Journal Em Emalb's Journal: married folks, large wedding or small wedding? 20
Hey folks, it's 3:50am, I sit at work, bored, so I thought I'd write some more. I am curious to know how many people swing by here, so if you are reading this, then please answer the question I pose below.
Background info:
Me and my girl, Jen, met a little over a year and a half ago, and we have just had a marvelous time of it. Life with Jen has been absolutely wonderful, and we have made it through some really tough times together. I used to work for a little company called Lucent, which as you are aware, hemorraged employees like a shaven dog does fleas. Anyhow, long story short, I was layed off June of last year (damn, has it been that long?) and didn't find gainful employment for 3.5 months. (talk about a nerve-racking time, I was exactly 1 month from being officially up shit creek--no money=no truck, no apartment, no food, no nothing). Anyhow, what I am trying to say is that although we had our fair share of problems, we have only gotten stronger in our bond. At this point, I will say that I won't say much about her as far as her personal life goes, since I didn't ask, and it's really not appropriate for me to put her life history in this missive. Suffice it to say, we would have had an extremely tough time living off her salary alone. Anyhoo, back to the point. All this outside pressure has made me realize that this woman is the one for me, and although I haven't officially popped the question to her, we are well aware of how each of us feel, and it's gotten to the point of it's just a matter of money (not time, if I had the dough I'd already be married to her) until we make it official. Anyhow, my question to you great folks is what are your thoughts on wedding size? She has a very extended family, lots of aunts, uncles, nieces,nephews, and all that, while my side is really small. I do have several really, really good friends I am considering having in the ceremony, so that isn't the biggest kicker for me.
We are having a hard time deciding which we would rather have, a large, formal wedding, or a smaller, more intimate, more personal wedding.
I personally am all for the smaller wedding, since to tell you the truth, in my mind I am already married to her and it's just for other people (read:Not her and I) that the weddings are for in the first place. I would love for a simple ceremony, us to say our vows (we are writing our own), then we can all go to the reception and have a marvelous time. Of course, there's two of us in this, and she is as torn as I am.
We both have friends who have had the small ceremony and then had a large reception, and that worked out well, but some people apparently were miffed at not actually being at the ceremony. (Mt take on that:boo-freaking-hoo, but there's the two of us I am thinking about, not just my opinion)
She says that she doesn't want to upset or be mean to her brothers and sisters, since she was in all of their weddings. I respect this sentiment, since I understand where she is coming from, and I kinda have to do the same thing for a friend of mine. (he had a huge wedding, it sucked, well, for me anyway, since I was in it, and had to stand at the frigging alter for like 2 hours...he loved it though)
Anyhow, I am sorry I rambled, but if you could tell me how your stories on your weddings, I would appreciate it. And, for those of you not contemplating marriage yet, let me know your thoughts too, since you don't need to be married to have good ideas...
thanks for the input folks, I really appreciate it.
Some random thoughts (Score:2)
I've been married to my beautiful wife for almost five years now. We got married very young--right after the legal minimum--and we paid for it with our own money. We had a wedding, but it was a very small one which we scraped together ourselves.
Before we were married, I remember feeling a lot like you did. I thought that the wedding was "only for them, not us," and I knew that I wanted to be with Rachelle for the rest of time.
Once we got married though, and we started going through problems, the unquestionable truth of our marriage becamse more and more important. When there's the sizable obstacle of divorce between you staying together and splitting up, you find strengh and understanding that you simply wouldn't have otherwise.
Two of my friends just dumped their S.O.'s and jumped in the sack together. To all apperances, they both were in strong relationships that they wanted to last. But they didn't and there was a lot of hurt spread around. If they had gotten married to the others--or if they had acted as if they *weren't* married until they were--then the pain and the aunguish (that was passed around far more than it should have been) would simply not have happened.
