Hi everyone
I'm newly engaged and we are looking at getting married in July 2020 (venues shortlisted but not finalised yet).
World of Wedding Planning is giving me anxiety and I have a couple of questions that I'm really hoping someone can help me with.
(1) Dress
I'm on a budget so that rules out the big bridal shops. I can see the cheapest option for a nice dress, even cheaper than the high street fashion stores, is to buy second hand on Facebook. I would have no problem wearing a second hand dress. However:
- I am nervous about buying a dress on the internet that I haven't tried on, especially since wedding dress sizes seem to be drastically different from normal clothes sizes. I don't want to spend £250 on a dress that then doesn't fit me or just looks terrible on me. Is buying online a stupid idea?
- I am a size 16 right now and I'm apple shaped. But I have been dieting since 1 July, I lost five pounds so far and have ambitions to lose another 30 by this time next year. But I have no idea how much I will actually lose. So I don't know whether to buy a dress that fits me now (which could be an 18-20 in wedding dress sizes) or wait until nearer the time. By that time I might have dropped a dress size or even two but I will be cutting it fine timewise which gives less room for error. Advice on this one?
- We have in mind two venues, one for the ceremony, one for the after party. The ceremony venue we are looking at is a beautiful house and I would love to wear a proper, long wedding dress. But my partner wants to have the after party in a function room in a pub which I agree makes total sense economically, however I am worried that a long dress will be ruined on a dirty pub floor. I am thinking maybe I should try to solve the problem by wearing a tea-length dress but then that would mean that I have to wear heels and I don't really want to because my feet will hurt all day. If I wear a long dress, I can wear flat shoes. Advice on this as well, please.
(2) The Other Issue
I don't really drink. I could see myself drinking two glasses of wine at most on the big day, esp as I probably will not feel like eating much at all. More than two glasses will be a bad idea and I will have a terrible hangover the next day. My partner drinks socially. He never drinks when he is with me, at most we might have 1 glass of wine each if we are eating in a restaurant. But when he is out with his male friends, they get sloshed. He has remarked several times that he is bored with drinking as an activity and has started coming home from these events a bit earlier to avoid unnecessary drinking, which I commend.
But his friends ... they are all quite young, in their 20s, they are a group of university friends, a gang of about half a dozen lads. They drink heavily on nights out or sporting events or whatever and think that getting hammered is a great idea. I am very worried about the way they are going to behave at our wedding. At first I thought we could confine them to the pub aspect of the wedding but no, apparently they are all very close friends and absolutely must attend the ceremony which is at a beautiful house with lovely furniture and paintings.
I would be mortified if anything at the house got damaged, plus we will have to pay the bill. Also, he just showed me a video of this group of friends on his phone the other day, they were watching cricket. They were very drunk, jumping around and shouting. I am nervous around drunk people, esp gangs of lads and this is the last thing I want at my wedding. I don't trust them to behave at the ceremony and I'm not really looking forward to the pub party in general because the last time we went to a wedding where there was heavy drinking and a disco, I ended up sitting at a table away from the dance floor and chatting to the old people. It was a long evening. I don't know if I want to go through that again at my own wedding, where I'm sitting on the sidelines, basically sober, chatting to Grandma and waiting for drunk guests to exhaust themselves so we can go home.
Advice, please? I am stressing. Please tell me if I'm worrying over nothing or what I should do.
tl;dr. Wedding dress confusion. Bride doesn't drink but groom's friends drink heavily and groom's family also regard drinking as the main activity at a party.