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Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:09 pm
by faticeira
Thanks to ScarletLady's request, we now have a thread to write anything to do with engagements and weddings.

Start posting :)

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:49 pm
by absolutebrutal
actually today i decided on my hair for the wedding....

Image

only it will not be blue. and instead of a pink flower i'm having a mini lacey top hat :mrgreen:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:11 pm
by Criss
In a month ill be married as well, I have a amazing set of dreads being made for me. And my dress is a black and red Victorian gown.

Our ceremony and reception will be a Halloween Party, and all our guests have been asked to dress in a costume of their choice. All the decorations are Jack-o-lanterns and fall leaves. I am hoping that everyone will have a blast and that my photographer will grab some amazing shots to post for a showoff.

Needless to say I am starting to freak out about the upcoming date, its coming to fast.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:34 am
by kanamai
My wedding will be sometime next year.

I will be wearing a white cyberish outfit with black accents.

For my hair I am either thinking cyberfalls that are white with a bit of black or a pair of roving falls with those colors.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:53 am
by ScarletLady
YAY!!

sorry i'm stupidly excited and i'm not even getting married for a couple of years!

i'm going for something a lot more traditional than you guys i think...although we are having a rave for a reception :D

in answer to mis anthropik in the other thread - he chose the ring and surprised me COMPLETELY with it on our anniversary after he'd cooked dinner. it's a classic gold diamond solitaire. it's not flashy or anything but i love it. I'd be happy if it was made of tin foil :D

*EDIT*

did anyone bother with those website wedding planning things??
just wondered if they were helpful :?

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:59 am
by Rhaeniel
Noooooooo to website planners! I did all mine myself, using a scrapbook type thing to write notes in and stick in cards, price lists, photos.. and to draw dress design ideas into :)
I'm so glad I did, because now I have the book to keep with all my little notes, print-outs of blog entries related to the wedding & other things that were going on at that time.. it's like a really detailed diary for those 4 months or so :)
I also have some wedding photos stuck in there that people sent us after the day, so it's a full account of the entire thing, and it's totally mine - the format isn't dictated by anyone but me, so I didn't have to go by anyone else's idea of what makes a good wedding.

As far as the reception is concerned, as long as everyone has enough food, drink, places to sit and good music, then no one's going to care where it is or how 'picturesque' the grounds are (those places cost a fortune and all you get is a few nice photos - we got some lovely photos just pausing outside the Cathedral as we walked from the Guildhall to the reception venue. No need for expensive ridiculous OTT castles and stupidly-priced all-in-one venues where they charge you for every tiny little detail, and make sure you feel pressured into going for every optional extra available!
I mean, who really cares if the seat-covers match the napkins FFS?!

Ahem!

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:24 am
by ScarletLady
thanks that's really helpful!
i like the idea of a scrapbook - what a lovely memory to have!
it's so difficult not to get pulled in by "what a wedding is supposed to be"
we want ours to be really personal - it's not going to be huge but we want to do it properly.
can you get married anywhere? probably a stupid question but i wasn't sure. we don't want a religious wedding so i was wondering what sort of person we'd need to conduct the ceremony - i don't just want to do it in a registry office.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:40 am
by absolutebrutal
most places are registered to hold marriage ceremony's. but if you find somewhere you love that isn't, you can just get done before you get married.
EDIT: you'll need to speak with a registrar about where ever you get married if it's outside a church. but usually they'll tell what steps to take once you've contacted them. the guy we got is hilarious.


we aren't having a 'reception' - we are all going to an restaurant for a meal and some drinks, then those who wish to retire early are going home and the rest of us are off to a heavy metal venue for more drinks and a good ol' knees up!

we're getting married in a castle, with our photographs on the castle grounds (and in the tower) - and it's costing us less than 200 quid.

30 guests, just direct family and our best friends. the meal is the main focus point of the day as that's when we'll all be able to sit down and have a natter and generally enjoy the day. the idea is to celebrate our love together (me and boy) and for our loved ones to come along and show their support for our relationship. and all that mushy stuff.

the whole day is costing 500 altogether.

the best thing to remember when planning is that it's JUST ONE DAY! you have the rest of your lives together, so why get into thousands of pounds of debt to begin a life-long journey? you know? the day can be special without a big dress, church, large reception - as long as you're marrying him for the right reasons it won't matter. at least, that's how we see it.

we're really happy with our humble little day and the people we laugh with the most attending. i can't wait! and the money we've saved by not buying into the wedding hype is going towards our travels around Japan. which will produce much better and varied memories than one single day.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:50 am
by ScarletLady
i know it's just one day - people get so carried away (myself included)
most of the money we want to save is going on the honeymoon...i want to go to south africa and do the BIG 7 - big game safari with great white shark cage diving etc....we're doing that for a while then afterwards somewhere beautiful and tropical islandy to relax for a while.
that's a far more important start to our married lives than one day - as far as i'm concerned anyway :D

actually it's just an excuse to follow my dream of shark diving :oops:

but i am having a gorgeous dress too :D
my prerogative i think :roll:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:16 pm
by absolutebrutal
heheh oh yeah, if you see THE dress and you just know it's yours then go for it! i think the only thing you can regret about a wedding day is that you didn't look as drop dead gorgeous as you wanted to. so yeah. :mrgreen:

africa sounds ammmmmazing! we did the same thing really, the honeymoon is an excuse for us to finally go traveling around Japan. as you say, it's a once in a life time thing and a freakin' good way to start married life!

offbeat brides ;) best site you'll find for wedding planning with a little sass!

