[lot49]

lot, your wedding must be coming up very soon! how are you doing?

ACK!


Seriously, we have less than two weeks to go! I'm excited, but mrlot and I have soooo much work to do before we leave to drive cross-country on Wednesday. Sorry that I only have time for short replies:

amber, that dress is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

holy flying bridezillas pink! I agree that you should be relieved that you're out of the wedding.

Thanks for all the advice on the vendor feeding everyone. I ended up asking my photographer if she could stay to eat, and she declined.

[pollystyrene]

That sucks, pink- I went through basically the same thing, fortunately my bridezilla was a former co-worker, so we never had to see each other after that. I hope she tripped going up the aisle and her cake fell on the ground But there is a nice relief of being off the hook for the whole thing. I thought the bride bought your dress and that's why you offered to pay the difference for the size bigger, but she refused...maybe I mis-read.

ETA: love that dress, amber! I'm not normally an asymetrical skirt fan, but it just works on that dress.

[ambercherry]

this is close to the dress that i really like - when you click on the link, it's style 5327. the dress i like is a little different, though. down the left leg, there is a slit that is covered by lace (a gorgeous feature, in my opinion).

http://www.sarah-danielle-bridalwear.com/u...amp;totlines=-1

[ambercherry]

pink - oooooh my goddess!!! that is one hell of a drama! i'm so sorry you had to go through all that! i would be relieved, too, to be let off the hook after all that. i feel bad for the rest of the wedding party. and that's interesting that two people sat the groom down to talk with him! eeek!

so, i've decided against the dress that i was thinking might have been "the one". i don't want to go over my budget by that much. i am going to the shop this week again, though, to see if she might be able to make it in a different material that may cut the cost a little. i feel bad about asking to her do that, but i will always wonder if i don't ask. and she has a few other gorgeous dresses in there that might be a little closer to my budget. and of course, i may find something similar somewhere else closer to my budget.

i will try to post a link to a dress that is very similar to the one i'm in love with a little later...

lot, your wedding must be coming up very soon! how are you doing?

[pixiedust]

Lot, we didn't feed our vendors. It isn't usually done.

Pink.OH.MY.GOD!!! Can we say Bridezillah! I'd demand my money back for the dress from her! And My MR. would be in so much trouble if he was still in the wedding after that! That chick needs help! And her intended..wow he's in for quite a life.

[pinkmartyr]

amber, what did the dress you saw look like? maybe before you decide on that one (since it is out of your budget) you might try dresses with similar styles.

here is the update on the dress: i left the bride that voicemail telling her it was all good and asking if there was anything i could help her with on wednesday. thursday afternoon, she called and informed me that i was no longer a bridesmaid in her wedding because i was creating too much stress for her to worry about. i told her that my dress was already being altered and would be ready a week before the wedding, and she said that that didn't matter, she just decided she didn't want me involved and has already called the florist to cancel my bouquet. she cited several messages she left my fiance on myspace regarding instructions about my dress (he doesn't check it much- why didn't she call me?) when i told him that she fired me, he admitted that she called him the day before and said "tell her she's no longer a bridesmaid" and when he told her she'd have to call me herself because he refused to be the go-between, she hung up on him. additionally, my fiance has been demoted from "groomsman" to "usher."
i have called the other bridesmaid i'm friends with, and she is mad at the bride and says she doesn't even want to be in the wedding, she's just doing it for the groom. i shared my seamstress's number with her. then i called my fiance's sister and shared the story (they all hang together), she was really in disbelief about everything. i don't expect to be invited to the wedding, and i'm not going anyway. i'll still have the dress altered, because its nice and i could wear it for an evening at a nice restaurant or party i'm sure. whats unfortunate is that this is going to cause a lot of trouble for a group of friends who normally hang out together for trips out of town, barbecues, etc.
apparently, two of the guys have had sit-downs with the groom because they aren't sure he's making the right choice. when one of our friends got her engagement ring, the bride was pissed because the other girl's diamond was bigger than hers. that is the gist of the situation.
i was really shocked, and i'm hurt by her icy-ness, but at the same time, i feel off the hook, which is good.

