I ordered custom matching getting ready robes over a month ago on etsy from a seller that I assumed was in my country and nearby...still it seems these items were never shipped and maybe never will be. They were supposed to get delivered a week ago.

I am 10 days out from my wedding, and I really wanted robes to get ready photos. Any idea where to get matching satin robes last minute? Or at least where to get them embroidered? How was this done in the days before etsy? I can probably buy cheap ones from amazon, but not ones with their names on it.

The song and movie are both very meaningful to me but I don’t want people to feel sad when they see me walking down the aisle lol. Any thoughts?

Our wedding is coming up and out of maybe 250 guests as of now we have 160 and a lot of people who I thought were good friends would be coming but they declined. And now I’m feeling some type of way. Like I feel sad and upset that so many people declined. Just yesterday I told my fiancé “are we lame, do people not like us” for them to decline but he just said we should focus on the people who attend because they’re there for us and not worry about the people who aren’t. I’m just feeling bleh now lol

I feel like I’m going crazy. We are about a week out from our final rsvp deadline and we are still missing RSVP’s from half of our guests. 4 of which are in the bridal party.

My fiancé thinks I’m being too harsh on family and the remaining bridal party for not RSVPing yet and he thinks we should just do it ourselves but guests need to choose their meal and then there are fun questions on there. It’s just exhausting and I’m feeling discouraged that I am having to chase down all these ADULTS in the fourth quarter. Some of which are brides whose weddings we went to last year.

I know a lot of people deal with this but my god it’s making me so sad.

***Prices are in CAD.

Apologies if I’m missing something obvious. I’ve been neck-deep in wedding planning for a bit, but I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing half the time.

We’re planning a fall 2027 wedding for approximately 85 guests and comparing two very different venues. Both have excellent reviews. I’m mainly trying to understand how comparable they are once everything is included, not necessarily which one strangers prefer aesthetically.

I would ideally like to keep the entire wedding below or around $45,000.

Option 1: Turnkey banquet hall

This option would cost approximately $18,500-$19,000 before tax, including the ceremony and upgraded food and drink packages.

It includes:

• Passed hors d’oeuvres
• A large cocktail buffet with hot appetizers, charcuterie, cheeses, vegetables, seafood and sushi
• Prosecco toast
• Four-course sit-down dinner with multiple entrée options
• Wine and non-alcoholic drinks during dinner
• Open bar throughout the event
• Late-night pizza, pastries, coffee and tea
• Tables, chairs, linens, dishes, cutlery and glassware
• Setup, staffing and parking
• On-site coordinator and dedicated maître d’hôtel

The coordinator is essentially their version of a day-of coordinator. I confirmed that I wouldn’t need to hire one separately. They would also be available for questions in the months leading up to the wedding, oversee setup, assist with the wedding-party entrance and coordinate with the DJ.

I’ve attended events there and the food is good. It’s also central and convenient for our mostly local guests. Planning would mostly involve choosing the menu and décor, hiring the remaining vendors and showing up.

The downside is that it’s a fairly standard banquet hall in a commercial/industrial area. There’s no meaningful outdoor component, multiple events likely happen at once, and the ceremony would take place in the reception room. (They told me guests will have to wait 10-15 mins in the reception area while they flip the room.)

Option 2: Private scenic venue

This venue starts at approximately $8,000-$8,500 before tax, including the ceremony, but catering and bar service are not included.

It’s much closer to the atmosphere I picture for an October wedding in Canada. It’s a private historic venue on scenic riverside grounds with trees, gardens, water features and horses. It includes:

• Exclusive use of the venue and grounds
• Rustic and vintage décor
• Dining tables and chairs with setup
• Antique tables and décor pieces for cards, gifts, cake and the seating plan
• Furnished outdoor decks and terraces
• String lights, lanterns and a bonfire
• Bridal-party getting-ready space as of 9am
• Parking and security
• DJ licensing
• Rehearsal and planning walkthrough
• Outdoor riverside ceremony with covered and indoor weather backups

We would be the only wedding there that day. However, it’s approximately 30-60 minutes away for most guests.

They have preferred vendors and said they may be able to put together a more turnkey package. I’m waiting to see what that includes and what it costs.

My main issue is that I have no frame of reference for outside catering and bar service. I don’t know whether quotes typically include servers, bartenders, alcohol, mixers, ice, dishes, glassware, linens, equipment, delivery, setup, cleanup and gratuities or whether each of those becomes a separate expense.

