I'm also going to have to say that my own wedding was the most fun that I have ever been a part of. I think I posted about this back in the Christmas Drunk Thread, but the past few years my family has rented out the lodge at this place for our New Years festivities, where we have a good core group of about 15-20 people all hang out and drink and cook and generally have fun in the woods. The past New Year, we had invited my then-fiance's family to join us for the couple of days that we would be there. It was my mom who had originally suggested that, since we had most of the family and close friends who mattered out there anyway, we just bring along her uncle (a preacher) and have a nice little small-but-tasteful wedding on NYE. I'm about half agoraphobic anyway, and hated the idea of standing up in front of hundreds of people I hardly know and being the center of attention, so I was all for this. And because The Wife is so awesome (plus, she may be even more embarrassed of being the center of attention than I am), she was 100% in favor of this as well. So going this route, we wouldn't have to pay for a place or lodging for our guests (it was being paid for any how), we could all just eat and drink what we were going to anyway while we were out there, and we could have the small, short-and-sweet wedding we both really wanted but knew WAY too many people to think it was possible. But, my mom being my mom, went a little above and beyond. She enlisted the services of The Wife's uncle, who is a head chef and who also caters, to serve a large variety of special dishes for after the wedding at wholesale cost. She got my dad to hire a bartender and have a local bar provide the liquor and beer. She had one of her friends make napkins with our names on them. She had the son of another friend there to take pictures. She had another friend make a beautiful and delicious cake. She got me and my groomsmen all matching ties (we all just wore suits we already owned). She was at the lodge a week in advance decorating and making sure everything was perfect, because the weather was not cooperating and forced us to have the ceremony inside. She also invited about 100 extra people, which thank God it was such short notice and also on NYE so that a lot of people had already made plans, so I didn't get too upset with her, especially after all of the work she had done. And she did all of this in about 2 weeks time, and for a surprisingly small amount of money because she had so many family friends pitch in and help. So in the end, it was still small, but it actually felt like a wedding instead of just some vows said in the woods, which was actually very nice (and Jesus- did she look beautiful. I actually teared up when she walked in with her brother). But then when it was over, and the service only took like 10 minutes, we then had the rest of the time out there to just hang out, eat good food, and drink until I was no longer in pain (this was also right after my accident, so my actual wedding was only like the 2nd or 3rd day where I had even been on my feet for more than a couple of hours at a time). And we also didn't bother with a rehearsal dinner or a real bachelor party- my brothers, my best friend and I just took off the night before and went to my hunting camp (it is only like 10 minutes from the lodge), where we drank a bunch of whiskey, cooked steaks and told stories all night. I'm not one who enjoys really big outings, so for me, this was just about the most perfect wedding I could ever have imagined. The best part is that I had found a little girl who pretty much felt the same way.
Id like to pass on my wealth to future generations of my blood line, accumulating it so much that no poor brown person or soul sucking wedding planner ever sees a red fucking cent. Im putting it in my will. Until then Im keeping it all in my Scrooge Mcduck Co. Money Bin. Like others have said before about engagement rings. I think a down payment on a house that my wife and I share, and can have endless parties with friends at, is a much smarter and reasonable use of 15-XXXXK dollars.
I haven't been to that many weddings, and usually I was too young to remember them. There are really only two of note: The best was my dad's second wedding. Obviously there was the sentimental factor, but it was also closest to what I imagine my wedding being like. The ceremony was in the garden of this beautiful old house, and then the food was served in what I guess was the ballroom and dancing was on the covered patio right next to it. It was lovely. But, it's also bittersweet because things went awry shortly after the wedding. The other one was just uncomfortable because of the backstory. It was my best friend's aunt (her family is basically my family). I guess they had been dating for a really long time (like, thirty years) and the groom used to be a priest (or whichever one it is that isn't supposed to have sex or get married). They were dating in secret, then he knocked her up and I think she had an abortion. Then I think they were pretending that didn't happen for a while even though everyone knew. And then eventually he renounced being a priest and they decided to get married. So, his whole side of the family was PISSED and also incredibly stuck up and boring. "Our" whole side of the family was super uncomfortable and decided to remedy that by getting wasted, which just made his whole side of the family hate everything even more. It was just a strange, strange day.