As for the wedding--I think now sounds like a good time to start with that time-honored "division of labor." Decide who gets to repair the car, who gets to do the bills, and who gets to have the wedding be "their wedding." The most unintuitive thing I've learned from my marriage is that most complex things just work better when there's one person in charge of making it all work.
In regards to the wedding size--pick a size. If you don't care if she has more folks than you, just pick a number and fill to spec. If you want a specfic size for each of you, pick a number, get a best man and some grooms, and go find enough warm bodies who know your name to come.
If the most important thing is that everyone's there and everyone enjoys it, add up who needs to come and then see what you can do that you can boht afford and enjoy.
Oh, and make sure that you've got someone else to take care of all the detalis and logistics while you're busy getting married. Rachelle and I wound up cleaning up after our own wedding.
wedding (Score:1)
My own experience (Score:1)
My wife and I got married nearly a year and a half ago (mid-February 2001). We had a small wedding and reception, maybe 30 people total (including the DJ and such ;-)). I'd say that if you have the money to spare, go for the big wedding if you both want it. I, myself, was very happy with the small wedding that we had, so that's what I'd recommend in general. There's nothing wrong with having a large wedding and/or reception, but don't go into debt for it. There will probably be enough other stresses early on that you don't want to add to by having to pay off a wedding and honeymoon that you couldn't afford in the first place.
Also, might I suggest a little wait before you actually get married. My wife and I got engaged early like you're planning on doing (we had known each other for perhaps 18-20 months), but we didn't get married until our fourth engagement anniversary. This gave us lots of time to get to know each other and to make sure that we were really ready for this. It's a big step, after all!
Anyway, congratulations to you, and best of luck.
My thoughts.. (Score:1)
Firstly, do what you feel most comfortable with. If a large wedding seems impersonal to you, go with a small one. If you want everybody you know to be there and you can afford it, go for it.
As a guest, I would have to say I appreciate a smaller wedding. I have been to both large and small weddings. The last wedding I attended was fairly small (less than 40 guests), and the bride and groom were much more relaxed. The groom was even able to talk to my boyfriend and myself for 15 minutes immediately before the ceremony. They had a lovely reception with a dinner and dancing during which I was able to acquaint myself with the other guests. It was much more relaxed than the larger weddings I've been to. Last year I went to a wedding that had over 300 guests and a sit-down dinner for them all. In addition to being expensive, the bride and groom were completely exhausted before the party was half over. None of the guests intermingled, and it was a bit overwhelming for everybody involved.
You say that this day is mostly for the benefit of other people, but it is still your day. People get too caught up in planning every little detail and making sure that everything will be perfect. You didn't say whether your families will be involved at all in the planning, but the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is a good example of where that leads. It will be impossible to please everybody, so just worry about yourself and Jen.
ditto.. (Score:1)
I was married to a Brasilian last March. I had a grand total of 5 family members there, and was fairly sad that none of my close friends or relatives could make the trip. But the wedding itself was fairly small and the reception there in Brasil was for 140 people at a very posh resort. It was LOVELY, my wife organized everything and it went GREAT! Then we spent a week on our honeymoon and returned to the states and had a reception for MY family and friends at a resort in Scottsdale, AZ...it was a much more simplistic reception in terms of the catering and decorations, and had about 100 people. For me this was much better than had we gone with the huge wedding. It is much more cost effective...and at the reception in the states we played the video from out wedding and reception in Brasil, so everyone did get to view it.(the benefit of 1 week honeymoon between events).
to surmise I would recommend the smaller more intimate wedding...it would mean more to y'all more likely because of the closeness..you don't have all of that extended family you only see on vacations and holidays that you really don't care about. You have your CORE support group for your life there with you sharing in your moment directly and those others can participate by sharing good grub at the reception.
(btw..in Brasil if they aren't invited to the reception they rarely go to the wedding as well, but the receptions in Brasil are OH MY GOD! when it comes to the menus...talking 6 course meals here)...anyway...it was great and my wife is terrific...just wish she would have married me at 2 years of dating instead of 4
Good luck and Happy Honeymoon!