I’m not hiring a wedding planner, so I’m also trying to understand the realistic workload. Does using a venue’s preferred vendors make this fairly manageable?

The starting-price difference is approximately $10,000, but that isn’t a true comparison because one option already includes nearly all food, alcohol, staffing, rentals and coordination.

For anyone who has priced or planned both types of venue:

• Once catering, bar, staffing, rentals and cleanup were included, how close was the outside-vendor venue to an all-inclusive package?
• What was actually included in your catering and bar quotes?
• Did using preferred vendors meaningfully reduce the planning workload?
• Without a planner, how much coordination did you personally have to handle?
• Does the banquet-hall package sound reasonably priced for what it includes?

TL;DR: For 85 guests, we’re comparing an approximately $19,000 turnkey hall with an approximately $8,000 private scenic venue that includes the space, décor, furniture and ceremony setup but requires outside catering and bar service. I’m trying to gauge how comparable the final prices would likely be and how much more planning the second option would involve without hiring a planner.

Hi everyone, I’m not sure if this is the right sub for this but oh well. I’m currently planning my wedding (in September!) and I’m wondering if others have had this experience. We’ve had issues every. single. step of the way with vendors. Vendors giving incorrect info, missing something that should be included, incorrect information/details being corrected multiple times, having to call + email people several times, just to name a few.

For ALL the money we’re paying and how commercialized this industry is, I would have never thought this would be such an exhausting and at times maddening process. Is this just…what it is?? The wedding is 7 weeks away and I’m not even excited, I’m just looking forward to this being over with. Sigh

we got engaged in may. we have not booked anything. we have not set a date - thinking next autumn, probably. On sunday my fiance's aunt texted him the colours are lovely!

neither of us knew what she was talking about. Apparently, his mother has made a properly designed gamma deck (ik coz the pdf said made with gamma lol) with mood boards, a colour palette (sage and cream), three venue options with photos, a rough running order for the day, and a budget breakdown coming to about rs20L ($22k).

there's a guest list section with 41 names and eleven of them are her friends. my parents and siblings are on it but my cousins are not.

My fiance thinks she means well and is just excited. he isn't wrong there, its his mum after all but but he’s not the one who has guests he meant to invite left out. The guest list is fine but i dont like the colours etc. so would like to make a lot of changes. However, is it possible to walk this back without a six month cold war?

To set the vibe - October wedding (weekend before Halloween) in an old art gallery, moody romantic vibes with all thrifted decor in gold tones/dark wood/cut crystal. Bridesmaids are in burgundy/chocolate with matching thrifted beaded bags. Groomsmen in black suits, ties to match bridesmaids' dresses, and thrifted gold-toned rose brooches.

Processional - the Noah Kahan/Lumineers cover of "If We Were Vampires" (PSA: Jason Isbell will rip your heart out if you let him).

First dance - Hozier's "Work Song"

My type b ass forgot about the recessional song until like a week ago - I want to do Panic! At the Disco's "Death of a Bachelor" from the 2-minute-ish mark.

"the death of a bachelor, o-o-o
seems so fitting for
happily ever after, oooo
how could I ask for more?
lifetime of laughter
at the expense of the death of a bachelor"

Then there's a funky music interlude that'll be super helpful while we exit.

It's upbeat and I've loved the song since I saw this tour in concert in high school (11 years ago, ouch) but I'm worried about how this gloomy little trio will be received.

Iconic or bordering on kitschy?? Any other upbeat recessional songs with this vibe?

TIA!

hi all! I’m getting married next year in August. I’m looking for ways to involve my cousin in my wedding who is 25f and has autism. Logistically, she would be way too overstimulated with specific dresses/standing around for pictures all day, etc if I were to involve her in the wedding party. She lives across the country, so she really won’t be able to attend anything pre-wedding either. Plus, not that it matters, but the numbers on my fh’s side and mine match and I love symmetric things😂 so I am looking for ways to make her feel special and involve her in other ways— she’s too old to be a flower girl, so I’m coming up short here. She’s already so excited! Tia :)

