My FH is ruining my dream wedding ... how do I compromise?

[jajajaja]

Oh I did too. I barely added anything extra. No centerpieces, no extra flowers- just ocean, sand and candlelight. LOL We only had 22 guests, but I guess it just depends what we are each counting in that "budget" number because I know some of the girls included rings in theirs and I didn't.

 

I just found my contract- we spent $7k at LC... but the other half was photography, wedding wear, other small details and honeymoon. Considering about $4k was for our honeymoon and travel I guess I spent only $3k on everything else. I did pretty well too!

[jajajaja]

Mrs. Williams- Jamy and I got married at a beautiful private beach local so it didn't require a lot of extra decor. At least in our opinion! LOL

 

You can find all Morgan's threads by going to Search and selecting "advanced search." You can search threads by member, so put in "Morgan." and select "threads started." Here's her planning thread- http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...g-stuff-21764/

[Mrs. Williams]

It sounds like you did well Rachel. I think I can come in under the budget if I get everything else in check. I am pretty creative and I like DIY so I could do a lot of the projects myself. But I want flowers and my MIL and Mommy won't allow me to have fake flowers, so that's a large part of the budget. Right now, the centerpieces alone are costing $75/table.

[starchild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs. Williams Jamy, what did you do for your wedding? Maybe I can borrow your simple ideas.

I didn't do much of anything! LOL Like Rachel mentioned where we got married didn't require a lot of extras (not to us anyway...some people still do it up, it's a personal preferance).

I didn't do centerpieces, place cards, etc. The bridal party didn't have flowers, only the MOH and myself. My dress & veil total was like $600. I didn't buy shoes since I was on the beach and went barefoot. I didn't pay anyone to do my hair or make-up, by BM's and I did it. We didn't hire a band or DJ, we brought our own music.

I ordered the OOT bags from cheap totes for like $1 each and stuffed them with inexpensive Oriental Trading stuff. My friend owns a screenprinting business and got me a good deal on the logo transfer.

For favors I made CD's of our fave love songs - ordered cheap custom labels, bought a CD stomper and cardboard cases, made stickers out of my logo and assembled them with ribbon. The one "extra" thing we did was get fire dancers and that cost about $300 I think? That was the splurge.

Those are just examples and depending on your taste it may not do, but it saved me a lot of money. I could have easily paid a few extra thousand to have professionals do my favors, centerpieces, hair, etc. I'm a simple girl so it didn't bother me to not buy the sweatsuit that said "bride" on it to get ready in, or the upgrade to premium liquor, kwim?

But everyone is different and if you want the extras I get it, but they don't come cheap!

Quote:

Originally Posted by *Rachel* Oh I did too. I barely added anything extra. No centerpieces, no extra flowers- just ocean, sand and candlelight. LOL We only had 22 guests, but I guess it just depends what we are each counting in that "budget" number because I know some of the girls included rings in theirs and I didn't. I just found my contract- we spent $7k at LC... but the other half was photography, wedding wear, other small details and honeymoon. Considering about $4k was for our honeymoon and travel I guess I spent only $3k on everything else. I did pretty well too!

That sounds about right! And you're right, it does matter what you include in your budget because I didn't include rings/honeymoon/etc.

[jenngene2011]

Wow I just read the entire thread and I'm so sorry your having such a difficult time planning the wedding. I guess I'm lucky to have FI who just lets me do what I want as if I was to have my dream wedding here in the states it would cost 100k so our budget for our entire DW is 25k at tops but I'm hoping to be way under. I think you will need to talk with your FI regarding the wedding and I mean a real talk of what he wants and sees as a great wedding and also showing him your ideas and what you were thinking about.

One of the ways we aren't going to spend money is on flowers I do want flowers but I will not go overboard I think the point of a DW is that the destination has beauty already whether it is on the beach or underneath the palm trees that you don't need to add a million flowers all over the place like you would if you were to get married back home were you are trying to create the feeling of being somewhere else (if that makes any sense-used to be in the wedding business)

If your FI wants to hang out with the guys maybe the day before the big day have it like what he wants him playing bball and what not with his friends and you with the girls.

[Mrs. Williams]

Jenn, thanks for the advice. I've had a talk with him and he's willing to give me thirty minutes of tradition at the reception, which by the way is only $1250 (including tax and gratuity) to rent out the restaurant - we're having the guest choose off of the restaurant menu and saving on the traditional platted dinner meal. However, he told me to not be surprised if our guests don't stay for the reception. I think he has some kind of warped idea of what a destination wedding looks like as a result of his cousin's wedding.

