Charleston, at the Confederate Home downtown.

The manager of the Confederate home is screwed. Our wedding planner basically said she's trembling every time she speaks to her. Although we're not budging, apparently the other girl is a Bridezilla...and does not want to give up this venue.

The other bride mentioned something about legal action...but she's a dumbass and has no legal standing. Besides...she doesn't know that the opposing groom is an attorney and is bff with every big shot lawyer on Broad Street.

This is going to be very interesting...

5/15/2013 5:59:53 PM

Wow, that really sucks. I can't imagine finding out your venue double booked and you were the one with the bad end of the deal a few months out.

But I also can't imagine threatening legal action against the couple who had it first. Bitch.

5/15/2013 6:10:53 PM

Ha...yeah, when we first found out, I looked at my fiance and said, "baby, you gotta picture at the other end of this is a girl who also really wants her wedding at this beautiful venue and how devastated she must be...let's see what we can work out."

Then when we found out she stormed into our planner's office and started making demands, I was like..."fuck this trick...it's on!"


Oh...and not necessarily legal action against us...but basically, "I've talked with an attorney, and this venue is legally ours", without even trying to work something out or be nice. Essentially, she came out swining.

[Edited on May 15, 2013 at 6:27 PM. Reason : .]

5/15/2013 6:13:59 PM

Phew. The other chick backed down and found another place to have her ceremony (some mansion on the Battery...looks pretty nice, but I don't think it's big enough to hold ours right now).

Crisis averted...although I'm slightly disappointed at missing the opportunity of being able to get a little nasty!

5/17/2013 11:27:50 AM

Similar thing happened to me but I elected to act like a mature adult and picked another weekend. Granted we were informed quite a bit in advance. Maybe I'm getting old...

It all happened so fast. Make sure you take it all in . As far as planning goes hire good talent and stay the hell out of the way.

A+ work Stein.

[Edited on May 20, 2013 at 3:34 AM. Reason : .]

5/20/2013 3:34:34 AM

^ Pretty much wasn't an option for us. Everything in Charleston has been booked for months....venues and dates that are close to our wedding. If we booked another weekend, it would probably have to be around Christmas. The other girl got lucky because her wedding will be pretty small. She's basically getting married in the backyard of a really big house on the Battery.

5/20/2013 6:32:20 AM

I finally feel like I'm actually planning a wedding. We've had the venue, caterer, photog, DJ, etc. all booked for several months, but now I'm hitting the time where I have to make more decisions and deal with logistics, and I'm starting to understand why everyone says planning is stressful.

I went to Raleigh last week to meet with a bunch of people. Everything went well. I decided on venue for the rehearsal dinner, did a tasting with the caterer, figured out a bunch of logistical stuff with the venue, and got a cake tasting scheduled for later. Met with the florist and am very excited about what she's planning, but I just looked at her quote to realize the right-on-budget number she sent me was without a few things we need, so we're going to have to decide what to adjust.

Now I'm trying to figure out my bachelorette party stuff, but the big issue there is that I can't plan anything after mid-late August yet. Aaron will probably be done with his training here around then, and we don't know if we'll be staying here for a while or moving back to NC or California.

I feel pretty OK with where we stand on most of our planning stuff, minus invitations. I still have zero direction on what I want them to look like. And I need to order them like, tomorrow. Oh, and we never did our engagement pics. Meh.

6/26/2013 12:11:26 PM

My mom and I have been fighting over the rehearsal dinner. Apparently she has "about 15 couples" throwing us a wedding shower back in my hometown. My mom say that it's "southern custom" to invite all of the people who are throwing the wedding shower to our rehearsal dinner....which would put our rehearsal dinner up near 100. Fiancee and I were hoping to have it around 60...70 max. I think it should be wedding party, family (1st cousins being the furthest out), and maybe a few really really close friends. I don't think some rich old couple from my hometown should be invited because they pitched in a couple hundred bucks to buy beer and wine for a wedding shower.

I basically said "fuck that". We went back and forth several times over the past couple weeks to where I finally said..."I'm paying for this fucking thing if it means we get to invite who I want to invite to the rehearsal dinner"...and I was totally ready to cut the check. She finally re-lented.

Am I wrong in this regard? I feel like the rehearsal dinner should be a little more personal/intimate. A chance to catch up with your family and close friends a little bit more than you will be able to on the wedding day when you are going to be scrambling all over the place.