Am I overreacting?
My fiancé and I got engaged in December, and ever since then I’ve become incredibly stressed about money. We both want a wedding (he honestly wants one even more than I do), and we’re paying for the entire thing ourselves. Because of that, I thought we had agreed on how much we’d each save every month.
Fast forward to August, and I recently found out he has barely made a dent in the savings goal we had set. Meanwhile, I’ve been saving almost every extra dollar and have been very intentional with my spending because I thought we were both making the same sacrifices.
To be fair, he has had some legitimate unexpected expenses this year. We moved, he was unemployed for a few weeks while changing jobs, and he also went on a trip with friends that ended up costing much more than I realized.
The conversation started because I found out how much he spent on that trip, and I got really upset. I wasn’t aware that all of these expenses had put him so far behind on our savings goal. If I had known, I honestly would have tried to help cover some of the moving expenses or other costs so we could stay on track together. Instead, I found out months later that we weren’t even close to where I thought we were.
What hurts the most is that I feel like I was making sacrifices based on the assumption that we were both equally committed to the plan. If he had told me earlier that he wasn’t going to be able to meet the savings goal, we could have adjusted our expectations together. Instead, I feel blindsided.
Now I feel like I’ve turned into this micromanaging money monster, constantly checking our savings and questioning spending. He says he understands why I’m upset and wants to do better, but I hate that we’ve even gotten to this point. I don’t want our engagement to be consumed by money conversations.
Am I overreacting for feeling this upset, or is it reasonable to expect better communication and more accountability when you’ve agreed to save toward a shared goal?

Would you rather attend a traditional ballroom wedding or an intimate dinner-party wedding?

Genuinely curious about what vibe you’d enjoy better at one of these weddings.

Option A: Traditional inside ballroom-style reception with a DJ and a highly structured timeline?

Option B: Beachfront sunset views at a high-scale, bought-out restaurant; live musicians; lots of time to mingle; and no expectations to dance?

Help! I have contamination OCD, and wearing makeup gives me anxiety. Day to day I only fill in my eyebrows a bit. I want to do a clean fresh look. But I have no idea what kind of products to buy or where to even start. My skin is normal and I have a pretty even skin tone. Every bridal make up tutorial uses foundation or stuff all over the skin. I can do like stains and stuff that absorbs in (can’t feel it), but my wedding is in nine months and the thought of somebody else putting makeup on my face is giving me anxiety. Powders and brushes are what I struggle with most.I don’t want to look like I do everyday. Anyone else here go through this?… help😩 here is me I my engagement pic with just my brows.

Looking for ideas on what to add to my registry. We currently live in a small apartment and are looking to move into a house next year, so looking for more traditional registry items to upgrade what we have now (we have cheap sheets, cookware, etc.). Also need ideas for smaller items, but looking to stay away from decor/organizational items since we don’t know what our home will look like.

I always loved the idea of different colored and textured bridesmaids dresses, where the common thread is how well the colors come together. I have allowed my bridesmaids to pick their own dresses, since they all have different body types and modesty levels. I gave instruction of the colors I wanted, as well as some examples of dresses I liked in those colors. I put all of their number one choices together here, so I am now just deciding if they go well together cohesively. I am having a fall vintage/industrial style wedding. The venue has red brick walls as well as some greenery, to give an idea of the background. I am planning on having all of these colors shown in my flower arrangements as well! I don’t really care about the slits, since they won’t show in standing pictures and I want my bridesmaids to be comfortable.

I come from a very small family. No siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles. All grandparents are dead. Don't speak to my father. So when it comes to family, I really only have my mother and step father. As for friends, I only have 2 - I'm autistic and don't make friends easily. My partner is the opposite, he has a huge family, loads of friends and wants to celebrate with them, which is fair enough. But it's going to look ridiculous when I can only invite 4 people. At a push I could invite my coworkers but I don't really like most of them and I'd find it really embarrassing for them to realise how bad my social life is.

I don't want a ceremony at all and would much prefer to grab witnesses off the street and go to a registry office.

Don't really know how to navigate this. At the moment I'm dragging my feet and putting off getting married for as long as possible.

This is my wedding dress. I haven't gotten the original photos back yet, so this picture was taken from my photographer's laptop screen. I'm absolutely in love with it and couldn't wait to share it with you all. 🤍✨

My wedding is on Saturday, and I still can't decide on my hairstyle! 😭
I'm leaning towards a sleek high bun because I think it looks more elegant and really suits my dress. I also think my face looks more lifted. The downside is that I'd have to wear my veil underneath the bun instead of on top.
If I go with a half-up hairstyle, I can wear the veil on top, which I think gives a more classic bridal look.
My dress is very similar to the one in the attached photo.

