• LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

The Engagement/Wedding/Honeymoon thread

congrats on all who are getting married, the pictures of the dresses are gorgeous.
when I got married me and the hubby done the local church, and hotel nothing fancy and friends and family all done catering photography and video (an actual vhs lol) we did get unusual gifts for the bridesmaids which were100+ year old spoons shaped into a ring. and for the guys they all got antique pocket watches.
Where we live there is a few hundred people here so basically everyone turns up at a wedding you dont need to send out invites, except to those family and friends who dont live in the village. It really is a case of they smell the food and drink, I did wear a slimline cream dress, and accessories were in purple and lilac and the hubby wore a kilt, it looked really nice all the guys in the kilts.

hope you all have fantastic days when it comes
 
Amor! That dress is a beautiful as you are!
My red dress (my husband's favourite colour) had a similar skirt. I don't know that puckering is called.

We got married in Vegas on Nov 13, 2006 in www.littlechapel.com (highly recommend this place) with my parents, his youngest brother, 2 of my dear friends from Canada, and 3 people from work. There was a conference in Vegas that week so work people were there and I invited a few to join us. One of which assumed the role as photographer. She does photography on the side.

We sent out evites online. We gave guests 10 months notice. Either my family would have to come to the US or his family would have to go to Canada. So we inconvenienced everyone by going West. We chose November as I had to be in Vegas one day for a conference. Neither of us had a vision of any traditions when it came to getting married. We had about 200 guests who watched it online.

I made dinner reservations at Jasmine (one of the resturants at the Bellagio where we were staying. Everyone paid for themselves and a few more of my work friends joined us there. We paid for the photographer's meal. She refused to take money for the photos which turned out great.

As simple as 5 days in Vegas and 5 days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico sounds...the grand total was about $18,000. That included EVERYTHING. We wanted to party like rockstars for 10 days and we did. May 2011 will be our last payment on the loan we took out at 7.99%.

Almost a month later, his parents had a ceremony at their house which his mom put together wonderfully. All his immediate family, grandparents, and a few of our shraed friends who could not make it to Vegas were in attendance. We were (re) married by his aunt who is a minister. All we had to do was show up. Different vows. Different clothes (I wore a black long sheath from my closet)Different vibe. It was so lovely.

Regrets? Dislikes?
Not one. We did it our way.
 
Has anyone ever had a wedding totally outdoors, as in, not in a park or anywhere you'd pay to "reserve" but like... a secret clearing in the middle of a forest or something? That is the sort of place I'd like to get married. The only problem I guess would be, since you can't reserve it somehow, you'd just have to show up, and if there were hunters camping there or something you'd be out of luck, lol.

I think that is so romantic though. Some beautiful secret place.

I also think it would be cool to have the wedding be sort of like a psy party or outdoor festival. Have everyone camp out under the stars, cook out, that sort of thing.

My biggest fear with getting married is that no one I know would come. I live very far away from my family and most of my friends and I doubt they would ever fly out to visit me or come if I got married. I doubt most of them could afford to.

How has this worked for some of you? With loved ones who lived far away? Were they expected to find their own way there or did you pay for it for them?
 
^my wife's parents flew in from china. they covered their airfares, but stayed with us.

PI, that sounds awesome! and only a little over a month after our big ceremony.
 
How has this worked for some of you? With loved ones who lived far away? Were they expected to find their own way there or did you pay for it for them?

My best friend is getting married in 4 weeks' time, and her fiance's family and friends are ALL in the UK. A large number of them are flying out for the wedding, some of whom it will be their first time in Australia. Everyone is paying for their own flights and accommodation.

I think the trick with my friends is that they gave people like 2 years notice, so everyone could plan their trip. So I guess that would be where the "Save The Date" cards come in handy ;)
 
I have family all over the world (including my mum who is in NZ), and my husbands family are mostly interstate. We are both not Melbourne natives, but decided to have our wedding here anyway - as it's cheaper to fly Melbourne/Brisbane (where a lot of my family are) and Melbourne/Canberra then it is to fly Brisbane/Canberra.

I think a good 2/3 of our wedding guests had to travel for our wedding... my mum came 2 weeks early and stayed with us (bliss <3) and my dad arrived 5 days beforehand from Brisbane.

