Wedding Stories!

whitebunny87 · 2016-06-02T04:09:00+00:00

i'm not married, but one of the nicest weddings i've been to was an elegant, understated garden party.

after the ceremony in a small church, we went into the church gardens where the couple had set up their own music, the parents were running a grill and dishing up beautiful home-made salads, and people just mingled and laughed into the night. no need to worry about transport, no professional photographer, a simple but lovely cake, the newlyweds and all their guests just seemed so relaxed and happy. they supplied beer, wine and champagne, which i imagine would have been the biggest expense for them, but otherwise i think it ran fairly cheap.

some people like all the pomp and ceremony, but for this couple simplicity was perfect.

SuperSlavisWife · 2016-06-02T05:25:23+00:00

Jon and I went for literally bare bones: a few relatives, a registry office, a night out of drinking and a meal together. We dressed up a bit and his brother snapped some pictures, but it was the most basic wedding it could be. And it was perfect. I would have hated to spend a few thousand on a single day and be surrounded by people who dislike each other and have the stress of planning an event like that. So it can literally be as simple as that, if that's what you want.

The wedding's not the important bit: the marriage is. Have as much or as little as you want and can afford, but at the end of the day the proof is in the pudding.

Sunhappy_DC · 2016-06-02T13:14:47+00:00

I am not married (YET, I SHANT LOSE HOPE) but my friend told me that her coworker got married and spent less than $2000 total on the whole thing.

She did the invitations via facebook. It was a small gathering.
They had the ceremony in a public park. Totally free!
Her friend managed photography. I think they weren't professional.
She had the reception at a friend's house. Beer and pizza.
Her dress was new but super affordable.

Ultimately, she paid about $1800 for her whole wedding and she had fun and it was memorable. I think she was a law school grad so I can't hate on her wanting to save that money for those loan repayments.

Things that I would want to maintain in my wedding would be 1) a hard budget. Women often want to go above and beyond for this one special day and I get the urge to do that, but it's not financially wise. You shouldn't go into debt for a single day event; 2) Small guest list. Maybe it's cuz i'm African and they can be FOOLISH about family events like weddings, but I don't want the headache; and 3) Affordable catering. My crew don't need third and fourth plates of nothin. If they that hungry, they can go across the street to IHOP unless they want to pitch in.

lady_baker · 2016-06-02T12:38:54+00:00

I don't have anything helpful - just wanted to congratulate you on marrying your man and being smart enough to keep the party small. Your memories and what you'll be reminiscing about in 40 years have nothing to do with stupid expensive flowers or trendy facilities - but you already know that!

We eloped. I'm really useless here. Good luck!

StingrayVC · 2016-06-02T12:18:24+00:00

The best advice I can give you is to not stress out about it. Problems are going to arise and some people might have weird ideas or even insist on certain things. It's your wedding. You do what you two want and don't stress about what other people want. Don't stress about the small problems that come up. It's just a wedding and while it is important, it is not the most important. That is what comes afterward. It's the beginning of your marriage, not the only day.

This will come through to your guests and they will all be more relaxed and they will have a better time. It will be more genuine for everyone. I am always reminded of this scene from Little Women when I think about weddings:

Meg looked very like a rose herself, for all that was best and sweetest in heart and soul seemed to bloom into her face that day, making it fair and tender, with a charm more beautiful than beauty. Neither silk, lace, nor orange flowers would she have. I don't want a fashionable wedding, but only those about me whom I love, and to them I wish to look and be my familiar self.

So she made her wedding gown herself, sewing into it the tender hopes and innocent romances of a girlish heart. her sisters braided up her pretty hair, and the only ornaments she wore were the lilies of the valley, which `her John' liked best of all the flowers that grew.

You do look just like our own dear Meg, only so very sweet and lovely that I should hug you if it wouldn't crumple your dress, cried Amy, surveying her with delight when all was done.

Then I am satisfied. But please hug and kiss me, everyone, and don't mind my dress. I want a great many crumples of this sort put into it today. And Meg opened her arms to her sisters, who clung about her with April faces for a minute, feeling that the new love had not changed the old.

. . . . . .

There were to be no ceremonious performances, everything was to be as natural and homelike as possible, so when Aunt March arrived, she was scandalized to see the bride come running to welcome and lead her in, to find the bridegroom fastening up a garland that had fallen down, and to catch a glimpse of the paternal minister marching upstairs with a grave countenance and a wine bottle under each arm.

Upon my word, here's a state of things! cried the old lady, taking the seat of honor prepared for her, and settling the folds of her lavender moire with a great rustle. You oughtn't to be seen till the last minute, child.

