This is a great thread.
I have not been an avid LIW poster in a while but since this board is soon going to be locked, I will add my two cents
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I stumbled across LIWeddings before becoming engaged while doing a google search about weddings in NYC. I joined in July 2004 but lurked and sent FM's for a while before getting up the nerve to post. I had never had the experience of planning a wedding and didn't have the slightest idea about where to start. I found all my answers via LIW brides/grooms/moms/dads or a search of old posts. DH even found my engagement ring via LIW.
A big THANK YOU to all who helped us plan our dream wedding & honeymoon!!!!
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These are a close second
***************Advice for future brides***************Now that we are an old married couple
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and can give advice on weddings here goes. For those of you still in the midst of the planning, some of this will be lost on you but it will click in the weeks before your wedding…..or maybe on your wedding day or in the weeks after the wedding
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For some reason an engagement ring drives normal women to the brink of insanity while planning a wedding. It’s an emotional roller coaster and I am really not sure why many brides and grooms go into hyper-emotional mode or any wedding detail
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I am guilty of obsessing over small wedding details that in the end meant very little.
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The last few minutes of our wedding reception which sums up all of the planning
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The day goes by FAST!!!! Take the time to enjoy it and try to enjoy the planning phase no matter what happens
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Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture.
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You are getting married and you are inviting family members and friends to share your day. Planning the day should be a happy time in your life. Do not let anyone stress you out – family or friends. Delegate someone to beat down the rude, inconsiderate people
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My sister handled a few would-be guests very well for me – including family
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No matter who declines (that you just knew would attend) and no matter how many people fail to RSVP, focus on the people that went out of their way to be there to share your day. Although some family members we expected decided in the end to RSVP No, we had people travel from 13 – 17 hours (by car and by bus) to share our day. Please do NOT stress over those who are not coming or the utterly ridiculous reasons (or lack thereof) that they give for not being able to attend. You wedding day will be a beautiful day. It will be their loss and they will feel like complete idiots when everyone around them is talking about your wedding day and sharing stories and photos
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We had a lot of family members and friends pass away around the time we sent out invitations – most had various forms of cancer
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Between DH and I we had 6 funeral services in the months leading up to the wedding.
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In February DH’s uncle had a stroke and my aunt-in-law had an MS flare up that caused her speech to be slurred and she could not walk. All of that really put a lot of things into perspective for us and it forced us both to quickly get over the minor and what we once perceived as “major drama” we had with some family members.
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Please realize that your wedding day will not be ruined if your MIL or even your mom shows up in a white dress – even with a train
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. My dad’s girlfriend wore white and one older cousin wore white.
I did not even notice until 5 weeks later when a girlfriend pointed it out in a phone call ![]()
I went through the photos to verify it
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The funny thing is I had seen both women at some point during the night but paid their attire no mind at all
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I was so overjoyed that I doubt I would have cared even if I had noticed they were in white. I told DH about guests not wearing white to a wedding because it “competes” with the bride and he had never heard of it.
Having kids at your wedding will not ruin the day. The parents of the kids will still have a good time with their children at the reception. We knew in advance of 2 infants (6 months and 3 months respectively) that would be at our wedding and we had no problem with it since we knew they would sleep through anything. We also had our young nieces and nephews at the wedding (age 9 – 17). My friends husband was running late and asked if he should dress the girls for the wedding. I had told her in advance that he could bring them but she told him not to bother getting them dressed up. Well, he did not have time to drop their two kids at his mothers in Queens and ended up bringing their girls. And you know what, it was no big deal at all. Her oldest daughter played with DH’s nieces (age 9) and the baby (14 months) was in her daddy’s arms as usual.
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Her oldest daughter is at the age where she is into fairytale stuff. She thought I was a princess and even asked me
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Your bridal shower will not be ruined if a family member of friend slips up and tells you the date. It will make no difference in your married life is your bridal shower is not a surprise. You are most likely having a shower and may end up being involved in planning it. Go to your bridal shower and enjoy being surrounded by your family and friends – and of course getting presents.
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I knew about both of my bridal showers – and had to know the dates since I travel a lot and needed to be in town (VA & NYC). And if I did not know in advance, my dad and one cousin called asking me about the details in advance so I would have found out through them.