I'm not there yet, but what I have visualized is similar to what other posters above me have mentioned. We're having a small ceremony in a little country church, complete with a little Irish priest. Since I'm Catholic and he's not, it will just be a ceremony and not a mass. Then we'll go over to the covered pavilion outside and eat, dance, and booze it up. I have a ton of sisters and a mom who can all cook, so they are helping me prepare and cook for the event. Besides the fact that we're paying for it ourselves, The Man and I are way too practical to drop a ton of money when it isn't necessary. I'd rather use money like that for a down payment on a house. Oh, and we're having Mediterranean food. Yum! The only thing that makes me a little sad is that the majority of his friends and family are from the west coast or Hawaii and won't be able to afford to fly out for a weekend. Some of the most important ones will come, but I wish that ALL of his friends could make it.
I worked the breakfast service and setup for a hotel that hosted at least two weddings a week, all summer long. I didn't get to see a lot of essential variety, since they were all the kinds of weddings that would book out a hotel for the night and host the ceremony and reception there. Not impromptu, is what I'm getting at. To put the following anecdotes in context, nearly everyone was exactly what you think of when you think of a Calgarian. I saw: "Grey Goose, soda and orange juice in a champagne flute" ordered as room service for every guest to be delivered 20min before the ceremony. At 9.00 a pop for about 60 guests. During setup, one groom, under the guise of testing the sound system, was giving directing the staff over the microphone. He was within easy speaking distance, but whatever, mic worked, might as well use it. This same guy span some donuts in his "just married" king-cab before screaming out of the hotel parking lot the next morning. One groom showed me the stitching on his $4000 custom tailored suit. It was gold, and had epaulets and 5 buttons. My coworker's who ran ceremonies tended to have better stories than I did, I remember a couple of them had to full-on negotiate with a 250lb guest to stop her from dancing on one of the, champagne flute-covered, folding tables while she was holding a baby. If anything at all went wrong, wedding parties tended to flip shit and demand that the hotel grat the entire event. My main observation on the mechanics of these weddings is that taking two hours of photos after the ceremony and leaving nothing for the guests to do is bullshit. This could have been ameliorated by the hotel opening the bar to guests, but we didn't have the manpower to run both the bar and setup, which was very much a failure on the hotel's part. The hotel was kind of isolated, I'd say it's nice to give guests at least the opportunity to fuck off for a couple of hours if they need to. I got the sense that some guests felt trapped. I'm a big proponent of the whole surprise-wedding-at-a-normal-party. I've never heard anyone be displeased with the result. I can not say the same for more sophisticated operations.
I think the worst wedding I went to was for one of my cousins. They wanted a traditional wedding but wanted it to be as cheap as possible so they recruited family to do everything. The problem is that nobody in the family really knew how to do any of the required "wedding things" that needed to be done. Everything came off as super half-assed and cheap. I got tapped to be the videographer. I was about 14 at the time and they handed me a camcorder that I had never seen before with the controls labeled in German. It turns out that there was no tape in the camera. One of my friends recently did a cheap wedding that worked out a lot better. They reserved a gazebo on a lake at one of the parks in Dallas. The crowd was a small group of family and friends and I officiated (thanks internet church!). Everything was very simple and other than me almost dropping the f-bomb during the ceremony when I dropped one of my note cards, it went off smooth. There was a nice meal at a local restaurant afterward and that was it. Quick, simple and nice.
My favorite was mine. I really enjoyed it. The ceremony was not terribly long, the vows (yes, written ourselves) were heartfelt and touching, and everything was done with an eye toward fairly elegant simplicity even as we veered towards being relatively traditional. After the ceremony we went to a rented place for the reception which had a bunch of good food and dessert, some cool DJs, and my best man doing a really cool toast. Then dancing and laughing for hours followed amongst dozens of my friends and family. What's not to like? It was a great time with lots of great people. There were a few things I think that helped. One, we had fairly aggressively winnowed the guest list down to people we actually liked and wanted to be there. Two, we got married in the offseason on a Sunday so that came with some nice discounts that we could put into things like an open bar and other amenities. Three, very little drama or angst of any kind. It was our wedding day we shared with friends and family and not something that was massively overpressured despite how nervous you get waiting before the ceremony starts. I think what usually separates weddings I enjoy from weddings I don't is the degree of connection I have to the proceedings. If I'm invited because they "have" to, say a random cousin or something, I enjoy them a lot less than if friends of mine genuinely want me there to share in their celebration.