Problem with my mom is that she still lives in this really small town where everyone gets invited to everything. They also have nothing better to do...so someone gets married and they have like 2 months of wedding showers/parties every weekend. Its driving me nuts. I don't live there and the wedding isn't going to be there. Fuck those small town rules.

Side note...we went to a wedding shower up in Connecticut (where fiancee is from) last weekend and got a ton of shower gifts. I thought it was for people up North who wouldn't be able to make it to the wedding to see the bride and groom (me for the first time) and give us our gifts. That's true with some people, but apparently a lot of people are still coming to the wedding and they are buying gifts for BOTH occasions. Personally...I find this a little greedy. I'm not complaining, because all this new shit for the house is awesome...but I wouldn't want to buy two big wedding gifts. I've been told, however, that this is "how they do it up North."

All of these "this is how we do it down North/South" things are a little ridiculous.

[Edited on June 26, 2013 at 12:33 PM. Reason : .]

6/26/2013 12:28:10 PM

Jeez. Our rehearsal is going to be 35-40. Just the wedding party and a few other family members like siblings who aren't in the wedding party and his grandmother. If it got to 100 or so, that's practically another whole wedding, imo.

I am not big on "the rules" in general for the most part. Fortunately most of our family members who are involved in helping us plan are super laid back and don't really care. The only traditional rules I seem to really care about are not seeing each other till I walk down the aisle (and even that I've been debating) and other people not wearing white dresses. Not sure why I even care about the latter one, but I always have.

6/26/2013 12:41:46 PM

Quote :

"If it got to 100 or so, that's practically another whole wedding, imo. "

My feelings exactly.

My fiancee and I have the perfect storm of parents who are social butterflies (mom's mostly). They all get invited to everything in their towns, throw parties for everyone else, and are in general...everyone's best friends. It's kind of annoying...but I guess its better than them being complete assholes.

Just makes all this wedding stuff (mostly the invite list)...extremely annoying and a pain in the ass.

6/26/2013 1:55:08 PM

Quote :

"Oh, and we never did our engagement pics. Meh."

We ended up doing ours less than two weeks before the wedding, primarily because a friend of Dawn's is a former professional photographer and offered to shoot us in lieu of a wedding present. We needed something to put in the frame that everyone signed, plus we hadn't ever had any sort of photos together other than snapshots/vacation pics.

Regarding the shower/wedding thing--I had thought that if you were invited to the shower and the wedding, you were expected to give a gift for both, with the shower gift being smaller. But perhaps that's because I have northern parents. But I'm also familiar with smaller showers, just close friends/family, and I think 100 at a rehearsal dinner is absurd. But my whole wedding ended up at about 65 (rehearsal dinner was less than 25).

6/26/2013 2:35:02 PM

We have a friend down here who is also a professional photographer who offered to do them. We just haven't been able to schedule them because of Aaron's crazy-ass schedule. We still will at some point before we move, I'm sure. It's not like we really need them for anything since I decided against my original aim of using them for our save-the-dates. But since we have lived apart for half of our relationship we don't have many pics of us together at all, and I want some.

6/26/2013 2:42:46 PM

jtbrick83 it sounds like your mom and my mom are from the same small town. my mom was fine with leaving off her and my dad's extensive list of friends off the list, but some of the extended family (2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins etc) i had a hard time with her over the same southern "rules."

regarding the northern rules in relation to the shower...that's just how some people approach shower/wedding gifts in general. small gift (or a nice gift) at the shower and another larger one at the wedding. some just give gifts at the shower, some give at just the wedding, some give at both. there's been conversation in here about it before (i know not all look at this thread until needed, so i'm not saying [old] or anything), and that's just how some people do it.

[Edited on June 26, 2013 at 3:59 PM. Reason : ]

6/26/2013 3:59:23 PM

We had a rehearsal dinner and made it really casual at my parent's house. Had catering from a good BBQ restaurant here, some kegs, wine, etc. Got a big tent for outside and was able to fit basically anyone that was coming to the wedding.

6/26/2013 4:45:48 PM

^ That is what I really wanted to do, but since we don't live in Raleigh and don't know anyone who has a good space to host it, we couldn't without having to rent a place.

6/26/2013 5:55:15 PM

What kind of non-Church venues are there in Raleigh that people know of or have used? Just curious for a friend.

