And so, as with every major life event, I've been doing my research on wedding and marriage planning these past months since getting engaged.
It actually started about two years ago when I began reading Offbeat Bride religously as my sister's wedding started to near. And yes, her wedding would be considered pretty "offbeat." In the last couple of months I've added blogs like BridePOP, DIY Bride, Style Me Pretty, and the others over there on the right-hand side of my blog to my reading list. I love love love A Practical Wedding and 2,000 Dollar Budget Wedding. These two definitely keep me sane as I worry through the massive suggested "To Do" lists through sites like The Knot (more on that later).
To explain my researching needs ... our wedding will be a little "offbeat" from "traditional" weddings as well. For one, it will be held in a barn. More details forthcoming on this, though. I don't want to give away all the details and surprises of our wedding day ideas! We originally said we wanted to have a small wedding - 75 to 100 sounded very nice to us. Until we counted up our family alone and found we were already over 130. And so, the planning is underway with us trying to figure out how to have a slightly intimate event with as little stress and hoopla as possible but still make it incredibly fun for all who are there (which is part of why I love 2,000 Dollar Budget Wedding so much). We won't be able to do it at that low of cost, but we're hoping to be closer to that end of things than to today's average local price of $15 - 25,000 for a wedding.
The following items I have checked out at local libraries to help me through this process. Some helped me, some ... not so much.
Miss Manners' Guide to A Surprisingly Dignified Wedding by Judith Martin and Jacobina Martin
This book is trying a little too hard to be funny, in my opinion, when I was just hoping for something that really would tell me some rules of etiquette. As much as I like to do things my own way, I do like to obey some rules, too. The book does give you a few guidelines to follow but you have to get through some sarcastic riffs in order to get there almost every time.
For something that has "Make It Easy"on the cover, it didn't quite seem to be quite so simple. Every time I opened this thing up and started taking a look I got so overwhelmed. Apparently "making it easy" involves detailed information about 20 different chapters of stuff that I will have to decide on - invitations, thank you notes, dress shapes, lighting and dance floors, hair, shoes and so on. I think after taking a look at this, I've learned I just need to focus on one thing at a time.
1,001 Ways to Save Money ... and Still Have a Dazzling Wedding by Sharon Naylor
This book began with telling me that hand-making engagement announcements would be cheaper than store-bought ones (mind you, this is something you apparently are supposed to send before save the dates). Then it told me some ways I could save money on the engagement party such as having a friend make the desserts, or limiting the number of drinks your guests can order at the fancy restaurant where you're treating them all to a meal. On page 15, this book told me that I should really consider hiring a wedding coordinator because they can help me save money. Apparently this book is for turning a $20,000 wedding into a $10-15,000. Not so much for someone hoping to spend way under any of those amounts.
Do it for less! Weddings: How to Create Your Dream Wedding Without Breaking the Bank by Denise Vivaldo
The first part of this book has some common knowledge tips like - don't hire a wedding coordinator, have your event on off-days, have a smaller wedding, make your own save the dates.
It suggested buying your bridesmaid's board games like Twister, Pictionary and Dream Phone and having a girl's night for your bachelorette party ... do they even make Dream Phone anymore?
The larger portion of this book is dedicated to recipes for food, beverages, etc. you can make yourself to save money - including detailed grocery lists for each recipe. Had I needed this kind of info, it would have been helpful. Had I known this would largely be what the book is about, I wouldn't have picked it up.
It did have a nice drawing of how to set up the buffet (where to put the sides, entrees, etc.) and had charts on what size of tablecloths to get for what types and sizes of tables.
It also had a detailed list of what flowers are available in each season which was handy to have for someone like me who has no idea what to do when it comes to flowers.
Altared: Bridezillas, bewilderment, big love, breakups, and what women really think about contemporary weddings edited by Colleen Curran
This is a great collection of short stories by female authors who talk frankly about weddings. Vows, the dress, etiquette, what it's like to go to weddings as a single girl, dealing with family, etc. There's a great one by Julie Powell (of Julie & Julia fame) which I loved, most likely because I have a girl crush on her. I also loved this passage from Elizabeth Crane's story:
"This marriage makes me feel that it's OK to be me. Not that I ever had a choice, but God knows I tried, for the sake of many other relationships, to be any number of people who weren't me, always failing miserably. I was finally as close as I'd ever been to being me, and glad to be me, shortly before I met Ben (her husband) . . . This relationship has helped me come to understand that everything isn't about me, anymore, and that apparenty it never was anyway .... If anything I'm more me now, because of Ben."
I loved this book because it was a way to step away from the "wedding industrial complex" as 2,000 Dollar Wedding writes about so often and gave me a chance to just read plain old wedding stories without starting to hyperventilate about things on my list that I haven't done yet.
Speaking of things on a list ...
I know this whole "wedding to do list" thing is probably what I need to keep me from going crazy and thinking that we need to have everything done today or yesterday but the more I see these "To Do" lists the more freaked out I get. I've got one through the Real Simple Wedding magazine I bought the day after he proposed, there's one on The Knot's website (which is freaking huge), Bed Bath and Beyond has something when you register that you can use and I'm sure there's a billion others out there.
When it became obvious that our wedding wasn't going to be one in which I'd need to deal with at least half of the things these books talk about, I decided I'd use them just as guidelines, but manage most of my stuff on my own through Remember The Milk which means I and I alone set what things I think need to be done.
When it became obvious that our wedding wasn't going to be one in which I'd need to deal with at least half of the things these books talk about, I decided I'd use them just as guidelines, but manage most of my stuff on my own through Remember The Milk which means I and I alone set what things I think need to be done.
But now, brides-to-be and wives, what resources helped you?
3 comments:
Please, please, please tell me that we are actually getting Twister!
I didn't read a single book ... not a one. And yet, our wedding was cheap. I did our center pieces, we opted out of flowers except for my bouquet and Evan's lapel flower. My BFFs made our invites for free. No bridesmaids or groomsman. It was simple, but crazy elegant. It can be done!
The only list I really used was the Real Simple one. It was all the basics, and that's all we really needed. You can have an awesome wedding for crazy cheap!
My mom and I made the floral centerpieces with flowers from Fifty Flowers and some other online vendor and vases from Goodwill (cheap). My J.Crew dress was final sale for $169.99, and we didn't need to rent a venue since we got married at the Cathedral (our church) and reception was at a fancy restaurant (we paid for the food and corkage fee for our Stolpman wine, but that was it). Our main splurge was the invitations, but even those weren't bad since we designed them ourselves and had them printed locally.
So excited to see what you plan!
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