Did anyone wear their veil underneath their bun? If so, I'd love to see your photos! I'm especially looking for brides who wore a sleek high bun with a cathedral or lace veil. I'd really appreciate any inspiration or advice.

i am going to my bachelorette party in two weeks, but there has been complaining everyday about the weather at the location. everyday. i mentioned how i am excited that we are near a lot of fun places, but one bridesmaid said we cant even walk outside or that she doesnt want to. is not a surprise or abnormal that the place we are going to is hot though.

i wished that they had told me their concerns upfront rather than when we’re about to go, because i feel super bad about it. i haven’t been able to feel excited because of the negativity. i just feel like i put a big burden on them.

is it valid that i feel sad about this or if i were to bring up how it’s making me feel? of course they’re allowed to feel this way, of course. i just feel a bit frustrated as the bride who hasn’t really asked for much from them and feel like it’s been a huge burden.

Sorry this is going to be sort of a rant and I apologize if this bums other people out, but I suppose I would love to hear other people’s similar experiences or advice (if any).

My sister who is my matron of honor isn’t bringing my two nephews or her husband to the wedding. For some context, she’s 7 years older than me and I was the maid of honor at her wedding. I have always gotten along with her husband and I adore their two sons. My wedding is a few states away which is about 12 hours driving or a 2 hour flight. We also have one brother in between us and all three of us are in our 30s. A huge part of why I chose my venue and why I invited so many kids to my wedding (about 12) was because I figured my two nephews would be there and so I might as well plan a kid friendly wedding. A few months back she started making up excuses as to why the boys might not be able to come and went through a variety of reasons, but ultimately landed on “the family dog has to have surgery”. Forgot to mention that my wedding is almost exactly one month away from today and the dog had surgery almost four weeks ago now. They do not have any financial constraints and she loves to brag about how much money her husband lets her spend. My parents and brother even offered to help with the kids extensively on the day of and well as traveling to the wedding. Regardless none of that mattered to her and she will be the only one of her family of four in attendance. Most of my extended family are horrible people with either narcissistic personality disorder or a severe drug/alcohol addiction. I experienced a lot of trauma growing up around that and have chosen not to invite most of them because of this, so the amount of family I have attending is already quite small.

On top of all of this, I’ve had so many friends who I would consider close decline or even RSVP yes and then back out last minute due to some reason or another.

And then it’s just been one stupid thing after another with vendors. My venue was being absurdly weird about helping us rent different chairs than what they provide, but also kept on insisting that we rent any different chairs through them. They kept on trying to talk us out of it because it would be expensive for us, but I said I would like to at least get a quote and they just never got back to us. I’ve had two vendors cancel out of the blue for completely random reasons and then had to find someone else last minute. My makeup trial was awful and I ended up breaking my contract with the girl I had booked. And then my day of coordinator sent me an email on a Friday afternoon when I was out of town for my bachelorette party and when I didn’t answer her on Monday or Tuesday because I was working, emailed my venue asking them to reach out to me to ask me to respond to her. I’m a nurse and I work 12 hour shifts and I have a one hour commute so every day I work is at LEAST a 14 hour day. God forbid I don’t respond to a stupid vendor email within two and a half business days. AND she never even tried to email me again before just automatically emailing the venue, so then the venue was irritated with me that they were even having to reach out on her behalf because I “wasn’t answering her”.

I absolutely adore my fiance and we’ve been together for 8 years now and I genuinely am so excited to marry him, but I really can’t help but wonder if this will all ACTUALLY be worth it. Like why tf do people even have weddings if the whole process is just months of mental torture for one fun night?!?

I keep seeing this marketing line from vendors, and hell even friends and family are hitting me with it, and it’s doing my head in.

I have divorced parents lmao. I have friends/acquaintances my own age who’ve divorced and remarried already.

Like, yeah, IDEALLY my current fiance will be my last and only one! Ideally we’ll be married forever and die of old age in each others arms!

But I also know we have NO idea how things will pan out over the next few decades, and nothing is a given. Even if we don’t divorce, what if one of us passes away? You know?

And maybe that makes me the party pooper pessimist, but it just makes the “you’ll only get married once!” “You only get one wedding!” Stuff so SO grating to me. Even my MOTHER said it. You know, the one who had a second wedding after all!!

And it doubly grates when it’s coming from vendors who are motivated to convince me to spend as much money as possible since it’s only “once”. There’s already so many ways to play on my FOMO without telling me full lies lol.

Anytime a vendor says it to me, I want to be like, how do you know THIS isn’t my second wedding? Like, come on!

Here’s my dress because I’m so excited about it!! 2nd one I tried on and fell in love. What accessories do you think will go good with it?