I'm not a show, Aunty, and no one is coming to stare at me, to criticize my dress, or count the cost of my luncheon. I'm too happy to care what anyone says or thinks, and I'm going to have my little wedding just as I like it. John, dear, here's your hammer. And away went Meg to help `that man' in his highly improper employment.

Mr. Brooke didn't even say, Thank you, but as he stooped for the unromantic tool, he kissed his little bride behind the folding door, with a look that made Aunt March whisk out her pocket handkerchief with a sudden dew in her sharp old eyes.

. . . . .

There was no bridal procession, but a sudden silence fell upon the room as Mr. March and the young couple took their places under the green arch. Mother and sisters gathered close, as if loath to give Meg up. The fatherly voice broke more than once, which only seemed to make the service more beautiful and solemn. The bridegroom's hand trembled visibly, and no one heard his replies. But Meg looked straight up in her husband's eyes, and said, I will! with such tender trust in her own face and voice that her mother's heart rejoiced and Aunt March sniffed audibly.

Jo did not cry, though she was very near it once, and was only saved from a demonstration by the consciousness that Laurie was staring fixedly at her, with a comical mixture of merriment and emotion in his wicked black eyes. Beth kept her face hidden on her mother's shoulder, but Amy stood like a graceful statue, with a most becoming ray of sunshine touching her white forehead and the flower in her hair.

It wasn't at all the thing, I'm afraid, but the minute she was fairly married, Meg cried, The first kiss for Marmee! and turning, gave it with her heart on her lips. During the next fifteen minutes she looked more like a rose than ever, for everyone availed themselves of their privileges to the fullest extent, from Mr. Laurence to old Hannah, who, adorned with a headdress fearfully and wonderfully made, fell upon her in the hall, crying with a sob and a chuckle, Bless you, deary, a hundred times! The cake ain't hurt a mite, and everything looks lovely.

Everybody cleared up after that, and said something brilliant, or tried to, which did just as well, for laughter is ready when hearts are light. There was no display of gifts, for they were already in the little house, nor was there an elaborate breakfast, but a plentiful lunch of cake and fruit, dressed with flowers. Mr. Laurence and Aunt March shrugged and smiled at one another when water, lemonade, and coffee were found to be to only sorts of nectar which the three Hebes carried around. No one said anything, till Laurie, who insisted on serving the bride, appeared before her, with a loaded salver in his hand and a puzzled expression on his face.

. . . .

That is the prettiest wedding I've been to for an age, Ned, and I don't see why, for there wasn't a bit of style about it, observed Mrs. Moffat to her husband, as they drove away.

That last bit is key. It is the marriage that matters and if you go into your wedding with that in your heart and mind, it will naturally come through into the wedding itself, not matter how much or how little you spend or do for that day.

sugarcrush · 2016-06-02T12:53:16+00:00

We had a destination wedding. It was both small and cheap. We skipped out on a lot of the traditional things (no bridesmaids/groomsmen, didn't send out any formal invitations, no dj or dancing, etc.) but it was beautiful and everyone had a good time.

Pros: As stated above, cheap! I think everything wedding related cost maybe $5000, and that included some upgrades so it could have been as cheap as $1200 I think. Obviously we also paid for our room and what not but that doubled as the honeymoon. Speaking of which, starting your honeymoon before the wedding even begins is pretty awesome, lol.

100% stress free. Seriously. We just had to pick out the options we wanted and the wedding coordinator at the resort did everything.

Wedding was quick and low-key overall, which I liked because I didn't want to feel like some spectacle.

Cons: Not everyone will be able to go. We had about 20 guests, but I was totally prepared for it to just be us and our parents. Depending on your family, this may cause drama (mine was totally fine with it). Some people get weirdly judgy about destination weddings and insinuate that you must not really care about your family and friends and that you didn't try hard enough to have a real wedding.

Overall, I am extremely happy with our choice. I would like to have a larger anniversary party in the future where we celebrate with our new friends and everyone who couldn't make it.

sthutton · 2016-06-02T14:25:55+00:00

It's been a long time, but here's what I remember (and don't remember!)