What I did and what I'd change (Score:2)
First of all, weddings are for women. Once that is understood, no feelings will be hurt. She wears white and stands out, you wear black and blend in. That's how it should be. Don't buck tradition. My wife wanted a big Catholic wedding in a church, and I wanted a 5-person ceremony (including the Justice of the Peace). Relationships are about compromise. Our location wound up being in a really nice, large house with room for about 50 seated guests and an aisle to walk down. Choose your battles wisely, though; I couldn't live with myself if we were married in a church--if the flowers were blue or white, life would go on.
One thing that made us stand out was that our wedding was on a Tuesday. Nobody has weddings on a Tuesday. I had a reason, which isn't important, but it relates to the calendar date of February 29th, and it happened to be on a Tuesday in the year 2000. This is very convenient, because people out of town can't make it unless it really matters to them, and you get plenty of presents anyway. This is a good thing, because the 175 people we invited wouldn't have fit.
The other thing we did that worked well is we had a small reception after the wedding. Just nice wine and finger foods. We spent the roll of cash on a BIG reception the following weekend, in a different town where all our friends live rather than the town where all our family lives. Basically, we had a huge party with our friends, who like to party, and a small party with our family after the reception, who like to see weddings and go home. That was a good call. We then got to spend a few days recuperating from the wedding preparations and get the reception set up just right. We had a hot live band, great catering, and a huge hall and plenty of guests. There's no way we could have afforded to have them attend the wedding, but we still wanted to share our joy with them, so it really worked out.
Now, the main thing I'd change if I could is I'd have done a rehearsal. We were pinched for time, so we didn't. If we had, we'd have realized our ceremony was 12 minutes long, and that's not long enough. Because we didn't have a rehearsal, it was accidentally cut to 7 minutes long, because we skipped a part by mistake.
Also, make sure your ceremony has good ambient lighting. The house we were in did, but it was after sunset, and typical room lighting will NOT work. You need flood lights in the back and task lighting up front so people can see, and so their pictures come out well, because their flashes won't carry that far. We'd also have booked the photographer to take a few more pictures of the ceremony as well, since we did all the photos before the wedding and he stuck around to take a few snaps during.
Try to find a photographer who will give you the proofs and negatives. They generally keep them for reprint purposes, but they hate filing and keeping them, because they never know when a couple will want more. It's better all-around if you have them. Settle that up front. And don't pay extra for them. Do get a professional photographer, too. Don't get a friend of the family to do it, unless that's their job. Contrary to popular belief, it does matter. They have experience with good lighting and traditional poses, and often have an eye for good shots. But! make sure you tell the photographer if you have a particular pose or shot you want done. For instance, I specifically requested two rolls of sepia tone film to be taken, so that we could have some austere looking 1890's wedding photos. They turned out better than the color ones in many cases, because the colors never look wrong, and the quality is higher.
The last thing I'd recommend is to think really hard on how you propose. I know it's a fantasy that women have that their man will do something hopelessly romantic. Don't let her down. I had prepared 6 months earlier and bought the perfect ring, but waited for the right time. I finally caved and asked her, but it wasn't a spectacular event. It was a shock, yes, and no matter what you do that's the case, but not a memorable story. And you get to tell it about 1000 times for the next few years.
Good luck to you both, and remember--enjoy yourself. And don't sweat the small stuff, as no plan survives its execution.
JH
My two cents... (Score:1)
One thing I would caution you against though, if taking my advice, is to not get too comfortable with her making the plans. Yes, it's her day. Yes, she's driving the wedding plans along, BUT, you don't want her to feel as if she's doing all the work. Weddings are, by and large, very big, and hence, very stressful events (Note, big as in milestone, not as in size). If she does all the work, then, while she may be perfectly happy with the results, she won't feel as if it was a team effort, which I'm pretty sure will cause it to lose some of the magic. After all, your wedding plans are just a precursor to a life of you and your wife making decisions together.