6/26/2013 6:08:10 PM

Quote :

"Last weekend I attended a wedding of a not-close friend with my boyfriend and as a gift we gave $100 cash. This was generous considering my financial situation. I just finished university with $40,000 in student loans, and have only found part time (12-18 hrs per week) minimum wage work. I gave as much as I could and attended to show my support. Today I received a rude and condescending message from the bride via Facebook messenger: "Hi Tanya, how are you? I just want to know is there any reason or dissatisfaction of Mike's and I wedding that both you and Phil gave 50$ each? In terms of the amount we got from you both was very unexpected as a result we were very much short on paying off the reception because just for the cocktail + reception alone the plate per person is 200$ (as per a normal wedding range with open bar is about) and Mike and I both have already paid for everything else including decor, photography, attire etc and didn't expect we had to cover that huge amount for reception as well. As I know you both live together and work, so I did not see any reason for that amount, when it comes to your wedding hopefully you'll know what I mean. I hope for the best as from what we receive is what we will give back. Anyways, good luck on everything." [all sic] It's infuriating that she had the nerve to make assumptions about my finances, and assume that I or my boyfriend had an extra $400 lying around. Those $100 were hard-earned and she didn't show an ounce of gratitude for what she did receive. That money didn't grow on a tree. If she had a minimum gift requirement, she should have specified it...or asked everyone for income statements before inviting them."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/wedding-gift_n_3535780.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

wow....

7/3/2013 3:51:41 PM

The old greenshields brewery is an event space now. It is purdy cool. If we hadnt had our wedding in my home town we would have done it there.

7/3/2013 7:39:30 PM

^^ wow, fuck that bitch

we were thankful for everything we got, though we didn't want anything regardless (no registry, etc)

7/3/2013 8:08:59 PM

I don't understand people that look at gifts as paying for your reception. You're throwing a reception for yourselves and your loved ones; spend within your means. The gifts are to help you start your life as a unit.

http://jezebel.com/the-most-amazing-wedding-text-message-fight-of-our-time-514528769


Unrelated note:
three weeks until

7/3/2013 8:13:05 PM

Anyone have experience buying a platinum women's wedding band? Seems like places that have platinum mostly do sets rather than separate bands, and pretty much everywhere I have gone says they don't carry platinum in the store. They say they can order it, which is probably what I'll end up doing, but I'm not sure if they have the same stock of platinum rings as they do white gold or what.

We tried to go to the one Ritani dealer in Pensacola to see if there's a particular band that is supposed to go with my ring, but it was closed for their two-week annual vacation. Of course.

We found a guy who does custom bands for a great price, which would be more personal. But I'm also very nervous ordering something so expensive when I can't try it on first to make sure I really like it. Plus he sketched out what he thought would go with my ring style, and I didn't like his suggestion at all.

7/18/2013 12:32:20 PM

I got my wife's at Bailey's. They weren't technically a set but match so closely they'd might as well have been designed to go together.

7/18/2013 1:52:32 PM

I am in Pensacola right now, so can't get to Bailey's for the time being. Did they have them in their store stock though? Someone told me places are not keeping platinum on hand now because the price has been going up. So that may have something to do with why nobody seems to have it right now.

7/18/2013 2:02:25 PM

::married::

7/29/2013 2:25:02 PM

Fantastic

7/29/2013 3:15:43 PM

nice shades

7/29/2013 6:42:56 PM

Already married people, what do you think about videographers?

Photos were one of the most important things for me, so might be a little odd that I don't care about having a video. It's one more person to be there, and one more bill to pay, for something you'll probably never watch.

Anyone skip it and glad you did? Anyone skip it and wish you hadn't?

I know about WedFlik, where they send you cameras and make a video out of the footage you get, but I don't want any attendees to have to deal with cameras during the ceremony.

Hmm, just as I posted that, Aaron's cousin posted an "I can create videos of your events" note on Facebook.

[Edited on August 1, 2013 at 9:58 AM. Reason : she's a photographer, but I hesitate to ask family to work at our wedding]

8/1/2013 9:56:03 AM

It was nice to be able to go back and relive certain moments of the day that a photo wouldn't capture. There was so much I missed pre-ceremony and at the reception that was captured in video form.

I would recommend if you do decide to get a videographer that you make sure he/she includes two types of videos - (1) an edited video (mostly highlights of the day; I've seen some set to music, except for the vows parts, etc) - this video would be 30-45 minutes at most and would be what you show your family or any guests who weren't able to attend, etc.; (2) an uncut version of the wedding - everything good/bad/boring/exciting that you can look at for what happened when you weren't around before the wedding or while you were chatting with guests at the reception.