[ambercherry]

lot, i think feeding your dj is a good thing to do, especially if he's there the whole night (i just think it's a polite, nice thing to do (even though i have read in ettiquette books that you don't have to)). but feeding your photographer, if she's only there for a two and half hour job, i'm not so sure about.

i asked my fiance what he thought about it and he thought that no, you shouldn't have to feed her. if she's there during the supper hours working, then she should be working. if she's there before or prior, then you shouldn't worry about it.

of course, someone else might say differently. do you have a relationship with her other than she's hired to be your photographer? if you don't, and it's a job for her, then i don't think you should worry about feeding her.

good luck!! how's the planning? how are you feeling? i hope you're able to take the time to relax and enjoy!

[lot49]

hi -- sorry to crash in here with no time to respond to anyone else's posts, but can anyone give me any advice about feeding vendors? We're planning on feeding our DJ since he'll be there the whole night. But we have a photographer who is staying only 2.5 hours -- should we feed her as well? I hate that I'm cutting corners like this, but shaving the extra $40 off the tab could be a help since we're already over budget.

[ambercherry]

roseviolet, your pictures are beautiful! what a gorgeous place to hold a wedding.

sybarite, those are my dealbreakers, too. good food is a must! i have been to weddings where the food was just not even something i'd have on a casual day at home, let alone a wedding. i hope we're going to have enough wine/drink for our guests. what are peoples thoughts here on a cash bar? i mean, we'd be providing wine with the meal - and for every guest, and every guest doesn't drink wine, so there would be likely more for those that do. but on top of that, we're thinking of a cash bar.

fina, good luck planning two weddings! have fun with it, if you can.

pinkmartyr, i'm interested to hear about the bridesmaids dresses and what the other women have done with theirs, too. and how the bride is reacting. i hope all is well...

i think i may have found my wedding dress. i just happened to stumble across this shop yesterday and she (the owner and maker) had a few wedding gowns in stock. the one i really like is not typical of a wedding gown, but it is gorgeous. however, it's double my budget, though my budget for my dress is low enough that i am considering it. and she makes it here, so that is a huge plus in my books.

you ladies are convincing me to do the hair and make-up thing professionally. i'm even considering growing out my very very short hair in order to do something with it. depending on how much i can grow it in a year...

((((wedding busties!))))

[roseviolet]

Thank you so much for the compliments! Pink, those photos are my favorite, too ... especially because they were totally spontaneous. Immediately after the ceremony, Sheff & I walked into that sitting room, sat down, & just absorbed the whole thing together. I didn't even notice the photographer was in there with us.

Fina, I loooooove the idea of a ceilidh! What a fabulous thing to do! I wish we could have done the same for our wedding. How fun!

Syb, what are the laws regarding getting married in Amsterdam? Do you have to do anything unusual? It sounds goreous.

Lot, that setting looks lovely! And the idea of having the flowers in the jars sounds like the perfect touch for that setting.

I think long engagements can be a problem if you work yourself up too much during the course of the engagement. Afterall, it's just one day. In fact, it's less than one day; it's just a few hours! So if you fret & worry over every little detail for 18 months, I think you're doomed to disappoint yourself. But if you're not the fret-&-worrying type, then I imagine you'll be fine. I truly think it depends upon your personal disposition.

One last bit of advice! Remember that some of your vendors will be very visable to you and your guests - especially your photographer. So feel free to ask them what they tend to wear while on the job. I know this sounds odd, but I learned about this from my cousin's wedding. They had a photographer who showed up in a tacky Hawaiian shirt & stained shorts. His opinion was that, since he himself did not appear in the pictures, that it didn't matter what he wore. But it looked totally disrespectful & very distracting. So find a way to tactfully ask about that. Borrow this story if you have to. The vendors we hired were very understandable once they heard why I was concerned & they all dressed very nicely.

[sybarite]

Fina, I too am a bit in denial. We've been engaged for over a year and are also aiming for autumn 2007, so we both feel like there's loads of time yet to plan everything. Which means that we haven't started saving either, although we will both have money coming to us (separately) in 2007 as a result of a govt savings plan. My dad is also putting in a bit but not loads (nor should he IMO).