I have been to all types of weddings from ones with a tight budget to huge extravagant black tie events (probably upwards of 500K) and in no way does the amount of money spent correspond to the amount of fun that the guest have. I have seen friends plan both kinds of weddings and kind of hate the pressure that people put on themselves, or others put on them, to have a perfect magical day. If it is important to have a big fancy ordeal in front of all our your friends and family, by all means, do it if you have the means (but please don't go into debt that you will be paying off for the next 20 years). But don't give in to the pressure to do so if what you really want is to run off and get married by an Elvis impersonator at the Little Chapel of Love. My wedding was fun, kind of a mix of traditional and casual. I hate being the center of attention so we plied everybody with booze at a cocktail hour that occurred prior to the 5 minute ceremony (my friends still comment that it was the only wedding ceremony they got to watch with a drink in hand). It was outdoors in a courtyard so nature provided the decor (I did spring for hundreds of votive candles). Then it was good food and a jazzy type band. Afterwards we went bar hopping. This image from my wedding album probably sums the feel of it all up perfectly. Spoiler FYI - I have no idea who these fine folks are, they were just randoms hanging out on the street waiting for a parade to start while we were taking our wedding pictures.
Likewise, these 2 pics sum up my wedding. Casual. Spoiler My cousins golfing off into the ocean. Huge mud flats when the tide was out, so you can drive balls out there and go pick them up when the tide's down. And that's what they wore at the ceremony that was about 30 minutes before the pic was taken. The golfer was my Best Man. Very relaxed and casual, on the back porch of the house. That's where the ceremony just happened, not 5 minutes prior to this picture. FYI, that's Fanny Bay, as in home of the Fanny Bay oyster. We quite regularly harvested them and gorged ourselves.
The most comfortable wedding I've been to I was also the JOP for. It was in a friend's backyard with about 50 people and I had a one day lisc. to legally marry the couple. Everyone was so chill and relaxed, the schedule was flexible and the food tasty. The best part was the dog was the ring bearer. On the command of his master, the pup trotted from his spot in the rear of the yard to where he was supposed to sit between the bride and groom. He totally stole the show. What was sort of funny is that I was the only one in a tux and people kept coming up to me after the ceremony asking if I was a "full time" justice of the peace.
I don't have anything to add here except for this that I just found. Classic. EDIT: That is a sex offender prison, too.
I can't say that I've been to any terrible weddings, nor have I been to any spectacular ones. They've been run-of-the-mill, no drama affairs where everyone enjoyed themselves then went home. When it comes time for me to get married, I want the ceremony to be as small and intimate as possible...I'm torn between simply eloping and having it be myself, my fiance and a witness vs. getting married in my dad or my aunt's back yard (they have really nice yards). I like the idea of gathering my family together in one place, so that might win out. I'm all about having a giant "We Got Married" party, though. Jeans, t-shirts, booze, a roasted pig, the whole nine yards done casually. While we're on the topic, I CANNOT STAND big engagement rings. Is anybody else of the opinion that, "the bigger the ring, the shorter the marriage"? I think a simple wedding band looks nicer and more sincere than the biggest, gaudiest diamond solitaire.
Ew. Weddings. Best thing I can say for anyone, is regardless of the size of your ceremony, your religion, your spirituality, your family, friends, whatever...keep it sincere. The best thing about smaller weddings is that the bride and groom don't get lost in the production of having a WEDDING. The few times I've seen the whole spectacle truly be about the life the couple plans to share, it's been a smaller wedding. That said, I've done the JP thing. It was convenient. I've done the wedding thing, with the big floofy dress. It was highly inconvenient, but it was still a cool experience*. IF I ever get married again, I've already told The Guy - we're doing it quietly. On a Tuesday afternoon. We can be in wedding formalwear or we can be in boots and jeans, I don't care. We're doing it quietly, alone, and without the production. Then we're leaving on a trip. I don't care where the trip goes. We can go to Washington, we can go to the Hill Country, Colorado, Hawaii, or we can spend a week alone in our bed doing nothing but being naked and fucking like bunnies between trips to the liquor cabinet and call-ins for food. I. Don't. Care. I just want it to be about us. After that? We'll have a barbq and alert the family and friends then.** *Despite being a cool experience, that motherfucker was batshit crazy. **He's Jewish. I'm terrified of what that would mean for us if we got married.