[jenngene2011]

Have you showed this forum and shown him pictures of other destination weddings. I mean if his idea of a wedding is just ceremony and hanging out with his guys friends that doesn't sound like a wedding me at all and sounds very SELFISH. I mean its wedding between two people who home together to show their love with family and friends. If it is a ceremony to him that why not just go to the courthouse and get married. I guess I just can't wrap my head around some men and their idiotic ideas of a wedding. I know a wedding is between the bride and groom but I mean come on the groom needs to give a little and stop comparing with his cousin and stop listening to his family because he is marrying you not them.

[Mrs. Williams]

This I agree with. I am really hoping that after looking at the Save the Dates - I put them in a separate post, that he will see how much this all means to me and he will reconsider. We've been really good about compromise, so I'm hoping this won't be any different.

 

I just don't want to look back and say I hated my wedding.

[Ayita]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mrs. Williams Jenn, thanks for the advice. I've had a talk with him and he's willing to give me thirty minutes of tradition at the reception, which by the way is only $1250 (including tax and gratuity) to rent out the restaurant - we're having the guest choose off of the restaurant menu and saving on the traditional platted dinner meal. However, he told me to not be surprised if our guests don't stay for the reception. I think he has some kind of warped idea of what a destination wedding looks like as a result of his cousin's wedding.

Ms Williams,

I've read the entire thread and a few things come to my mind.

Firstly - what exactly is the timeline of your wedding ?

If you're getting married late in the afternoon (say 5pm), the reception would actually be dinner time. Would guests skip dinner to go play beach volley ?!?!

Presented that way it sounds very different from the idea he has - perhaps the cousin wedding was early in the day (just guessing) and they had all afternoon between ceremony and dinner - so they wanted to do vacation stuff in the time allocated... but really if the time allocated for the wedding is already late in the day, you would just have to "exchange" your regular dinner for a wedding dinner. Big deal. I'm sure he could find this acceptable.

Secondly - if I planned to go some place for a wedding, I would personnally feel "stolen of the wedding" if there was no reception. Maybe his idea is different, but most people idea of a wedding does include a reception. Go see the thread "what did you see at a wedding that made you swear", read it and have your FI read it too... a lot of brides here are remembering weddings with no reception...

http://bestdestinationwedding.com/fo...u-swear-38783/

That would be for me particularly true if I had to fly someplace. I mean, the place you're getting married at is probably not a place a lot of your guests would have picked for their own vacation. They are going to have to switch one vacation of their choice, for a vacation resort of your choice. Even if it's nice, it's still for you that they are doing it. And then what, they come and there's no real wedding ? Personnally - I would be pissed.


Thirdly - budget

You're starting off on great grounds here. I mean, 1250$ for reception and 2000$ for photog, honestly, those are really great prices !

Some great ways to save :
- bridal party. Use umbrellas rather than flowers
- center pieces. Your MIL and Mom don't want you to use fake flowers ? Use glass jars or vases, sand, sea shells and tea lights... even lanterns... why not a mini aquarium (without the fishes ) - you can get a small square vase from Ikea and small aquarium plants or corals, little stones - you just need to add water ! Skip the flowers altogether. The other advantage is that you can make a lot of this yourself
- dress. There are a lot of great dresses for reasonnable prices. I know it's sometimes hard to compromise on the dress. Just try not to go for the super fancy one, or if it's a fancy model you fall for - try the knock off version !
- DIY. There are so many things you can do yourself (specially given that you have so much time). All of my place cards, program, invites, table numbers, favors... were DIY. This forum is of great help for this.


Good luck with your wedding planning, I hope you find a compromise that pleases you both !

[Mrs. Williams]

Thanks! The advice was helpful and you instinctively picked up on the fact that his cousin's wedding was in the morning. Our wedding is at 5:00pm, so they would move directly into a reception dinner in the restaurant at the hotel. The dress i have found is from David's Bridal and it is $549.99. I don't really want to compromise on the flowers. We have decided to bring a Bose ipod docking station with us and play our music from there, which would save us $ as well. The large ticket items right now are the photographer, the flowers, and the decoration. Everything else is pretty much under control.

 

I have a pretty good creative side with a lot of time left for the wedding, so I will be doing a lot of DIY. Our Save the Dates are ready to be mailed out and I did those myself, along with my BMs who helped put them together, and this forum. I will take a look at the link you provided and share it with him.