How involved was your DH in planning your wedding?

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

My DP says he can't wait to be married to me, but is actually showing ZERO enthusiasm in planning the actual day. And I find it annoying, and worrying.

He's 45 and this'd be his first marriage. He says he never wanted to get married before, but I don't know if he really wants to now!

He says he's very happy for me to choose all the stuff. But that's actually depressing me. How miserable is planning a wedding on your own?! And if course it just heaps all the stress onto my shoulders.

He's planned/booked the honeymoon. We're saving up the money together (which is stressful as it leaves us both skint). I'm choosing the readings, flowers, making the invites, making the table centrepieces, reading about weddings, liaising with the venue, liaising with the church, dieting and working out every day to look nice, meeting girlfriends to look at dresses, make-up, reading wedding blogs.. He's doing nothing.

If I ask him to do something, he will. But he's not enthusiastic. We have to book a time to go along to have our "tasting menu" at the venue and I thought he'd love that (he loves food!). But when I reminded him we have to book it, his face settled into this "oh, wedding homework" expression.

I've said a MILLION times, if you don't want to do this, just admit it!! But he always says he does. Then comes out with the crap line, "I'm a bloke! I don't care about weddings. Anything you want will be fine!"

Part of me wants to carry on planning a wonderful day, the other part wants to tell him to shove the wedding up his uninterested arse and I'll spend my half of our wedding savings on other, more useful stuff (like the big tax bill I've just received).

How involved was your DH?? And if he wasn't involved, did you still go on to have a lovely marriage anyway, or (looking back) was it really an indication of his secret reluctance to actually be married?

Erm........... he turned up to his suit fittings

I think that was it.

He may have booked the honeymoon, but I honestly don't remember.

Oh, and he dealt with his relatives (so he actually deserves a medal).

To be fair, I knew what I wanted and I got on with it and he knew to just smile and nod (match made in heaven)

I'm only making the invites and stuff because we don't have the money to buy them! It's saving us £500.

Everything snowballed, money-wise. We planned a tiny (20 people) meal at first, then doing the guest list was heartbreaking. So we thought we'd do a reception in a pub. But the only one round here with a separate room ended up costing £39 a head, for a pretty unimpressive thing. The local lovely hotel does weddings and we got a last-minute deal there for £49 a head, which means we get a lovely lunch, wine, a toastmaster, a wedding planner, etc, and the honeymoon suite free (!). We're having a tiny evening do with bacon sandwiches and a DJ, but even that is an extra £650 before anyone's even had a drink! Ugh.

The church is bare-bones service, but still £800. The photographer is REALLY expensive - £1200! I'm having HUGE second thoughts about that, but DP says photos are really important (and we already paid the deposit).

My dress was £45. My friend's doing the cake cheap. I'm trying to cut back wherever I can. It's only one day. We are going to pay for it outright, no credit, hence the skintness now.

I keep reading threads on here that say guests need canapés - £7 a head - and that you can't have a cash bar. I'm sure I'm not being really very economical, but I don't honestly know how to cut back.

I wish we'd gone cheaper but we both really wanted a church service, and the hotel is so beautiful, and we've been saving for ages so it felt like we could afford it. It's too late to change it (deposits paid) so we have to start from here.

The one thing I don't know is what time to start. At the moment church is booked for 12.30 but that feels a bit early? Church has said we can change if we want.

What's a good time? 2pm? How long does everything take?

2-3pm service (?)
3-3.30 church photos (?)
Everyone at reception (v close) 4pm.
Drinks/photos/milling about: 4-5pm.
Sit down 3-course meal, speeches, cake etc - how long?

Then what time to say guests to come - 7? 8?

I'd like a relaxed day, not to be bolting our food and cutting speeches shirt before DJ and evening guests arrive.

1.30 church service? That still feels early. Don't most weddings start about 2pm? How do they fit everything in??