We have decided on a few things. We're going to marry in a church in Amsterdam, because it's beautiful, not insanely expensive and almost everyone will have to travel anyway to our side of the Atlantic (I am from the US but we live in Europe)... and Amsterdam is easy to fly to from just about anywhere. There's several traditional things we're not going for: probably no gift registry, no wedding party (just a maid of honour and a best man) and consequently no dress code per se. Probably no band as we both like the idea of a DJ playing our (and our guests') favourite tunes.

My dealbreakers are good food, enough wine and a nice reception space. The rest is still up in the air, but I think we're looking at a guest list of about 80-100.

I had heard mutterings that a long engagement could be problematic. I'm cool with it; we're in no hurry, but I am finding explaining our long engagement awkward. I also feel under a lot of pressure to be a good bride to be, keep family members happy... I feel there's an unwritten code of rules I somehow missed reading. At the same time my family is pretty mellow and not obsessed by tradition, so they will probably let us do whatever we want without kicking up a fuss. Thank cod.

[pinkmartyr]

Roseviolet, your pictures are beautiful! I especially like the ones of you and Sheff sitting on the couch in that vintagey-looking room with the great sense of light... I am all about getting a good cake, and I can definitely see what you are saying about the flowers/centerpieces not being remembered by everyone.

Pixie, I also agree with you and RoseV. that I should have my hair and make up professionally done. I just don't want to worry about it. I've got a great hair stylist already, and it will be fun looking for someone to do my make up. I've thought of doing it myself (I LOVE make up, love putting it on, etc) but I think I just want to relax on my wedding day.

Thanks for the advice about photographers- my friend Dennis is taking our pictures. He is a photo student in college, and is apprenticing for wedding photographers all summer long. I've seen his pictures- they are great. Dennis is fun, too, and it will be easy to explain all the family drama to him. We're on the same wavelength.
I've sent my cousin Sara a card asking her to be my coordinator but haven't heard from her yet. She's done wedding planning for three weddings so far, and wants to get into it as a career. Sara is also highly detail oriented, which is good. One of the main reasons I asked her is because I trust her judgement.

lot, your wedding sounds great. i especially like your centerpiece idea!

fina- congrats on your engagement! i agree with what you said at the end about just concentrating on the when and where. think about what is most important to both of you in a wedding, and come up with a list of what you are looking for in potential dates and places.

i'm off to hang with family this weekend, but here is the most recent update on the bridesmaid gown- it can be let out but the boning has to be moved. my seamstress is going to fix it up, and i left a friendly update on the bride's voicemail today like i mentioned.

[fina]

Hey ladies, I suppose it is time I dragged my in-denial ass in here.

Pinkmartyr, your dress trauma is totally shit. I am keen to see what the bride has to say when you give her the results of exhaustive research that actually tries to fix the problems.

Finaman and I have been engaged for over two months now and have done sweet fuck all in terms of plans. We live in Scotland but are Canadian and it is looking inevitable that we have the ceremony and a ceilidh reception here (because we want to) plus a second reception (or just party?) back home for family and friends unable to come to Scotland. I am having a heck of a time wrapping my head around how to do this, where specifically to do it, the timing etc. So far we have narrowed it down to autumn 2007. I would like something outside but that would be stupid with the unpredictable Scottish weather.

Fortunately friends of ours are getting hitched in a few weeks and the hall they have hired for their ceilidh reception is a mere 75 pounds for the night so I think we will likely book the same place, it's not particularly posh (it's an old friary) but is a great size for a ceilidh and I am pretty crafty so I expect I can nice it up a bit. It has a reasonably-stocked bar as well which is key.

Mainly at this point I am deeply afraid of the cost of what will essentially be two weddings. Once we start really making plans we will have to make a budget and then not have any fun for a year and a half while we save for this. I don't even want it to be crazy and overly big but that too seems inevitable at this point. I am trying to sell Finaman on the potluck dinner idea instead of gifts we don't need and don't have room to store (but don't think he'll go for it) and I don't want a princessy dress so think I can get something for a reasonable price at Monsoon. I can make the invites myself but still it just all seems overwhelming. I don't think we need attendants but it would be nice to recognize our closest pals like that... but why bother if we have a registry ceremony? Expecially considering the fact that it is tradition for the bride to pay for all of her bridesmaids shit here, dress, shoes, etc. Not sure if the same holds for men, but they will all need to hire a kilt if they don't have one anyway.