Cost: as to size of wedding, do what you're both comfortable with, and can both afford. If she wants a big wedding, then by all means, go as big as you can comfortably afford. If there are others (read: in-laws, parents) willing to chip in on the costs, then by all means, let them, and inflate your budget as such. When we initially planned our wedding, I planned it on my budget. When extra money was available to us, my initial thought was something like "Great, now it's costing me less.", whereas her initial thought was "Great, now it can be bigger than we had planned, at no extra cost to us.", or something along those lines. We ended up spending what we had originally planned, but having a larger wedding than we had originally planned, as others were helping to defray the costs. Seriously though, spend what you can afford to spend, but don't let yourself get railroaded with the costs of wedding.
Also remember, there are tons of ways to have a nice wedding cheap. I'm not into the church scene personally, but my cousin is. At his wedding, the church and minister were free, as he was a member of that particular church. Also, they had PLENTY of wedding decorations just (literally) lying around, that they were more than willing to let him use. His now-mother-in-law made the corsages, his mother sewed his tux, while his wife's wedding dress was an heirloom, and the invitations were made by his brother. My brother-in-law and long time friend is a chef at a VERY elegant bistro here in town, so he provided the catering for only the cost of the food (and the $50 I slipped him afterwards). Long story short, there are TONS of ways to save costs on a wedding, so be sure to ask around. If anyone is willing to help, let them. Not only will it make the wedding more special to them (which really makes it more special to everyone), but it'll give everyone something to talk about afterwards (ie: "Did you see the candles that so and so made, they were wonderful, and only cost 50 cents to make.").
That said, congratulations. I don't know you personally, or really at all, for that matter, but if you've truly found "the right person", it certainly deserves congratulating. As mentioned above (somewhere), don't fuck up the proposal, and do it as right as you can figure out how to. More importantly than congratulations though, good luck. You'll need it. Planning and affording a wedding is really trying, and you'll need the luck on getting her to accept your proposal too.
-9mm-
Bottom line? Money. (Score:2)
Hey!
Just got married almost a year ago, so I can relate to that "big/small" wedding question. We had a huge wedding (with 100+ guests) but we could both afford it.
I am afraid the real question is: how much $$$ can you put into this wedding thing? And don't kid yourself: this is the real question.
If you don't have enough money for a large- (or even a small or medium-) sized wedding, the question then becomes: can you family helps? Meaning: are they willing to shell out some $$$ to help you organize a great wedding?
Again, don't misunderstand me: as you noticed, you and your sweetheart are "already" married, living together, yadda, yadda, yadda. The only reason you organize a wedding is for your families. This way, her family can get to know you and vice-versa. Also, you need to realize that, the bigger the wedding, the less you'll remember!
So: make sure you have a lot of cash. Then, ask both your families. Then ask again. Evaluate how much you can get and don't be shy: explain to them that, given your job situation, you may have to organize something smaller than what you'd like and that Uncle Harry may not be invited.
One last advice: make sure you really love her, and that you'll love her for the rest of your life. And that you'll take good care of her... because that's the point of getting married.
Small worked for me (Score:2)
Six guest showed up in Vermont: my Mum & Dad, my two brothers, (my sister couldn't make it from New Zealand, plus I didn't go to her wedding (she's divorced now, so it doesn't count)), and my two best friends from college. The "reception" was dinner in the back room of the Sirloin Saloon in Burlington (the Pub & Brewery was booked).
It probably helped that my wife had a big wedding the first time - she didn't feel she needed/wanted/deserved another.
Covered dish reception? (Score:2)
I did both (Score:2)
It was nice, and had I thought about it much before hand it's what I would have thought I'd want, but there was definately something missing when it was all said and done.
We had a much larger ceremony the following August, with about 200 guests, and it was great. She has a very close extended family, and I have a similarly sized network of close friends, and it was really wonderful to share the event with all of them.