Be chill. Stuff is going to go wrong. It just is. How you handle it will speak volumes to your soon to be hubby. Two examples - my car was broken into early in the day about 6-weeks-ish before the wedding (basically the suggested time frame for sending out invitations). In the middle of the night, I woke up and realized the box with our invitations (all filled out, ready to mail, just waiting on the stamps) was stolen out of my trunk. I started crying, thinking of how long it took the invitations to get to us in the first place, plus filling them all out. Poor me panic freak out. My poor hubby-to-be got up (in the middle of the night) and drove around to look in dumpsters in the area to see if he could find the box for me. Sigh. I still feel horrible about that. Second example - on our wedding day, right after the reception started, hubby stepped on the back of my dress as we were walking. I feel the tug at my butt and hear RIP. I looked at him like OHMYSHIT, covered my butt with my hands, grabbed my sister, and ran to the bathroom to check whether I had an ass hanging out for all our family to see. (I did not; just the bustle connector button ripped off, so I held the back of my dress in my arm the rest of the night.) When I got back to hubby, you could see he felt SO BAD. And for what? Because my tailor didn't bustle it up enough? No. He felt bad because I gave him the 'whatthefuckdidyoujustdo' look.
Go cheap on things that you're 'ehhh' about but don't feel bad about splurging on things that matter to you. I splurged on my dress, and he splurged on the booze (gotta have Crown). We went cheap on photos. We had a good photographer, but the photo package - we got the bare minimum, cause guess how often you go back and look at the album?
Don't feel obligated to have a big wedding party, or even a wedding party at all. I had my sister and hubby had his father. It was very special like this and felt like we were honoring them more than if we had each chosen 5-6 bridesmaids/groomsmen.
Too many guests = not many (or possibly any) memories with them. We only had 60-70 guests (hubby has a large family), but I still barely remember even speaking to half of them.
Music is important to set the mood. DJ, band, or even your own mix on CDs (am I old for using CDs? haha). Just make sure it's the mood you'd want at your wedding. We went cheap here and did our own mixes. Looking back, I wish we had hired a band to liven things up, and that's more us anyway. We love concerts.
Photos - I know I already touched on the photos, but this is a different aspect. If your hubby-to-be hates being in photos, don't make him pose with you, and your family, and his family, and your siblings, and his siblings, and over here by this flower, oh and over here by the cake. You get the picture.
For the honeymoon fund vs gift registries...you're always going to have people in your life that will not want to (and shouldn't feel obligated to) just give money. I think you could start a honeymoon fund, but do make sure you have a traditional registry also.

Just make sure it's not just about you and the wedding you want. Let him give input and find out what's important to him.

kitsunethreetails · 2016-06-02T21:24:37+00:00

We had a small wedding, just under 20 guests. It was nice and stress-free. We got married at the same little church his parents were married, we had the dinner at our favorite Greek restaurant, in a nice little gazebo area that was big enough to fit us all, and then his parents had invited us all back for an after party at their house.

We also cut a bunch of costs:

I got my makeup done at Clinique at the mall, when you buy $50 or so dollars makeup, you get the makeover for free. Worked out great for me and my two bridesmaids since we all use Clinique products.
As a gift my sister-in-law asked if she could make our wedding cake for us. It turned out beautifully.
My husband's friend took our photos during our wedding and reception.
We didn't have to rent a hall since the restaurant could accommodate us on the floor.

As for the wedding gift, since it was just mostly family and a couple friends, we didn't have a registry so we got mostly cash and about $300 in gas cars. We used that towards our honeymoon up in Niagara Falls. :)

0leanderr · 2016-06-07T23:10:58+00:00

My wedding was a small dinner in my house, my parents and grandmother came over and helped me make the appetizers, I made the main course. His parents were there as well, his father officiated. Very small. No honeymoon, just papers being signed with the people most important to us.

Probably not what you were looking for, OP. But I thought I'd add my story too :)

maya_elena · 2016-06-02T03:01:44+00:00

Realizing that this is a bit out of scope for this sub-reddit, but one cannot have enough useful advice for events like these. Therefore, here is some of mine, based on my experience (which went quite well):

1) Designate an obmudswoman (mom, maid of honor) who will triage any and all problems Day Of.

2) Have a set of low-priority things that enthusiastic people can help out with (flowers, guest book, seating people, etc.).

3) If you're doing it indoors or with a dance floor (not beach or grass), get silver or white ballroom dancing shoes. Wear them to your dress fittings. Get a dress you don't trip over (i.e., no train).

4) Canvass people in advance if they plan to do speeches or show videos. Also, work through the timing and traffic patterns - ceremony to reception, dinner, speeches and dancing, and dessert.

5) It's better if the newlyweds have their own "sweetheart" table rather than a big one for the wedding party.

Edit: formatting and wordiness

tradmarriageftw · 2016-06-02T13:37:06+00:00

We were planning to do a small ceremony for family, but finally just eloped. Personally, I think it was the best choice for us and we have wonderful memories from that day.