Must stop now or I will just spew forever. I think I am thinking too much about the details instead of the more general how/where/when that we need to figure out first.

Hope it all goes well for you, Lot!

[lot49]

rosev, what a beautiful setting! And you are just gorgeous!!!

We're also having our ceremony and reception at the same spot, overlooking a small lake and the Vermont mountains. The ceremony will be outside, on the lawn next to the lake, and the reception will be inside a pavilion on the lake -- you can see a 360-degree view of it here. (You have to click and drag on the image).

It really has made planning sooooo much easier -- no extra costs to rent two separate places, and our guests don't have to drive anywhere.

Advice I have so far....I would have decided not to do our wedding invitations ourselves. I had a vision of what I wanted them to look like and we wanted to save money, but they ended up not being as nice as I would have liked and I really don't know if we saved anything when it was all said and done. Plus, it was a huge hassle -- it would have been nice to have someone else handle all the components.

Our centerpieces are going to consist of three mason jars of varying sizes with white hydrangea in them -- nothing too expensive, and I think they will look lovely with the rustic setting. We've been trying to stay focused on what our guests will like (good food, open bar, an absolutely yummy buttercream-frosting cake) and avoiding spending huge sums on things they won't remember/care about.

At this point, we still need to figure out the ceremony stuff, write our vows, and print the programs. That's about it, but kind of important stuff, nonetheless! I'm not enjoying myself yet -- we both have tons of work to do before we leave. But we're off in a week to drive to the east coast and then we'll be spending about five days at a beach house with my SIL and her husband before going to Vermont. I'm so looking forward to the decompression time beforehand!

I am putting a ridiculous amount of effort into my hair compared with what we're spending overall. I'm going in today for a color consultation, getting it highlighted and colored before we leave next week, getting a trial run of my hairstyle done two days before the wedding, and then of course, professionally styled the day of. I have fine hair that's problematic to style, plus since our wedding is 3,000 miles away from our home, the stylist has never done my hair before. Dang right I'm getting a trial done! The makeup, I'm getting done at the same salon since it doesn't cost that much. If it were very expensive, I may have opted out of doing it, but I'm glad I'm having a professional do it nonetheless.

[pixiedust]

Amber..it is my experience on a day as stressful as that..anything that can go wrong with hair and make up -WILL! I would opt for a professional. Even if all they do is wash and blow dry it. The have all the hair products to make it shiny and stay put.

[ambercherry]

pinkmartyr, i'm sorry you're going through that! that sucks. and like a few women have already said here, i really hope i'm not going to be a difficult bride to deal with (at least i don't think i have been up to this point). and i agree, you're dealing with this very tactfully!

lot, how are you doing at this point? do you find yourself able to relax and enjoy the last few weeks?

pixie, my best friend encountered the same problem with the pictures. i think there were a few really important pictures that were left out - like one just of her and her mom or just her and her immediate family. after learning about her experience with that, i will definately have a list for our photographer.

though i have oodles of time to plan - i'm debating on whether or not to have my hair and make-up professionally done. my hair is very short and will be for the wedding (but maybe by then long enough for a little something?). did any of you/do you any of you plan to do your own make-up or hair for the wedding?

[roseviolet]

Pink, I'm sorry to say it, but I have to agree with the others: you've got a bridezilla on your hands! She clearly screwed up. If she were a gracious person who was capeable of acknowledging her mistakes, she'd apologize and pay for the alterations. But will she do this? You can judge that better than anyone. I think that if she's mature enough to get married, then she should be mature enough to take responsibility for this problem. But maybe I'm just being a bit snarky & defensive! At least the dress sounds gorgeous, hmm?

Only 3 weeks, Lot?! How exciting! What's left on your to-do list?

Pink, I got married just over a year ago. Mind if I answer the same question you asked Pixie?