We got married for 2.7k. We had a 2 week 5 star all inclusive hotel, photos, video of wedding, wedding dress, hair and make up done, dhs outfit, and 2 weeks spending money

We could hypothetically get rid of the evening bit. We thought about having a later (4pm) service and just inviting everyone (70 total) for one buffet. But that was £39/pp fir two courses and didn't include wine.

Rosie, that's great. Abroad? How many guests?

DH did most of it, tbh - he was way more into the whole wedding thing than I was. DS was tiny - 4 months - when we decided to get married, so I was more interested in him.

We had a modest-ish kind of wedding, with lots of friend helping out and not much of the extraneous stuff.

How would I respond to a kind of disinterested spouse-to-be? I wouldn't be doubting commitment to the marriage, but I might be wondering if actually it wasn't the kind of wedding they really wanted. I might have a think and scale back a bit.

It was just us, but it is such a cheap way to do it. It is proper luxury, and a once in a lifetime experience. We went long haul, and on the morning of the wedding we were drinking cocktails in the pool.

Rosie, I couldn't get married without guests, unless we went to Vegas. I did suggest Vegas, but DP wouldn't hear of it. ;)

Cross posted with all your later posts. You poor love! It's all too much.

If I were you I would get shut of photographer (get all your friends to take photos, at least one will fancy themselves as a bit of a pro). I'd definitely go for smaller number, later wedding, no evening do. Forget some of the decorations, minimise the flowers etc.

(FWIW we had 50 guests to ceremony - town hall- and gorgeous restaurant for lunch; then 50- 60 more to a barbecue at our house in the evening, uber laid back but proper house party so there was no sense of arriving after the action) It was lovely but I would happily have just gone to the town hall with 2 witnesses.

My DH ( 10 year wedding anniversary in a few weeks) had no interest whatsoever, but he did have some in put:
"I'm not wearing top hat and tails and I want to talk to the DJ, cos I don't want any shit music played" oh and he picked the song for our first dance.
To be honest, I wasn't that into fancy stuff either, all traditional no faffing, as it can become all too much and quite exhausting if you let it be.

realMary - lovely that your DH was so involved. :)

If you have an early ceremony your guests are going to be hungry and if you don't have canapés what are they going to do? The wait between the ceremony and the meal is probably the most tedious bit for guests. You won't notice it but they will. We had our civil ceremony at 2pm, followed by copious amounts of prosecco and some canapés. While the guests were getting drunk and enjoying the sunshine (we were lucky with the weather) we were doing photos. Started an informal line up just me and DH at 430pm announced into the meal at 5pm - speeches until about 530 and then the meal from 530 - 7. 7pm - 8pm we had an ice cream bike, choc fountain, tea and coffee (this was dessert instead of a 3rd course). 8pm the DJ started. Our timings worked really well and i think guests didnt feel like they were hanging around too much. I loved my wedding day so much. Cant believe it was 18 months ago!

Well, yes, kind of, and he does have great taste and a sense of occasion - but it was all still more fuss, time, effort and money (although we didn't spend a huge amount - under £3k and that included a £500 kilt, and some work to our garden) than I really would have liked.

Thanks RealMary!! Thanks for the sympathy!

It's driving me insane. I'd LOVE a party at home but it's too small. I really considered it, but TBH 6 people in our sitting room feels a bit "close". We could've done it at my parents' house, but I had my first wedding reception there.

I think sack the photographer... BUT I've heard bad stories of friends photos. I know we'll rarely look at the pictures though, and we're not the type to display a huge photo of us at home...

I think the only wriggle room we have is with the reception. Maybe lose the DJ? But then what do we all do in the evening? Everyone goes home? That seems a shame, when it's so rare that we get everyone we love in the same place. Plus they can all stay at the hotel quite cheap.

So we lose the DJ, and save £400. But then how do we entertain people in the evening..? ARGH.

Or we just keep it as it is (what DP thinks we should do). We will have the money for it. Just no money for anything else!