The reasons we opted not to do a whole wedding:

Even a small wedding was looking very expensive. Maybe it's just our area, but just hiring an officiant to meet in us in the park was looking like too much. Then a wedding cake. Enough places for everyone to sit, etc, etc.
We had a rule to keep it small- only family members that both of us had met would be invited. We are introverts and didn't want to stand in front of a huge crowd. Everyone that found out we were engaged just assumed they were invited. My mother in law kept saying we had to invite all these people or we would be making her look bad. It was starting to make us very anxious.
Scheduling all this stuff and accommodating.A wedding is really just a big party and we didn't know how to be hosts, it's just not in either of our nature. We were busy enough with work, now we need to plan a party that accommodates grandmas, divorced parents, etc. It was all just becoming very overwhelming.

We went to the courthouse and then to dinner afterwards. It was very silly and fun, I had to change out of my dress in the car. When we eloped we had money for a honeymoon. We thought people might be angry afterwards and that we might need to a little party to calm people, but everyone was very understanding in the end. It was exactly how we wanted and now we get to spend the rest of our lives together. <3

lackadaisicalily · 2016-06-02T02:23:12+00:00

What's your budget for the wedding?

littleteafox · 2016-06-02T16:42:39+00:00

Looking forward to hearing more stories!

Personally I am of the mind of having a very small destination wedding ceremony, followed by an actual party a few weeks after :) I really like the idea of keeping it chill, casual, understated, and outdoors. I've read about having flower crown stations (where guest can make flower crowns) and I rather like that idea. Give us introverts something to do ;) or just have fun selfies with it, and great for kids.

I'd prob want to create my own music playlist -- I have non-mainstream tastes in music. I'm also liking the idea of wedding cupcakes with different flavors as opposed to a giant fancy cake.

espocita · 2016-06-02T20:59:40+00:00

Me too!! I don't have advice yet cause I'm only getting started, but I do have a question I've been thinking about lately since I'm new to RPW. For the most part wedding planning seems to be left entirely to the women, does this differ at all in a RP relationship? Shall I bring every idea to him for a decision? Hope I'm not hijacking this post!

Kittenkajira · 2016-06-02T01:51:44+00:00

I'll comment more later, but I wanted to say that you can get a honeymoon registry through travel agents. They give you little cards to put in your invitations that have instructions for your guests on how to contribute to the registry.

If you just want money from your guests, you can add that to your invitations. We put "If you would like to get us a gift, please bring along some dollars for our life together" on the bottom of the directions card.

KlaiFrai · 2016-06-03T21:38:25+00:00

Things will go wrong. Let them, and take it in stride. As my husband said the week before the wedding, "Say you were to... trip and fall in mud on your way to the ceremony. I think you'd look ten times more beautiful if you made it to the ceremony on time and owned the mud-look down the aisle, than if you run back home and cry in a bathroom and show up clean two hours late in one of your nice dresses."

Remember that the most important part of the day is your marriage to your husband, and it won't matter that my FSIL and my MOH did my hair and nails because Mom had invited so many female family members over that our makeup girl couldn't keep up. It was kinda fun because everyone had brought back-up makeup and supplies and curling irons, so they just turned to the woman next to them and started doing their hair and makeup. My nails were hilaribad, but good enough for the camera and I just kinda cat-pawed when someone wanted to see the ring. My makeup wasn't "bridal" but damn it was good, and I've since gotten FSIL to teach me how to do it like that.

Other things I'm glad about: Made sure the girls and I ate lots of eggo waffles for breakfast. And everyone with a purse kept a cliff bar and a redbull on hand, since I did NOT sleep the night before and I wanted to make sure no one got hangry before dinner :P We made the bouquets ourselves the night before, from bulk costco roses and lace trim from my sewing supplies. We got three different cakes from a supermarket that I'd decided tasted better than any wedding cake I'd ever had, borrowed three different heights of cake platters off family and friends, and put them on them with leftover rose heads and greenery from making the bouquets. Similar to this, but one-sided and with supermarket cakes; the flowers are about right though http://www.creationsbylaura.net/wp-content/gallery/wedding-cakes-2013/wedding-cake-with-diagonal-carnelli-lace-monogram-fresh-flowers.JPG

Made my own invitations with a little photoshop and plain card stock. Got the usb-files-only package for photography. Chose a venue that was BYOB so we could buy plenty more than needed, then return most of the unopened stuff for refund. MOH got her music students to play us down the aisle for significantly cheaper than professionals.

The more you can do yourself and get through connections, the more you can save. But do not take on so much that you turn Bridezilla, and don't be afraid to lean on family and friends if you need them to hold something for you.

Title	Wedding Stories!
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	14
Comments	40
Date	June 2, 2016 1:45 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWives
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWives/comments/4m4st7/wedding_stories/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWives/wedding-stories.209936 https://theredarchive.com/post/209936

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