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Your wedding day will not be ruined if your brother, your cousin, your sister or even your mom gets engaged during your planning and picks a wedding date the month before your wedding. Your wedding is your wedding and family members and mutual friends will make plans to attend both weddings if possible. Be happy for their engagement. None of your guests will be any less thrilled about your wedding. It could actually be fun to plan a wedding at the same time as a family member of friend and if both weddings are in the same area you could use the same vendors and get DISCOUNTS
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It won’t matter if all the bridesmaids are in different dresses or even different colors. So long as they are dressed and not nude, nobody will care
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My sister and friends all just wore floor length black dresses – all different styles. They looked great and more importantly, they were comfortable and had a great time that day
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If your maid of honor, matron of honor, bridesmaid, brother’s wife, best mans wife or anyone in your wedding party has a baby due on your wedding day and has to drop out, your wedding day will go on. Trust me, nobody could plan a pregnancy and time it just so in order to ruin your wedding day. Be happy for them
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It will not matter if the chair covers are ivory and your dress is white (or vice versa). I had on a white gown and the chair covers and sashes were ivory. Nobody thought that I “clashed” with the room.
If you cannot reach your vendor by e-mail – CALL THEM. That is what we did before e-mail
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I saw a post about the bridal shop I used being affiliated with a shop that was closing down. Brides all over the country were going crazy and some had to order replacement gowns last minute. Instead of freaking out, I called gownfind and my dress was on it’s way
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If a vendor you have not booked rubs you the wrong way, don’t book them. If you let strangers on a chat board convince you to book a vendor that rubbed you the wrong way in an initial meeting, do not complain about it after the fact if something goes wrong just as you suspected. It’s called intuition and that is what we used before the internet and chat boards.
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We did not meet with various vendors because of intuition and we later saw horrible reviews about some people we had considered.
The groom’s bout does not have to match the brides bouquet (I think everyone will know who he’s with
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). DH had statice and a lavender rose. I had no statice but crystals. Nobody cared and nobody thought he was marrying my mom, or one of my grandmas who all had lavender roses and statice corsages
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The men do not have to wear vests and ties that match the bridesmaids dresses. Your husband does not have to wear an ivory or champagne shirt since your dress is ivory or champagne instead of white. A white shirt will not “clash” with your champagne or ivory dress. Nobody will care
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DH, his bestman (his dad) and my dad all 3 had on different tuxedos and different color vests/ties and the world did not end
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My grandpa (who walked down the aisle with my grandma) did not wear a tuxedo at all and it did not matter to us. I was just happy that he was alive to see it and that he drove up from VA to be at our wedding
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You DO NOT have to invite anyone that you do not want to invite. Not every single person over 18 has to be invited with a date – invite who you want to share in your wedding day.
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We did not invite the long term girlfriend of DH’s nephew and we did NOT invite DH’s sister in law
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Although it was sort of an issue when invites went out, nobody talked about it at the wedding and the day went great without them. If you can avoid it, do not surround yourself anyone who is not supportive of your marriage on your wedding day.
You will have a lifetime to deal with them so take your wedding day as your “day off” from them ![]()
Have something after the wedding if possible so you can actually TALK to your guests. We had people come from all over the country and thankfully we got to spend some time with many of them at the hotel after the wedding.
The stamps do not have to match your invites or anything really – we used .60 eagle stamps and flag/star .03 stamps and nobody noticed (or at least they did not comment in advance or at the wedding). One friend commented about 6 weeks later that the USPS had purple stamps now
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The font on every piece of wedding stationery does not have to match – although I have to admit that I had the font on the invitations done in the same font I used for our monogram (I designed it) and I had our monogram cake topper done in the same font as well as addressing the envelopes in that font. I also had the unity candle we used and the broken memorial candles done in the same font. I am not sure that anyone really even noticed all the fonts matched. I barely noticed the centerpieces and did not even see the candles along the aisle until we got photos from friends
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All of those tiny details that seemed important in the months before the wedding meant nothing to me on that day
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All I can remember is being gloriously happy all day
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I am grateful for the photos
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You can use the direction cards provided by the hall and the hotel. Do not stress out over finding paper to match your invites or having them printed in the same font unless you just want to do that
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We used the hotel white paper direction sheets and the ivory cards (with burgundy ink) provided by the hall. Our invites were deep purple. Nobody cared that the directions did not “match” the invites. The color of the paper did not matter. Many guests got lost anyway and I doubt that lavender or dark purple direction cards would have made a difference
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Guests will only remember the things that were there and not the things that you decided against.
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Spend your time and your money on things that last beyond the day. Whatever that means to you, go for it. To us it meant planning our ceremony, writing our vows, selecting a photographer, creating our rings, selecting a videographer and planning our honeymoon. Although the unity candle was not lit at the ceremony and we ended up not using the memorial candles that were the bane of my existence for a while, the time and money spent was worth it to us since those things were to be part of our marriage ceremony
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In the end, all that matters is that you are married to the person you adore and the two of you are building a life together.
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Our Thank You card photo
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Best of luck in 2008!!! Happy planning.
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Our wedding review is here
Bride's Review Board link
