Chewer Weddings

Aww, what a cute thread idea. The weddings I attend are always filled with old people and not like Wedding Crashers promised at all.

My wife did all our centerpieces. Bought all the materials from Michael's: square glass vases, some clear decorative rocks to put inside, battery operated tea-light candles to go under the rocks for a neat glowing effect, and some branches and vines to put inside (we had a fall theme for the wedding since it was in October). Then she made little kits for each centerpiece and the staff at the venue put them all together for us. They turned out great, and a lot cheaper than if we'd had the caterer or someone else do them.

We also didn't spring for a band or DJ. We didn't want some cheesy guy up on a stage telling everyone what to dance to. So we just loaded a playlist on to her laptop, plugged it in to a karaoke sound system we borrowed from a friend, hit shuffle and off we went. It filled the space nicely without overwhelming everyone, and it saved us the cost of a band/DJ. We also used it for our music during the ceremony.

A bit of general wedding advice -- make sure you get lots of pics and videos, because I'll tell you, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be 100% sure I was even at mine. You do months of planning and the whole thing seems to rush by. It felt like I got to the venue and 20 minutes later we were leaving.

I will recommend having your music backed up on another iPod or laptop in case something goes wrong. My wife's laptop overheated and stopped playing about two hours in to the reception, and fortunately the husband of one of her bridesmaids had an iPod with some music on it.

I'm sorry.... weren't you entering the burgeoning field of high class call girl not more than six months ago? I hate to be that guy but are you hitching your star to one of your johns or are you out of the game and settling down? If not will you be continuing your employment with your new beau either aware or unaware?

My wife planned the whole thing from scratch. We made all the invitations ourselves (black and pink), decorated the venue the day before (which was a manor house my parents are caretakers for) so yeah it was all done by the two of us.

The theme was a High Tea so we spent months before the wedding scouring charity shops and car boot sales for china cups, plates and coffee and tea pots. If you are doing it yourself I recommend doing just that - oh and Hobby craft is a godsend.

We were also lucky that my friend had just done a wedding photography course and so that was her gift to us.

In fact the only thing that cost us any serious money was the caters, it was really hard to find anyone who knew what a high tea was (hint not a buffet) so we ended up having to hire one that caters for Prince Charles of all people.

Edited to add we also had battery operated tea light which we hid inside real church candles and placed them in large glass vases - they looked great. Our centre pieces where a job lot of silver candlesticks which had been damaged in a fire - I spent a month polishing and cleaning them but they looked great.

We had the invitations done at a print shop, but we did the wedding programs ourselves.

Two pieces of advice:

1. Accept the fact NOW that something is going to go wrong...it always does. Let go of the idea that you're going to have a perfect wedding experience and just go with the flow. You're there to have fun, not obsess over every detail. In truth, you're going to want something to go wrong: those goofs become the fun stories that you'll tell in later years.

2. Eat right away (and quickly) when food gets served. You've got 5, maybe 10 minutes of people not bugging you. Pound your food and fuel up - you're gonna need it.

Ain't that the truth. We ate more of our reception food in our hotel after the wedding than we were able to at the reception itself (the caterers were nice enough to put together a couple of plates for us, since they've seen this happen all the time). Every time we sat down to eat, it was, "Oh, it's time for the first dance," "Oh, it's time to cut the cake," "Oh, it's time for the garter/bouquet", "Oh, it's time for you to leave." I left the wedding with an untouched bottle of beer and three uneaten cupcakes from my groom's cake sitting on our table. I didn't even have time to get a good buzz on.

But... but... but he could've slapped some woman's tits for you guys in the conga line.

We left the basket of food that was prepared for us at the reception and ended up ordering room service at some godawful hour at the hotel we stayed in close to the airport we were leaving for the honeymoon from the next morning.

never get married y'all

pimpin jake knows wassup

This is actually the correct answer.

My wife and I were elbows deep in planning when, after our second seating chart was rejected by one of our sets of parents (we both come from broken homes with remarried parents who, at the time, didn't get on well with their respective ex-spouses) we chucked it all and went to Vegas. Boom. Done. Fuck you, family.

Here's my top 10.

1. Don't let bullshit family politics get in the way - this is your do and anyone who puts pressure can go fuck themselves.

2. Delegate specific, time-consuming, non-fuck-up-able jobs to your fiance making it clear when you need it done by. Anything that requires a value judgement or artistic interpretation should be done by you, similarly if there's one thing that he wants (even if you REALLY don't), do it - if he's making a stand on something it matters a lot.

3. Do it all in advance, leave nothing to the week before that you could have done earlier, because shit will happen and you'll have to deal with it (or not and you can try to just enjoy the lead up).

4. On the day, stop and look around periodically at people and the venue, it'll be over before you know it.

5. No DJ - I got my best man to do it (covered). No Photographer (unless you have a pro in the family - forgive the pun) just get people to take as many pictures as possible and delegate to someone you know has a good eye/ expensive camera to take the "official" ones - and if possible get someone to "bulldog" people around for photos - write out a specific list of pictures you want and give it to them to boss people around - this is the fastest most efficient way of doing it - it's still like herding cats but the pix get DONE. (photos that often get missed: bride with each parent individually and then together, bride with best men, just the girls, groom with all the girls, best men and bridesmaids, etc) make sure that you get the photos from everyone (disposable cameras on the table are essential these days) after the wedding - take a pen-drive to as many as you can and get the rest to send them to you on CD/DVD as soon as possible (people forget and move on)- do not rely on photobucket / facebook as the reproductive quality is awful. Then use blurb or whatever to put together your album (do this quickly after the wedding / honeymoon as otherwise it'll get put off and never finished).

6. Get people to video as much as possible, even if it's on camera phones or whatever - there's lots going to be going on and you'll be missing most of it so it's a great way to be everywhere at once (and to catch people drunk at weddings) and it's a doddle to put it all together these days.

7. Give people jobs, yes they are guests but they will also do pretty much whatever you want - I find that male partners of your female friends are the best for this - they often feel excluded ("i don't know anyone...") and as the bride, giving them a techy job with a bit of authority makes them feel like they have a reason to be there and mingle. Female friends who aren't bridesmaids can be given supervisory jobs - watch out for uncle knob-head, don't let so-and-so get blind drunk before the meal, talk to grandma, etc. But don't micromanage - prep your bridesmaids / bestmen to roll out these instructions.

8. Save money on everything you can (we had nice but cheap candles and centrepieces - again big shout to Michaels - if only they had them in the UK), work out what is essential and what is not, then look at what the non-essentials will cost. I printed out the orders of service / invites / seating plan myself and we saved a bomb.

9. On the day don't obsess, it's too late to do anything and you'll just come off as bridezilla, roll with the punches and use your bridesmaids / best men as servants - if something needs doing - delgate to them, they are there to help.

10. Don't do it. But if you really have to, nail it the first time because you'll never want to go through it all again.

Question about engagement rings for those of you who've bought them: what did you look for? Which of the four C's were the most important to you (or your bride)? Just curious. Thanks.

While I agree for the most part, sometimes a little give on your part is better than the argument that might result. My wife's mother wanted her step-brother to say a blessing before we started eating, and I initially was foot-stompingly opposed to anyone putting their religion's stamp of approval on our reception. But what ended up being about thirty seconds of the entire evening wasn't worth getting into a knock-down drag-out with the future mother-in-law, so I let it slide.

Yep. Anytime you get family involved, you have to pick your battles.

[shill]I've got three rings for sale if anyone wants a look.[/shill]

Well, the fact that her mom was paying for a good chunk of the wedding helped sway me as well.