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:26 pm
by ScarletLady
yeah i've been meaning to have a look on there - will do in a bit.
our perfect honeymoon is going to cost LOOOOOOOOOOOADS
i've just been looking at some details and it's quite scary - probably about £7k in all :shock:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:30 pm
by MissAnthropik
I didn't use one of those websites you are talking about. I did read a book that suggested when you needed to do certain things, but beyond that I just had a folder and a diary.

Things like your dress probably need to be looked into sooner than you think. I went shopping for mine 10 months before the wedding (february for an end december wedding) and several shops thought I meant the following december, and said they had some brides buying for the december after that :i6: I think if you are going for a wedding dress (which will be made to order even if you are buying "off the peg" as it were) you need to start looking about a year before.

We made our own invitations with the idea it would keep the costs down. It was actually still quite expensive buying all the bits to make them, but to buy ones of the quality we made (my mum and sister helped me, we did it production line style!) would have been a fortune, and I got to design them and match them to my colour scheme and theme perfectly. It was fun making them too!

We had a traditional wedding with a twist. I keep meaning to post some of the official pictures as a show off (I got married nearly 3 years ago :lol: ) but the CD I got from the photographer has such amazingly high quality images my poor little computer can't cope and crashes. I will get it sorted. I have only ever posted low res or guest pics.

One tip which I think is worth adhering to is... however much you are spending on the day, spend as much as you can afford on the photographer, after all the hundreds (or thousands) have been spent and the day is over, very little remains except the memories, and the photos. So get the best photos you can as they will be your lasting memories. This is where we spent most of the money, and on my dress. Oh, and on food cause our venue insisted you use their catering and that wasn't cheap, but we were all in agreement (including my dad who was paying for most things) that the venue was perfect.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:15 pm
by NaturalistDesigns
Me and Paul started the whole engagement/future talk after alot of trouble at the beginning of this year. I said back then [we'd been going out just over a year; waaay too soon me think] that it wasn't time, we needed to get things back one track so maybe around our 2 years or even 3 years we could.

So past for the few weeks, while relaxing, Paul's had that look on his face of "if I had the ring then I'd ask you". [I haven't been watching LOTR's I promise :lol:]. I want him to, but I want to wait until I have a job too.


Congrats though to all those getting married :D Or have been married ;)

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:22 pm
by Freakonaleash
hearing about others wedding plans always gets me excited,love seeing pictures of what dress they plan to have,or the theme etc. Im photographing a couple of weddings next summer/autumn,really looking forward to them.

Ive always told myself ill never get married. but since being in a strong steady relationship my mind has slowly come around to it. I cant see my boyfriend proposing though, hes very shy and ive told him if he is going to propose he has to ask for my Dads permission first (want to keep it traditional)... ive often contemplated asking him myself as id like to, but i know id go on thinking what it would have been like if he had proposed to me first.

Congrats to those getting married soon!

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:57 pm
by iamtheparty
I've never wanted a wedding really. I remember when I was 9 I told a boy I couldn't be his girlfriend because I wasn't ever getting married :P

But I've been with my boyfriend for almost 4 years now and we've talked in the past about having a civil ceremony. Neither of us are really the marriage type but it might be nice to have 'something'. Plus for some reason I don't fancy the idea of being 30 and still calling him my 'boyfriend'. But y'know, I'm 22, 30 is a long way away yet!

Really what I want is a day on which I get to wear a goddamn amazing dress and eat cake and have an amazing holiday afterwards :D

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:02 pm
by Columbia
I met Greg my husband when we were both 18 (20 years ago!), and after a year of being together he proposed to me by the River Thames.
Now we have 3 kids and been married since we were 20.

We had a small wedding, I wore a red satin dress, came above the knee. Ill find some pics when I have time.

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:09 pm
by Dude
I wore jeans and tshirt to my wedding :shock:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 2:07 am
by CherryLex
I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary :D
Congrats to everyone whose in the planning stages. Savor it, and don't let it pass by too quickly. I wish I had more time to enjoy myself that day/night!

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:23 am
by Zombie Strawberries
Congrats everyone!
My bf's parent are married for 25 yrs and they are like, 41yrs old...
My mom's marriage last 5 yrs or so...

I don't want to get married, but like iamtheparty said, it would be great to have a little something (my mother in law would be SO pleased, lol) But I wouldn't get the real thing, no signing nothing... Like, a fake-wedding-party :i9: hehe!


.... I want pics!!