What time do you invite evening guests. 8pm? Is that too late? And will people really turn up if they're only going to get a bacon roll??! And it's a cash bar??!!!!

I'd feel a bit cheated if I travelled to a friends' wedding evening do only to get a bacon roll and buy my own drinks. But the evening buffet is £17.50 per head, and you have to cover 75% of guests. We just can't do it.

MAYBE then, we have a later service (4pm), then just have the meal for our 45/50 main guests as the evening thing. So we all sit down about 7pm, have a relaxed posh dinner, then speeches. People can go home after if they want (about what, 9 or 10pm?) or stay on, chatting and drinking.

But we have quite a few very old guests - is that to late for them? FFS.

I would go for plan as in your last post. Not too late.

Any friends play musical instruments or DJ a bit?

You only need one or two good photos - one of the two of you and one of everyone (this is easy to make look good). Wedding photographers take up hours of time and you end up with loads of naff photos of people doing weird stuff. If three people who fancy themselves as quite good at it take a couple of dozen pics each you will get that.

Evening dos with not much food when you've missed the speeches and pay for your own booze…well it's not much of an invitation. Are there many people you'd want to come? What kind of person? If its colleagues and mates, why not just suggest a nice in the pub to raise a toast to your marriage in a few weeks time?

like MGFM we spent most of the budget on food and booze

We recently went to the evening do of a cousins wedding. It was lovely and we have no problem whatsoever about a cash bar. Just one thing, though...there was no food. We'd travelled down, stayed in a hotel and assumes we'd be fed. We didn't mind at all other than the fact we were starving, so don't feel obliged to provide food but do let people know so they can eat first.

And yes, I would ditch the photographer. Can you leave notes on the tables asking people to take pics and upload them to a site you've created? And ask a few trusted sober friends to take the formal shots. Lots of people have good cameras and my favourite pics are ones taken by friends and family. That's a huge saving.

Ditto, do you have any wannabe DJ pals? I think we had a friend of a bil. It was great.

Good luck.

I would also push the wedding ceremony out so there is enough time for guests to grab a sandwich before the ceremony. It can be a real faff with women running between hairdressers and the church, and then people fall on canapés when they turn up.
We got married at 1.15 and the food was served at 6pm. It was the only slot available for the ceremony but it was far too big a gap and cost us a fortune in booze and canapés so keep it tight. There's no reason you couldn't do a welcome drink at the venue and then straight into dinner, it's just a question of allowing some time to meet your guests, circulate and take some pics with them all. Allow minimum 2 hours for dinner and speeches so 8pm for any evening guests.

How much of a deposit will you lose for the photographer? It might be worth checking back with them to see if they will do a reduced package and just take shots at the church with some formal family pics there? Then you could rely on friends and family at the hotel?

£500 on invitations for 70 people ? Holy crap. That's over £7 per invite and unless you only know single people then you only need about 40 invites tops?
By all means make them yourself but only v close family will keep them as a memento so an A5 sheet on nice paper straight off your printer will do the job just as nicely. People just need to know where and when, and directions if the church or hotel are off the beaten track.

Evening buffet would be a total waste of money imo unless you eat very early. Bacon sandwiches or cocktail sausages are the business when everyone has danced for a bit. Not the chicest option but definitely appreciated.
We had a cake made of cheese rather than the traditional kind which was handy as people stuffed themselves with stilton and brie as part of the evening food.

The average is a 20% cancellation rate so you may find that your numbers are a lot smaller by the date. Check when the last notice point is with the venue for confirming numbers and check back with any flakey types beforehand. If you've only got 20 evening guests and you think they will definitely turn up, and they are close friends/family that you'd really have invited to the whole thing given the budget, then I'd consider the second option of the evening buffet but I'd push back on the costings, pay a bit extra and not have the sandwiches. It should be a little less. People can have a buffet and still have a table plan too if you'd like one.