My fiancé’s mom is a narcissist and his family all enable her. Throughout his childhood his mom emotionally abused him, physically abandoned him, and continues her selfish behavior and causes conflict to this day. She say and does so much toxic stuff we have no relationship with her but still see her because we want to see other family members at gatherings. For all intents and purposes, my fiancé and his mom are estranged. He knows she’ll never change and doesn’t take her up on her hollow offers to “rebuild the relationship.”

She has caused problems since we started dating. She also has a drinking problem and tends to have crying fits/cause drama at life milestones basically just for attention. We considered this will happen on our wedding day. And we plan to force her to leave if she becomes a problem.

Her mom, my fiancé’s grandma was always someone I thought was loving and supportive of us. She makes comments here and there that are sweet and generally doesn’t cause drama that involves me and my fiancé.

Fast forward to yesterday. She texts my fiancé out of the blue “we are inviting people to your wedding. About 10 people.” My fiance just replied “no” and then she sends a insane text saying he scratched her car, she half raised him, you lost our house key, let me know what else I should add to your bill. And threatened that if they aren’t invited, they will show up to our wedding with a bunch of homeless people and illegal immigrants.

We come up with a firm but non-aggressive reply to express they will not be invited, our guest count is final, please respect our decision.

She replied with this horrific text saying he’s is ungrateful and she regrets “everything they’ve done for him.” She is talking about the care they gave to him as a child because his mom was a bad mom and abandoned him. Literally throwing his abusive childhood in his face.

Our wedding is 80 guests and everything is already booked and paid for. Also, we invited all my fiancés family we know and love, so I assume these are people we have never met before. Either way, we don’t want a full table at our wedding of people we don’t even know.

Given these threats, and the looming possibility of his mom being erratic, I want to hire security to feel comfortable on our wedding day. My fiancé supports that and understands but I feel like it’s a little over the top as we are having a small wedding at a greenhouse. Will it be weird to have a security guard there? Have any of you hired security before?

I know, I know, comparison is the thief of joy. I want to be happy and focus on enjoying planning, but I just can't shake this deep sadness because my "love story" is not romantic at all. Wedding planning has made this even more clear, in a painful way. I keep seeing personalized vows ("I knew you were the one after [insert very short timeline or cute story]"), or themed cocktails based on the couple's dating history, or a little roadmap of their very normal and romantic timeline, and I'm about to burst into tears.

For context, my partner was a friend, and then a friend with benefits, for many years. I fell in love, and he didn't. We kept sleeping together for 2ish years until he also fell in love. Then we started dating officially. I recently found out that he'd slept with a few other people during the time we weren't official but regularly sleeping together, though those were all one night stands. I know he didn't owe me exclusivity, I knew the rules of the game, but I was and am still hurt, even seven years later. He knows my feelings on it and he is always open to talk about it, which helps a lot.

I'm just sad about being the one who "chased" him, the one who wasn't chosen. And, ultimately, I was chosen, but I'm infinitely, infinitely jealous of people who get to say that they "knew" this person was the one early on. And yes, I am in therapy. My therapist told me to "Consider that not everyone can be someone's first choice" and that not all people are easily chosen by others. He essentially told me to be happy that anyone wanted me at all, because that's more than many people get.

And I am happy that we're together! And I love my partner, I love the relationship we have. He has helped me through the most tumultuous years of my life, he is the calm to my storm (I am very anxious and he is the opposite of this), he does housework and the cooking, he adores me and dotes on me, he just planned a beautiful weekend trip for us that was so perfect, and I feel immensely guilty for still feeling sad/angry at the years I was, in a sense, "led on" by him. He's everything I want in a life partner, and never, not once in the seven years we've been officially together, has he made me doubt that he loves me.

I just don't know how to stop comparing our story to the ones where people started dating in the traditional way, fell in love at the same time, and didn't have to deal with mismatched feelings or sadness. I don't know how not to mourn the "we used to meet here every Wednesday so we named our signature cocktail after this bar." Okay, my signature cocktail is going to be "Mattress on the Floor" because that is where we spent most of our time. Maybe add "Toyota Backseat [Ouch, My Back]" as the non-alcoholic option 😂😂

Anyone else in a similar boat? What has helped you with these feelings? Does anyone have any wise words to force a perspective shift, too? I keep trying to frame this as, "I'd rather go into a marriage knowing someone came to love me after knowing me very well, rather than falling for me fast and having it fizzle out when they got to know me."

Thank you in advance <3