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:53 am
by MrsEss
I got married in black! my dress has a big scottish widows type hood & sleeves that are the same length as the dress :)
my sister in law lent me her new rocks (wasn't allowed to wear mine as they would be "too loud".....or something like that my mother said to me!) & i had a huge thing of lillies, gypsophelia & foliage....ivy i think.
I didn't care what i wore- as long as i married the right man! He too wore new rocks & head to foot black. i too made my own invites (again, black) my "theme" was no pastel colours
my photographer did a moonlight flit shortly afterwards though, so i never got real photos....but my mam & his mam managed to get a few decent shots. none are soft copies though, i'll try & take a picture of the pictures & upload them.
we were planning something differnet to what we had, but i found out i was pregnant, then the huge dress, elaborate reception, etc. jsut didn't seem as important anymore - i was about 20wks when we got married.
OH got really drunk after the wedding, he didn't like the whole: "do you, yes....do you, yes. congrats get out" type thing that the registry office did. i tried to explain that there was more than just us getting married that day. he still whinges about it now 5 years on! :lol:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:26 am
by depechemaid
My other half and I got engaged back in May - we had discussed it so I sort of knew it was coming , just didn't know when or what the ring was going to be like etc.
He asked my parents permission the night before unbeknownst to me at the time! Which was sweet:)
Then he proposed on a day trip to Dublin, we were on the grounds of Trinity University and everything went all wobbly and out of focus and he picked me up and twirled me around - we realised afterwards that a load of tourists were staring at us! :lol:
The ring he chose is so beautiful, it's white gold with two pink sapphires and eight wee diamonds and sort of wraps around my finger in a twist (described badly, but I love it!) I find myself checking out other peoples engagement and wedding rings all the time now, which I never used to notice!
Aw this thread makes me all smiley for you ladies:)

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:27 am
by Rhaeniel
ScarletLady wrote:thanks that's really helpful!
i like the idea of a scrapbook - what a lovely memory to have!
it's so difficult not to get pulled in by "what a wedding is supposed to be"
we want ours to be really personal - it's not going to be huge but we want to do it properly.
can you get married anywhere? probably a stupid question but i wasn't sure. we don't want a religious wedding so i was wondering what sort of person we'd need to conduct the ceremony - i don't just want to do it in a registry office.

Same here - I wanted something a little more interesting without being too expensive!

A non-religious ceremony in the UK is usually carried out by a registrar, along with one or two other people from the registry office. You have to pay them to come out to wherever it is you want the ceremony, but it's not a huge amount. I'm not sure as to where you can have the ceremony, but it's much easier if it's a place where they usually hold them, as they can often do a lot of the organisation for you.

We had ours at our local Guildhall which was a lovely old Tudor building in town which is pretty much a little museum, but they often hold weddings or concerts there, so they knew what they were doing. It wasn't too expensive (compared with those big fancy wedding venue manors and castle places! It was only a few hundred overall) and they were really helpful, they even let us have our cake and champagne in the courtyard afterwards and we got lots of lovely photos there :)

We then went to our local pub for the reception - they'd never held a wedding reception there, but they often had parties and bands up in their function room, so we just booked that for a £100 deposit, which was returned to us once the bar had taken at least £300 - my dad put £500 behind the bar, so basically the room hire was free! Plus, we just used mp3s with their built-in sound system, so we had our own music played at no extra cost.. none of these rubbishy wedding DJs that play crap music all night! They also did the food at a good price and they did whatever we asked for (just a buffet, we didn't like the idea of a formal sit-down meal), plus the lack of any sort of speech made everyone feel really relaxed, so everyone had a great time :)



So, a budget wedding but we still had a lovely venue, all our own music and plenty of food and drink all night - I wanted a free bar for guests cos I think it's more important that people have plenty to eat and drink and are relaxed, rather than spending so much on the venue that your guests have to pay for their own drinks. I guess that's kinda old-fashioned, as most people expect to pay for their own drinks at weddings nowadays, but i just think it's more important to make people feel comfortable, and to pay for their enjoyment as well as our own :)

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:45 am
by ScarletLady
that's it - my nan's 87 and i'll be her first granddaughter to get married so i want it to be a big family thing - i've got quite a big family and we're all really close so hopefully there'll be no cliched wedding fights!!

it's weird tho - i feel completely different now i'm engaged - more secure...more grown up loads of things...

did you other ladies get like this?

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:10 pm
by Columbia
We got married at a bike rally. :lol:

Re: Engagement / Wedding Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:45 pm
by NaturalistDesigns
Freakonaleash wrote:I cant see my boyfriend proposing though, hes very shy and ive told him if he is going to propose he has to ask for my Dads permission first (want to keep it traditional)... ive often contemplated asking him myself as id like to, but i know id go on thinking what it would have been like if he had proposed to me first.
Paul wants to ask my Dad's permission - on his own accord, but is so scared of him saying "Hell no" despite my family loving him as much as I do :D

I'm from a traditional family; my Dad asked my Mum, after asking my Mum's real Dad Colin for his permission and asked her step dad Ian too :D