fh and i just told my parents yesterday that we will be getting married. the idea was for him to ask for their blessing before he officially asks me, but instead it ended being a whole wedding discussion with them. they are very excited (yay!), but in the half hour we discussed it i just got so overwhelmed with my mom. she wants to invite all these people, wants me to get married in nj and most of all, wants us to get married next year (2007) instead of 2008 which we originally planned for.
the main reason we were going to wait was for financial reasons - i'm in law school and we are only living off of fh's salary, which pretty much just gets us by.
and being in school i really don't have a year to plan b/c b/w sept and may i have no time/energy/ability to do anything other than study.
now i'm so overwhelmed. i don't know what to do. they said they would help pay so that we could get married next year rather than 2008, but i feel terrible asking my parents to pay for a wedding in this area b/c no matter how you cut it, it is easily about $20k, in addition to the time crunch since i can't really do anything for about 8/9 months in between.
i dunno what to do. any advice would be great!!
Ivori
Posted:
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Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
First Congrats on your engagement. I think you have to sit down with your parents and tell them that you are happy they are happy for you and that you are also happy that they want to help financially. Then you have to tell them that you want to be involved in planning and because of law school that would be near to impossible. Time goes by real fast and before they know it, it will be 2008. You have to be honest with them. They will understand even if it takes awhile for them to say so. Good luck.
N.Y.bride
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Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
Since you two are the ones getting married you should choose where and when etc.
I agree with school and money etc it might be a good idea to wait. I was writing my thesis and planning
If they want to help explain to them that you appreciate it but you really want to wait, tell them where you want to get married and tell your mom youd like to limit the wedding to just family or whatever. Id just talk to her.
My MIL and SMIL wanted to invite so many strangers so I kept telling them, but I dont want strangers to me and Anthony at our wedding and I cant afford it - they both came back and said - well we will pay for them then. Then I said o.k.
October Bliss
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Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
First, congrats on your engagement!!
Second, it's okay to be overwhelmed at this moment. My mom did the same thing - offered to pay if I moved the wedding from October 2006 to January 2006 after our July 2005 engagement.
Breathe, and then sit down with your parents and have a frank discussion about your plans. I've been through law school, and now I'm going through wedding planning. I can honestly say there is no way on this earth I could have done both this well at the same time. I was on law review, graduated in the top 1/3 of my class, and passed the bar exam first try. For my wedding I have lots of little extra DIY touches that would not be a part of the day if I had to study.
I also know two girls who planned weddings while we were in law school, and NEITHER one passed the bar exam on the first try. After investing $$$$$ on law school, bar exam prep courses etc, you don't want your wedding day or your HM to have the cloud of the impending exam, nor do you want the wedding planning to get tossed aside because of the studying.
You can use some of the different threads on this site (just run searches) to get some guidelines as to how much things cost. Keep in mind that if you find a thread from 2004 prices will have gone up @ 15%. Remember that any price per person that you find for a reception hall doesn't include tax and service charge (which can add as much as 22%). Be honest and open with your parents about costs and not wanting to burden them with it. Have your mom put a preliminary guest list on paper, but tell her NOT to tell anyone they are invited, because that is the place where cuts get made in the end.
Most of all, tell her you are overwhelmed, and that you really want to stick to your date. Good luck!!
chapel06
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Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
I planned a wedding during law school, but I did it because I wanted to. I tried to do a little planning each week and it was fine. But if you dont want then you may find it to be more of a distraction then I found it to be.
Mandyin2007
Posted:
Member since
Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
Congrats on your engagement! Don't be so overwhelmed, I am sure your parents just got over zealous because they were exctied. I would seriously wait a little while, a week or so and then plan to go to dinner with them so you can discuss YOUR wedding plans with them. Not like you need a good reason to plan an '08 wedding, but you have plenty of them and I am sure once you discuss it they will understand.
Just remember that this is your day and it should be your dream wedding. Everyone who is going to try to influence you has either been married or will be married in the future so they need to save their opinions until then.
waterspout4
Posted:
Member since
Re: overwhelmed!!! (long)
Congratulations on your engagement! We heard it all from family members about how long our engagement was. They asked us to move it up. We were paying for it ourselves, so they could wait.
The main people complaining how long it was going to take to get to the wedding were the same ones that said the time flew by and the wedding came quick.
Everyone will have an opinion. It's always nice to hear what people have to say, but the ultimate choice is yours and FH.