Having done both I recomend a larger wedding if you can afford it. (My wife's family paid for ours, so that wasn't really an issue for me, and they were pretty happy that it was cheaper than her sister's
Anyway, several comments have been made to the effect that the wedding is for the family. This is only partly true. Family is a very important consideration when planning the event, but it is not for them.
Others have said that the wedding is for the woman, and this is more true, but still not entirely. Most likely she will have a much clearer vision of what she wants the wedding to be like than you do, and I suggest you go with that for the most part, but definately at least provide the illusion that you are participating, even if you don't feel like you actually are. This will be very important, as for her to feel good about it and truely enjoy it she needs to feel that it was a team effort. My duties consisted of helping pick the caterer and the music, and picking out the tuxes. Everything else was done by my wife and her mother, and I have to admit that it was a relief to me to not have to be involved in the hundreds of hours of planning that went into it. I had the convenient excuse of working a lot of overtime during that period, but really I think the plan was better off for my minimal involvement.
That reminds me of another point, though, that if either of you have a family member that has experience planning a wedding (my wife's family planned and catered her sister's wedding), get them involved from the beginning. I can't stress enough how important it is to have somebody at your side who has some idea of what they're doing. I suppose you could hire a planner, but it sounds like cash might be an issue for you, and in that case the money is really better spent on the wedding itself.
My best friend is currently in the midst of planning his wedding, which they are paying for themselves, and it seems to be going well. They started saving up for it over a year ahead of time and have been able to put away a fair amount. They've also made heavy use of family, which I highly suggest looking into. I beleive you mentioned your SO has a large family, get them involved, especially if you decide to have a big enough wedding that you can invite them all!
Finally, don't forget that you are getting married also. It is more for her than for you, but there needs to be some part of it that is for you.
Suggestions (Score:2)
We didn't want to leave anyone out: all her family were invited, as were all my family, and all our friends. (We didn't invite everyone we had ever met, or co-workers we weren't close friends with, or anything like that.)
I pretty much let her plan everything. I made suggestions and helped out with stuff, but I figured the actual wedding was more important to her than it was to me and I mostly let her have her way. She knew our budget and didn't plan anything unreasonable; we weren't going to feed all our guests at a sit-down dinner with fine china, for example.
Our wedding was held in an outdoor park in our town. The park is rented on a sliding scale: the more people you bring, the more expensive it gets... for about 100 people, it was quite inexpensive. The reception was held in and around the small building in the park. If we had rain, we had a fallback plan that we could crowd everyone inside the building for the wedding and reception, but as expected we had nice weather and we hand an outdoors wedding.
On our budget, we didn't hire live musicians; we didn't even hire a DJ. We bought albums and CDs and singles, and I made tapes. Outdoors, there was no power, but I hooked together a pair of boom boxes and they were ample to provide the music for the wedding. I also had a microphone hooked up for the vows.
We had some flowers, not too many, and a really pretty balloon arch. My wife loves balloon arches.
For the reception, we wanted tasty food and lots of it, but we didn't think it needed to be fancy or expensive. A local catering company provided a buffet where guests could make sandwiches and get salads. We found a local woman who made wedding cakes, and she made a nice and very tasty cake. We had three layers, each a different flavor, chocolate, white cake, and carrot cake.
For drinks, everyone told us "get lots of champagne! People drink tons of champagne at weddings!" We bought four cases of champagne, three of white wine, and two of Martinelli's sparkling cider. We should have thought about our friends before listening to the advice. Most of our friends went straight for the sparkling cider, and we were soon out, but there was lots of champagne left. So consider your friends, and maybe you should have a bunch of sparkling cider too. (It's certainly affordable compared to champagne!)
My wife hired an expensive but very good photographer. The pictures were really excellent, and we treasure them. You will want good photos of your wedding. Even if you are trying to save money, consider hiring a pro rather than having a friend do it.
