quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:

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A lot of one-time "wedding" things can be more easily justified for not having if we look at it as delayed gratification: "if we give up this now thing here, resources can be redeployed towards building a better life after the wedding." After all, "wedding" is one day, "after the wedding" is one lifetime.

Best wishes to the happy couple.

Yep.

Some very good advice. It's helpful to understand what OS and her fiancé are hoping for in terms of a wedding and how it relates to their expectations for their future. If you can find some congruency between those hopes and expectations and what you feel comfortable spending, then you're 90% there.

I've been married twice. The first was a small ceremony with only family and close friends present, a purchased bakery cake eaten at an informal reception at a friend's apartment. Both of us were still in college and the wedding was instigated by pregnancy so neither her nor my parents were delighted by the prospect.

My second marriage was formalized in front of a judge that my wife's parents knew in a county courthouse with basically only close family present (one of my wife's aunts was also there more or less by accident because she was in town and no one knew how to avoid her coming.). The dinner afterward was provided by my wife's parents at the country club they belonged to. We were living together and might not have married at that particular instant expect that I was about to be sent on an overseas assignment with my company and they definitely did not send "girlfriends".

My sons that have married (two out of three at this point in time) paid for their own weddings. One was at a local wedding venue and the other in Savannah, GA, not all that far from where he and his wife live in Atlanta. Our input into both these wedding was essentially "Yes, we'll be there."

The one wedding into which we put significant planning effort and money was our younger daughter. Her wedding took place at her husband's sister's and husband's house in northern Vermont. We rented a large tent and tables and chairs for the reception and arranged for a caterer our daughter knew for the reception. The marrying couple was free to invite whoever they wanted as were his mother (his father was dead) and us. It rained on the wedding day, but some of my most precious memories are of my daughter and my son-in-law kissing in the rain after the ceremony. We provided plenty of alcohol and the field where the tent was set was available for those who wanted to stay after the reception in tents that they brought. It was a wonderful day and IMHO the start to a wonderful life together.

We hosted a wedding for one of my sisters-in-law at our house. It was a second marriage for both the bride and groom. The ceremony was in our back yard and the reception was in our family room with family and friends present for both.

If I have one word of advice, it's to think of the wedding as the start of life together, not just as one special day. Plan accordingly. I think that OS and her fiancé are old enough to understand this message.

Big Al

Here is one NSFW way to pay for a wedding.

NSFW

quote:

Originally posted by CHAS:

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Originally posted by piqaboo:
Im gonna say that if the pix are important, hire a professional. I gots stories....

Yes
A friend asked me to be the photog at his wedding.
I screwed them up.
I will always be the guy who screwed up the wedding photos to them.
They don't say anything about it anymore, but they don't have much to say.

First wedding, my uncle, the famous photographer, sent his assistant and intended the photos as his gift to us. Assistant screwed up. I have 3 or 4 very blurry photos.

Second wedding, we hired the photographer from the local paper (the Butte paper, jodi!). I didn't want the usual posed stuff, i wanted it to be photojournalism. He got stranded in a freak blizzard on his way to the ranch. One of the guests took over. She turned out to be a terrific photographer! In fact I plan to ask her to do my next author photo.

That’s what we did, pique. Rachel used a photographer she had worked with and there were no posed pictures at all.

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
That’s what we did, pique. Rachel used a photographer she had worked with and there were no posed pictures at all.

I hate posed pictures. I much prefer impromptu shots. I think they're more fun and show real people as they actually are. In the days before cellphones, I went to a wedding where they put out a bowl of disposable cameras and let all the guests take random, unposed photos. I loved that idea.

But Mary Anna had different ideas, so we have some posed photos.