I think the idea of many months/a couple of years notice is brilliant - this is why we sent out 'save the date' invites 11 months beforehand. A number of our friends are overseas now, and for various reasons, couldn't come, but we fully understood that. Some of my family couldn't come either - for some, travel, etc for a wedding can be a little too costly - it's also why we had no expectations about wedding gifts - honestly, having them make the effort to get there was gift enough :)
 
I told my parents I would pay for their flight/hotel but once the bills starting rolling in, I took the offer back...they understood. The first thing my Dad said when I said we were getting married in Vegas was could you pick a place further? GRRRRR....yeah I could have.

My brother said honestly if I am going to spend money to go on holiday Vegas is not it....GRRRR! I understood.

We extended the invitation as a long weekend party/vacation in Vegas with a Monday dedicated to us. Monday had cheaper wedding rates vs weekend.

We also did not expect gifts which we got anyway from the people who came to both weddings. I registered at Williams Sonoma so family and friends who wanted to do something could. I was pressured into that but I understand. People want to do something.
My husband expected a shit ton of money from his side of the family....that did not happen. I did not expect anything seeing as we did not have a traditional reception.

My brother in law spent $45,000 on his wedding...well at least his bride's parents did. THAT is crazy. I was a bridesmaid. I(t was pretty spectacular.
 
I wish the picture wasn't crooked but this is basically the chuppah design we're going to use:

5b.jpg


Hopefully we can find Seth's tallit (Jewish prayer shawl especially used during bar/bat mitzah for those unfamiliar) so we can drape it across the front. :D

I have a question. Did anybody use classical music to walk to coming down the aisle? Any suggestions? We're having a quartet playing during the procession, after the ceremony & during the cocktail hour (no anti-Semite Wagner please).
 
i don't have a record of what we had our string quartet play, it was classical but non-traditional.
 
Okay...I have a regret. We didn't have a song or a dance together.
BUT we did wear our wedding attire 4 years later....
zombienation.jpg

048mj.jpg
 
I have a question. Did anybody use classical music to walk to coming down the aisle? Any suggestions? We're having a quartet playing during the procession, after the ceremony & during the cocktail hour (no anti-Semite Wagner please).

I'm confident everybody would get a kick out of you dressed as a valkyrie coming down the aisle to it. Then they could drown it out with mahler or something.
 
Okay...I have a regret. We didn't have a song or a dance together.
BUT we did wear our wedding attire 4 years later....
zombienation.jpg

048mj.jpg
brilliant re-use of the outfits, ours are still sitting in the cupboard in the plastic coverings, which I presume will be sitting there for a lot longer.actually it is just mine his has been used for another couple of weddings and a few funerals over the years.
might go as a zombie bride this year lol
 
Has anyone ever had a wedding totally outdoors, as in, not in a park or anywhere you'd pay to "reserve" but like... a secret clearing in the middle of a forest or something? That is the sort of place I'd like to get married. The only problem I guess would be, since you can't reserve it somehow, you'd just have to show up, and if there were hunters camping there or something you'd be out of luck, lol.

I think that is so romantic though. Some beautiful secret place.

I also think it would be cool to have the wedding be sort of like a psy party or outdoor festival. Have everyone camp out under the stars, cook out, that sort of thing.

My biggest fear with getting married is that no one I know would come. I live very far away from my family and most of my friends and I doubt they would ever fly out to visit me or come if I got married. I doubt most of them could afford to.

How has this worked for some of you? With loved ones who lived far away? Were they expected to find their own way there or did you pay for it for them?

We got married on a public beach that did not need to be reserved or paid for. A lot of ppl I know have gotten married at a "secret" (to tourists anyway) waterfall. SOoooo beautiful!!! If I were to do it again I might do that!

Abour family not making it: We had originally planned to get married a year after we got engaged but my dad and brother were coming to visit us anyway, only a few months after the engangment. We talked to our moms first and got their permission, then decided to just go ahead and have the wedding while the important men in my life would be here! Some of my family got upset (the ones I only see for thanksgiving and christmas go figure :\) that I didn't give anyone enough time to even book a flight out here, and of course a lot of my friends from the mainland were upset that they weren't here either. But I know my friends, they wouldn't have been able to afford to come anyway (besides most of them were naysayers about me moving out here to begin with) and i wasn't too upset about my family that i never see anyway not being there....it was actually kind of funny I ended up not even knowing half the ppl that were at my wedding because they were friends of my husband from way back. Idk, i dont care, it was our day and it was perfect thats all that matters.
 
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