To be having palpitations over the thought of my wedding?

[diamondsonthesolesofhershoes]

DP and I were supposed to be marrying this July but due to redundancy and money problems we have had to postpone it. We had some of it planned and had asked people to be best man/bridesmaids (including my 2 adored nieces aged 6 and 3). It is still very important to both of us to marry, no problems in the relationship or anything like that.

However, after going to my DB's wedding last weekend I'm starting to really worry about it. It was dire. I know it's horrible to say but after several outbursts by the bride and then my DB and bride leaving their own party to die at 9pm, I really resented the effort and money it had cost us to attend. (I realise I probably am being U about this part).

I'm thinking more and more of just booking flights to our favourite city in the world and getting married in the town hall with some grabbed witnesses. This would be so unfair to my lovely nieces and the rest of our family but the thought of having to please them all (especially bitches like me!) puts me off completely! I just want to marry my wonderful DP.

WIBU to just do it?

Thehouseonthecorner that was where the direness lay! My brother looked like Christmas had been cancelled all day and she was just vile to everyone. She then stropped off at 9 with him carrying her train and casting apologetic looks at everyone, leaving a manic dj with an empty dance floor (I tried my very hardest to get people dancing but just felt like a tit).

thehouseonthecorner I completely agree that is what a wedding should be. The reality isn't always the same. Not everyone gets married for the right reasons and some people make very bad choices in their partners/best men. Sometimes the parents or other relatives go off into a tailspin over some minor imagined slight. Having experienced all of the above I can confirm some have indeed been pretty dire.

Your stories have made me feel a lot bette, I think the problem is that I struggle to see the balance between a family wedding and eloping!

I eloped and don't regret it foir a minute.

I think you should start a thread in chat asking for peoples worst wedding experiences.

I went to a hideous one a few months ago.

my wedding cost 3k in total and was over by teatime, despite which everyone had a lovely time and talked about it for months afterwards. it was the best day, and i wouldnt have changed a thing. you dont have to spend a fortune!

eNormaSnob haha! despite being really nosy and wanting to know, it might put me off forever! Someone else do it!

We ran away and got married just the two of us. It cost 2k we stayed in a 5 star hotel, all inclusive, very exotic. They included cake, set it all up for us we had the leafy thing you walk through on the beach, then cake in the little restaurant they had which was at the 5 star hotel. They made all our towels in to swans in the room and put flowers everywhere.

Where else can you get all that for 2k and 2 whole weeks in paradise? Certaintly not at anything you do in the uk.

I think eloping is a good idea and I hope my children go to somewhere nice like that when they get married, especially as we have 2 dds there is no way we are paying for a rip off uk wedding

Also you can get things really cheap if you go abroad if you are open minded. We went down the travel agents and said we just want to get married wherever we can abroad we have 2k to spend.

We booked it a couple of months before and that was that. You will have more choice of where to go than we did as we were both under 21 when we got married so couldnt go to quite a few places.

We were in the travel agents all day but then it got sorted and was a late deal. We got it for 1.5k less than a couple we met out there who were just on honeymoon.

OP - it seems it was the atmosphere rather than the actual event that was the problem, perhaps you need to think about that, a few questions to help-

1. are you or your DP the type to get all over emotional a throw a hissy fit (rather like your new SIL)? If not, this isn't a problem
2. do you or your DP see your wedding guests as the 'extras' to fill the photos of "your perfect day" or do you think they are your guests, that your job for the reception is to be a good host and hostess?
3. are you or your DP very set on a type of wedding that will be impratical and/or expensive for people to get to and/or will involve no allowances being made for rain/heatwave (it could happen)?
4. are you planning on providing shelter, seating and food for your guests?
5. are all your family complete nightmares who are incapable of having fun at a wedding or is it just your new SIL?

If you are not of the bridezilla/groomzilla types, then all you are doing is having a legal ceremony followed by a party, parties are not stressful unless you want them to be. Have you not been to any happy weddings?

Go on then diamonds, I will do it!

please keep it simple - it is not worth having palpitations over! We had a lovely simple ceremony (no cars, cake, music, flowers or other fripperies, bought some readymade invites, no bridesmaids). I did wear a dress which I had made, was beautiful and cost £200. We had immediate family only and a couple of friends and had a summer buffet lunch afterwards 34 people in total. We then went back to our house and some more friends came over later for drinks (we provided these as think it shocking for people to have to pay to celebrate your wedding!) so had pimms, cava etc and nibbles. Told everyone it all had to be over at midnight. they all left. we sat in the garden drinking champagne, then went up to our own bed. went on honeymoon two days later. Was all fab and on a shoestring!! No music/dancing but people chatting, drinking, mingling, was brilliant!!

dontmindifIdo
We are both very lazy laid back, in fact DP is so laid back he's horizontal. Someone would have to do something extreme for me to notice let alone get upset about it.

I want to show our guests a good time, we are only inviting family and close friends, but both have enormous families, once we ticked off parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and aunts uncles and cousins who we are close to, we already had 80, before we even got onto friends. We can probably cut a few people off who we're not AS close to but I don't want to cause ructions. For this reason, I think we're going to have about 25 close friends and family at the ceremony and have the evening party as a bit of an open house. We are not having a sit down meal or doing seating plans or any of the like, so I'm hoping to hire some trestle tables with benches, pretty them up and let people find their own seats!