One of my biggest pieces of advice is to hire a photographer who you genuinely like & trust as a person. Talent is important too, of course. But if you feel comfortable with your photographer, then your smile in your pictures will be far more genuine. We interviewed a few photographers, but went with a lovely lady who did a fantastic job (and saved us some cash, too!). Also, I agree with Pixie on making a bit of a list. At the very least, let the photographer know sopme of the family dynamics (especially if any of the parents are divorced or where any other tension may be). You don't what the photographer to suggest that a couple of ex-s get cozy in any of the pics!

Another thing I suggest is to have the ceremony & reception at the same place if possible. And if it's a place that doesn't need much decoration, that's all the better! Sheff and I were married at a gorgeous B&B where they had nearly everything we needed on-site. They provided the food, tables, dishes, tablecloths, & so much more. They also had TWO wedding coordinators, so there were people there the day of the ceremony who delegated things & made sure things happened on time. They were amazing. And we needed very little decoration because the place was already so gorgeous. We eliminated a lot of headaches by using them. I only wish the coordinators could have done things like buy favors & all of those other crazy little things!

Get your hair and make-up professionally done. It's worth it. Just make sure it's done by someone you trust. When you go, take photos of your dress & of the hair & make-up styles you're looking for. And wear a button-up shirt! No pullovers! I'm always surprized by how few people know that.

I probably would have spent a little less money on the flowers but only because most people don't remember what our centerpieces looked like! The setting was so gorgeous, that most of our flowers were just gilding the lilly.

One thing our guests remembered the most was our cake. We got the most amaaaaazing cream cake. Scrumptious. My best friend still talks about that cake! We weren't too concerned about appearances. Flavor was all! Luckily, it paid off.

Lastly, we did a bit of delegation that paid off a lot for us. My husband was raised as a Quaker and in Quaker weddings, the congregation is invited to speak during the ceremony - give advice, wish them luck, read scripture or poetry ... basically, whatever they feel moved to say at the moment. So instead of picking our own readings, we asked each of our parents to pick something. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted, which meant they got to speak from their hearts. It was a beautiful touch that everyone really loved.

Also, Sheff and I wrote our own vows, which made everyone cry. They were gorgeous. I may have to re-post them here since they got eaten by a thread clean-up last year.

If you're interested, you can see our pictures here (for the wedding pics) and here (for the reception pics).

[pixiedust]

Humm..things I wish we had done different.....I should have appointed someone to oversee everything like a wedding planner. I thought my MIL was going to be able to do it, but as it was her MIL was dying that weekend and she had a ton of things on her mind! I also would have included RSVP cards with the invitations. We didn't because it just isn't taht popular here. Things are always way laid back and we weren't doing a full meal, but we had about half the people expected so we way over bought the finger food and such. We also forgot to try the candles in the candleabras prior to setting up and teh didn't fit quite right so some of them were leaning weird. Oh and I would have REQUIRED the wedding party to have thier hair professionally done. Me and minipixie had ours done, but Sil and Mr. P's minipixie were trying to do their hair when we were getting ready and neither turned out like they were hopeing. Also...make a list of picture groups you want the photographer to take and give it to her before hand. We ended up with very few pictures of my family grouped together. Everything was in a blur and It just didn't happen. But also let your photographer know you want candids. Most of the candids are my favorite pictures.

[pinkmartyr]

lot, wow, i had no idea you were that close to your wedding day!
ps- how is your mom acting about it lately?

pixie- since you're already married, in retrospect, is there anything you would have changed/done differently/spent more or less money on? your expertise would help those of us who are still planning!

polly- i know what you mean about not wanting to be unfair to your friends/best women when it comes to the wedding. this situation has made me do a lot of thinking of how i can show the most respect to my bridal "entourage."

[lot49]

ugh, to go through all that and to not even be friends with the bride! I think that you're approaching this with as much grace and tact as possible under the circumstances, pinkmarytr, which is commendable. Keep us posted!

So...less than three weeks til our big day! Ack! We're still deciding on readings (which means we haven't printed the programs yet), but otherwise, we're nearly set.