I suggest you have a rehearsal and make sure all your plans work. For example, at the rehearsal I tested the boom boxes I had hooked up and they worked as planned. After the rehearsal we had a "rehearsal dinner" to thank all the people who had to come to rehearse with us (bridesmaids, etc.)
I think everyone had fun at our wedding, and we did too, mostly. I did get a little tired of running around saying a few words to each of our guests, but if I had it to do over I wouldn't want to cull the guest list at all.
So, my summary:
A larger wedding is okay if you can afford it
Lots of tasty food, but not expensive, worked for me
Get good photos
Let her have the wedding she wants, as long as she isn't spending you both into debt
Best of luck to you and your sweeheart.
steveha
wedding size (Score:2)
Well I'm not one of the first to comment on your question but hopefully I be a bit of help. My wife and I have been married for just over six months now. We had a very large wedding (300 ppl). We packed the church and had a killer reception. We spent tons of time getting it all setup and the parents spent tons of money making it all work. The real things that you need to think about are the following.
Basically, if you can afford it and everybody wants it, go big. Otherwise, gather two witnesses and get it over with :) (Okay... maybe thats a big extreme, but you get the point.)
Anyways, hope that was a bit of help, RyanRe:Interesting cultural difference... (Score:1)
thanks for the Euro-slant...interesting indeed.
A couple of comments - pro church ceremony. (Score:1)
My experience was that we got (pre-) marriage counseling from a pastor, and started attending their church. That lead to getting married in the same church. This turned out to be a good thing, as it allowed a good amount of people to attend (about 100). The church has all the facilities you need: plenty of room (in the sanctuary, reception hall, and parking); big kitchen; sound system if you want (although our church frowned on alcohol, which was fine by us). The church has a lady who does wedding planning, and she was a great help to my wife. They even took care of cleanup afterwards. As far as cost goes, the pastor did ask that we consider giving them *something*, so we did (monetary). It was probably the best value of the whole thing.
Side-effects: although we started going for (pre-) marriage counseling, we found that we really liked going to church. It refreshes one's soul, and you get to be with people wrestling with the same problems in everyday life. I ended up going to the particular church because I have a friend I respect, and this is the church he goes to. So if you want to consider this option, look for a friend (of you or your's) that has their life together and that you know goes to church. My $0.02
Get married (Score:2)
I had the pressure of she couldn't invite some of her 50+ first cousins - she needed to invite all or none, expecially since she had been invited to lots of their weddings. So it's a bit like what you say of your girlfriend.
We ended up having a two and a half year engagement as we scrimped and saved to get together the money, and we did a lot of planning to try and reduce costs, as well as pulling in friends and contacts. (Got discounts on the rings from a friend who was a jeweler, etc.)
In the end, we had a kickass party. I had a good time, so did my wife, and people who came.
Was a great time worth delaying our wedding? Having the 2.5 year engagement instead of a (much) shorter one? That's a question I think that you need to answer with your SO. Perhaps the two of you want to do the same level of saving, but put it as a downpayment on a house. It's great fun to have a big wedding.
But taking the step from girlfriend to fiancee is a big step in the right direction, and you don't have to have enough money for the wedding to do that, just enough for a ring. And I really suggest you take that step. Once you've done that you've formalized your intentioned, and given a token of commitment, and then it's jsut a matter of when do you move from being married in each other's eyes, to being married in the eyes of the world.
I should wrap it up there, but I want to mention a few other ideas. A lot of people I know who have 2nd weddings (don't want to emulate them, but I can learn from the experience), have done no traditional weddings and cut the cost dramatically. I understnad that some full-service resorts like Sandals will marry you for free - that's the wedding and honeymoon rolled into one. Not good if you actually want people there. A friend in Oregon rented out a water park for an afternoon, and had catering with finger foods in the pools, and through a huge party for around 5 grand. This especially went over well with all the children, who normally wouldn't really enjoy the pagentry of a wedding. Maybe going for something besides the ordinary can provide a more cost effective and yet memorable way to have the large wedding she wants.
=Blue(23)