We are providing food, but a friend owns a farm shop and has offered to do a grill (think christmas market huge round hanging type affair) which I love the idea of. I could do with some opinions on the drinks situation. We can't afford to add an open bar to our costs but at the same time I don't think it's fair for people to buy their own drinks from a hire bar SO my idea is to provide plenty of soft drinks, beer, white and red wine (which we can buy bulk), and suggest that if there is a specific drink they fancy they are welcome to bring a bottle. That way, they are buying their own drinks, but they're not forced to pay through the nose for them. I think I'd be happy with that as a guest but could do with some outside opinions (DP thinks it's a bit too much like house parties of old!)

We cancelled a big wedding that had become all about pleasing other people and ended up having a very low key wedding with around 30 of our closest friends and family there, along with a free for all in the evening, and it was perfect. The longer wedding planning went on, the more we were dreading the day and the relief we felt when we cancelled the circus big wedding was enormous. It really was the best thing we could have done for us. Be warned though, some people will get pissy about the change. Anyone who does though isn't worth being concerned about!

I think your idea sounds lovely, and is going to be so much more memorable than the identikit weddings that seem to go on these days. Four years on people are still excited about our wedding and are still talking about it. And we're still delighted by it, which I guess is the important thing.

I honestly think that you ought to have the wedding that suits you. Not some sort of event manufactured by the wedding industry. So if a great big do suits - and you can afford it - by all means have one. However, some of the nicest weddings I've been to have been much smaller, personal affairs where you felt you were celebrating a marriage, not the ability to muster up a circus worth of precisely themed and costumed participants.

Through the vicarious medium that is Facebook I am currently witnessing someone plan their forthcoming wedding. She has clearly not realised that there is no right or wrong way to get married and every day brings a new litany of stress about favours, table settings, bunting and the wrong sort of pink on the favour boxes. She's a very nice girl and deserves a very nice day. Unfortunately, by the way she's currently going about it I can see a day full of disappointments looming large. Because she appears to be planning someone else's dream wedding, not her own.

Go with your instincts, OP. Provided you don't set out to deliberately upset people you should plan the sort of day that will be memorable for you and your husband and if this means keeping it simple then do so.

I think that what makes a wedding is seeing two people who are happy about starting married life together. It sounds like you already have that so you're most of the way there. From what you say your DB seems to have missed that bit out. I've just been to the "best" wedding I've been to. It was lovely. Nothing really flash but a lot of thought had gone into keeping teh guests entertained during photograph session for example. They had a sweetie table, full of olde worlde sweets and cones to fill up and help yourself. A real ice breaker for guests. Everyone was reminiscing and laughing, although they'd never met before. I hoep you have a fab day, just right fr you and your husband, but most of all I hope you are very happy in the future together - as that's what a wedding is really about!

£8 for a larger, Jesus I like to get squiffy at weddings not broke.

Ask who u want and have wedding u want and bugger everyone else.

If u can't plan your own wedding to suit yourselves then what's the point?

OP, your wedding plans sound lovely. Since you're having the reception on your family's farmland, you've avoided having a wedding venue which insists on their expensive caterer, bar etc, and you're in a great position to organise your own open bar, exactly as you've suggested!

Get an extra trestle table and table cloths, and hire 2 people to stand behind it and look after glasses/pour drinks/make sure everything is OK. We did exactly that (our lovely venue organised the guy to stand behind the table at cost) and it worked perfectly. The person you hire should be willing to dress reasonably smartly, set it all up to look like a bar, ask people what they'd like etc. If you have 2 people, you'll always have at least one person behind the bar while the other one sorts out getting more wine/taking dirty glasses back to the kitchen/bringing back clean ones. It won't look or feel at all like a student party!

We ordered the wine from Tescos - the advantage being that a) they delivered to the venue, so we didn't have to transport it all and b) they actually take returns (!) - so we could order loads more than we thought we'd need, and not worry about running out. Actually, we estimated the drinks according to our own drinking habits , and added a healthy margin... and we only used about a third of it! We just took back the rest and got a full refund. We also bought some beer (though most of our friends prefer wine), and soft drinks (we chose a couple of different fresh juices, plus the usual mixers). We asked family - and any friends who we thought to ask - if there was any particular drink they'd like to have there. A couple of people suggested particular spirits, so we got a bottle of each of those; we also got a few bottles of port, and a couple of single malts (because we knew our friends would like them ).

I think the important thing is to realise that you don't have to provide everything that a commercial bar would have. People will be quite happy with a limited selection: you just need to think about it a bit to make sure that everyone will have something they'll like. You know your friends and family, and what they like to drink - or you can easily ask them!

You will need to hire glasses - but I guess you've already thought of that, since you'll need plates etc for the grill. There are plenty of firms who hire glasses/crockery/cutlery etc - a quick internet search should give you a few options. Our venue suggested one and a half times as many glasses as people iirc. You'll also need some big containers and loads of ice to keep the wine cold (plastic bins, whatever you've got). If you have access to some big fridges to get it all cold first (so that the ice is just keeping it at temperature), then that might be best.