. Just sayin' because it's true. And understand that whatever SHE budgets for the dress... double it, but don't tell her. That way, when she finds THE dress and it's 50% more than you budgeted for, you're still 25% UNDER your max.

3) If you've decided on a venue and you're sure...LOCK. IT. DOWN. Can't say that enough. You never know when someone else will take a date and doggone it that THAT date will turn out to be the date when the stars align for everyone and then you're stuck trying to find an alternate site that she will like at least as much as the first one so you don't have to hear for the rest of your life, "our wedding was so nice. I loved it. But I really wished we could have had our reception at that place we originally decided on..."

4) Limit the number of bridesmaids. Seriously. You don't need all of those women in her ear, they make it harder on the maid/matron of honor, it's exponentially more stuff to coordinate, it allows for that many more opportunities for drama AND it means you will need to match the bridesmaids with groomsmen. And you don't want to have to have some sketchy acquaintance in your wedding party just to even it out. Those pictures aren't going away.

5) Trust, but verify. When it comes to catering, baking and flowers, make sure you've SEEN and TASTED their work. Find out if there are any actual events that you can attend where you can see their work on display or taste the food they actually deliver. Don't actually crash a wedding, but I wouldn't be beyond asking for a sample plate from an upcoming event. Some menus don't lend themselves to that, but some do. I say this as opposed to just tasting in their storefront or home or wherever because what they do in their storefront may not resemble what they deliver when they have to do it 100 or 400 times. Almost any florist can make ONE good arrangement. What does it look like when they have to make dozens and maybe table centerpieces and boutonnieres and bouquets?

6) Pick a date. At some point, you're going to have to pick a solid date. You can't really pay for the honeymoon until you know when you're going because that's going to require date specific reservations. Do that ASAP. It's amazing when you give people a lot of notice how it makes things easier. I know you're thinking about next September. Fine. Understand that some places book a year or more in advance, so look at the calendar and unless you know of a reason to not pick a date, pick one. Trust me, there ARE brides out there that have dreamed of a specific date and you really don't want to lose the date that works for you and your family because of hesitation that wasn't necessary. Most venues, if you're far enough out and the other date is open will just allow you to switch dates if you need to slide the date forward or back a bit. It only gets harder as you get closer.

The more you game plan up front, the smoother it will go day-to-day. And you're gonna want that. Like anesthesia for an operation...

 

[Dodgersrf]

You should stay in school and get your Masters.

 

[TXRams86]

You should stay in school and get your Masters.

haha, the plan is there!

 

[TXRams86]

@Mackeyser: all of that is good advice, thanks for taking the time and writing out a detailed response. i've already come to terms that the biggest expenses will be the dress and venue. but in no way am i under-estimating the small things. you hit the nail on the head with the flowers, those can be quite pricey. same goes for the wedding pictures. i'm baffled each and every time i see what type of tab people can run up for just those two "small" things.

 

[Dodgersrf]

haha, the plan is there!

Congratulations on your engagement.
Try not to get so caught up in every detail of the wedding, that you forget to just have fun.