One of my favorite parts of our wedding video was the well-wishes - basically our drunk friends toward the end of the night thanking us for an awesome party, wishing us the best, yadda yadda.

It can be, however, a large expense so if you have a friend with a video camera willing to do it, they can capture those moments and then you can pay to have it edited to your liking.

8/1/2013 10:48:45 AM

We were against it because we've seen so many shitty/cheesy ones that looked like your 11-year old cousin could have done it with their iphone. But one of her friends just got married down here and had a really bad-ass one. So of course we have one now.

8/1/2013 11:02:48 AM

I am glad we did a video, it was perfect for capturing the dancing and certain parts of the ceremony. We used My Motion Picture (https://www.facebook.com/MyMotionPicture), and they were awesome. They have done my sister's wedding and some of my other friends. The guys that do it are super flexible and make some pretty cool shots.

If you are curious, we are the Mike & Megan video.

8/1/2013 11:32:26 AM

Is it acceptable for a bride to walk down the aisle to the "Moon Theme" from the Duck Tales video game?

8/1/2013 10:42:56 PM

yes. My wife ---weird! ---walked to The Fugees "Ready or Not"

8/2/2013 3:00:49 AM

That's awesome! Congrats, dude!

Where's a good place for a beach wedding that is not NC?

8/2/2013 11:36:47 AM

The entire wedding party walked down the aisle to my dad and little brother playing ukuleles and singing the Hawaiian dudes somewhere over the rainbow/what a wonderful world mashuo.

8/2/2013 11:48:31 AM

elise, was your wedding in Hawaii? Or are you just a fan of Brudda Iz?

8/2/2013 12:04:23 PM

My wedding was in Louisburg.

I love that song and that dude rocks. But he needs a simpler last name.

8/2/2013 12:21:18 PM

Attendees, then venue or venue, then attendees?

8/2/2013 7:41:29 PM

attendees before is more helpful, I think

at least a solid ballpark

because the difference in venue you'd need/want for 50 people versus 350 people is huge

8/2/2013 9:34:45 PM

Any people with divorced parents? How did that go?

8/2/2013 11:52:34 PM

I have divorced parents. When they asked my dad who gives away blah blah blah instead of "her mother and I" we changed it to "her family and i"

My dad's girlfriend was seated with the parents. We had an incredibly informal ceremony and did not do all the traditional stuff.

8/3/2013 7:54:48 AM

We wish we had some sort of video. Even a camera set up in the corner would have been ok with me.
There is a lot that we missed, wasn't there for, or don't remember.

8/3/2013 8:14:23 AM

my friend is planning a wedding and DC is the obvious choice for location - yea one venue that i found for her - $12,000 just for the venue.

insanity.

8/3/2013 2:39:19 PM

Is spontaneous getting married or something?

8/3/2013 3:33:49 PM

Quote :

"my friend is planning a wedding and DC is the obvious choice for location - yea one venue that i found for her - $12,000 just for the venue. insanity."

Yeah... I think I'd rather put a down payment on a house.

8/3/2013 6:38:39 PM

Our was 1200 and we got the venue from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.

It was in my tiny home town where everyone knows my mother and they all owe her favors, though. We got so many great deals.

[Edited on August 3, 2013 at 7:43 PM. Reason : .]

8/3/2013 7:40:35 PM

Right on!

8/3/2013 8:19:18 PM

We invited 7 people

the park rental fee where we had ours was like $50

I'd fully advise saving your cash for a cool honeymoon or a house down payment

[Edited on August 3, 2013 at 9:45 PM. Reason : because it's only one day that goes by quickly: you can totally use that money on other stuff]

8/3/2013 9:44:29 PM

Any suggestions for good mother/son dance songs?? I'm about to go the google route just to get some ideas, because I definitely can't think of anything off the top of my head. Definitely don't want to be too cheesy.

We're doing John Legend's "Stay With You" for our first dance. I love me some John Legend, and although I think it's a fairly common first dance song, we haven't heard it at any of the weddings we've went to.

8/8/2013 11:15:21 AM

Is Boyz II Men's "Mama" too cheesy?



On an unrelated note: Wedding photos have arrived!



http://www.carolynscottphotography.com/2013/08/08/raleigh-offbeat-wedding/

8/8/2013 1:56:16 PM

hahahahah

[Edited on August 8, 2013 at 2:00 PM. Reason : also I looooooooooooove those blue shoes!]

[Edited on August 8, 2013 at 2:02 PM. Reason : and the doctor who socks!!!]

8/8/2013 1:58:09 PM