This thread is timely since I'm getting married in 6 months. Initially, my future wife and I wanted to get married at City Hall and then rent a bar our for all of our friends. But we kind of figured our families wouldn't be too keen on that. And since they were adamant about paying for most of the wedding and inviting distant family, and we don't have a whole lot of money right now, we kind of got stuck with having to plan a 150 person wedding. But you know what, it's still going to be a great time. We are getting married in a garden next to the venue, which is a inn-styled reception hall/restaurant. Now, the only thing I felt was a must was good and plentiful food and top shelf open bar, which we luckily got. We're getting married in the afternoon so we're going for a casual feel. We don't want the dj berating people into doing the electric slide. No formation dancing whatsoever, in fact. Most of the people on this board seem to agree that a laid-back, chill reception with a short ceremony and a lot of free liquor is the way to go. And the traditional wedding at a reception hall is a waste of money. I tend to agree, but when your parents are helping cover the cost and insist on inviting extended family and their friends, sometimes you need to compromise. So while I don't see the need to invite my mom's second cousin who I never met, I can't possibly complain because I get to marry the most beautiful woman in the world. Oh, and have this song as my our dance:
I've been to a wedding where the bride was so tired and stressed she started crying halfway through the evening. She later said it was because she invited her recently divorced parents, who both showed up and she was terrified they would argue...damn, I felt bad for her, and that kind of ruined the evening for me as a guest and a friend to see her like that on 'her' day. As for weddings with long ceremonies, like with a complete full religious service, I don't mind them, but I agree that the couple should let people know in advance. That said, whichever one of you was whining about having to sit through A WHOOOLE HOOOUUUUUR which was presumably followed by an evening of stuffing your face and drinking yourself blind at the couple's expense...dude, really? As for my own, hell, it's low budget, but we're actually having fun planning it, mainly because we are not taking the whole "OMG WEDDING DAYY!!11!!!" thing too seriously. You know, starting with the STDs (or Save The Date announcements) and invitations, through the wedding website, and, at this rate, the whole wedding. My poor traditional parents were probably expecting the white expensive paper with ribbons and hearts, and then they get an email with this 'gem' instead: The website has cartoons we made, and although we cannot draw very well, we were practically dying of laughter making them. Same with the invitations, "designed" with photoshop, printed for free at our school's color printer (hey, grad schools charge so much in tuition it's justified). Total cost $30 for paper and envelopes, and $30 to mail them. So far the response has been very positive, and people are showing the invites and website to their friends and colleagues because they find them so entertaining. I agree with you guys - most of the budget will be spent on food and drinks, and the only other thing I really want is to have my hair done by a hairdresser (you know, to look purrdy). And even if noone else will have fun, I'm pretty sure the two of us will.
Aww, well isn't that the cutest thing evar. Just out of curiosity, who is Jenn and why are no Jenn's [sic] allowed? Ex-girlfriend of the groom?
yeah yeah, i know you're all jealous. jenn's a mutual friend who got blackout drunk and puked everywhere during a formal event held at our school. this was our first time meeting her, and it's been a running joke ever since. she is of course invited. In case you haven't seen this video a couple years ago, I think this is one well executed first dance.
An open bar, even if it's only "open" for 2-3 hours. Good food (and plenty of it, seriously do not cheap out on it, people need food and not just fucking cold cuts and cheese on a dinner roll, some fruit and veggies, I mean WTF is that supposed to be? Hot real food.) and not too many people. I went to one not too long ago. It was outside. It poured down rain. Everyone was late due to a traffic snarl. Everyone that was on time was made to wait. This would include the food. By the time it came time to eat, the pasta dishes were like paste and cold. The "bathrooms" were port o pots and the only booze they had was wine and beer. Listen up folks, not everyone likes wine or beer. It sucked. I went out to my car to sip on my stash and the fucking parking lot security dickface told me I couldn't do that and asked I return to the event. And to the Brides out there, do not stress out and ruin it for others and yourself. Do not "plan" too much and run it like a drill sergeant. And know this, for all your hard work and attention to every detail, something will go wrong but, chances are you're going to be the only to even notice so chill out and enjoy your day. Bridal Bitches be crazy man.