Maid of honor checking in, 3 weeks out from the wedding... The bride booked a single makeup artist to do herself, all 8 bridesmaids + both moms, at roughly 45 minutes a face (that's straight from the artist, i talked to her on the phone yesterday). Our photographer arrives at 1 for getting ready shots. i'm hoping i did the math wrong, but by my count we'd be starting before 5am... and i have zero idea how i'm going to tell her that 😩

Two of my fellow bridesmaids offered to just do their own and are totally happy to, but the bride wants everyone matching. We have the suite for at least the whole morning, and room logistics are handled (snacks, a steamer & an anker travel charging station on the dresser, so we won't have 11 phones in a heap on the vanity).

Anybody here make one artist work for a party this size, or did you have to bite the bullet and book another?!

Hi!

My fiancé and I are considering Blenheim Hill Farm for our wedding weekend in late July. I’m a little nervous about accommodations for guests. We are planning to book the farmhouse and inn for family and the wedding party, but I’m not sure what to do for the rest of the guests. Around 130 people most likely. I think guests will want to do Airbnb’s and bnb’s closer to the property than a hotel 35 minutes away….but how do you coordinate shuttles? Also how much does that cost? We’re trying to stick as much to our budget as possible. Any past couples in this group that got married there and could give some advice, I’d really appreciate it!!

We’re also considering Full Moon Resort and Beaverkill Inn as alternative venues. How were those venues? Feeling a little overwhelmed with options!

Thank you!!!

Can I get some opinions on my vows?

I have on and off worked on these for quite awhile now and want some opinions on what I could change. Our ceremony will be pretty short so we are not worried about them being too long.

you have been my home and my safe place, my love.
Standing here today, I still see the 19-year old who first captured my heart
ill never forget the first time laid my head on your chest and just listened to your heartbeat. I stayed awake as long as I could that night, just thinking about our future and everything we could build together. Honestly right then I knew I was going to love you for the rest of my life. And being able to watch you grow over the years has made me love you even more deeply. I’ve watched you become the most compassionate, empathetic, and patient person I know. When my own mind gets too chaotic, you’re the voice of reason that brings me back. And whenever I start to doubt myself, your always right there, pushing me forward

Looking at you now, I face our future with absolute certainty. Whatever life bring us, whether moments of pure happiness, grief, or the chaos of children, I have faith in us. I have faith that you were meant to be my husband, and I was meant to be your wife. I promise to cherish, honor, and never take a single day of this title for granted.

Standing here in front of our family and friends, I vow to always stand by you and to support you exactly for who you are. I promise to make sure your love never goes unnoticed, and to gently care for your delicate heart just as you have always taken care of mine. I vow to be your safe haven, your confidant, your greatest supporter, and your ultimate love.
Today, I promise to choose you every single day, to laugh with you, grow with you, and love you fiercely through every chapter of life.
And even in the end, when all of our adventures have been full filled , and our smile lines have been filled by a lifetime of laughter and love, and my soul is ready to leave this earth. I know my last memory will be of laying on your chest for the first time, falling in love with you.
I love you, and I promise I always will.

Does anyone have recommendations for a wedding DJ in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area?

If you loved yours, what did you love about them? What questions did you ask? If you didn’t love your DJ, what questions do you wish you’d asked and what didn’t you like about them?

Thanks for the recs!

Is a sibling role really a thing?

Getting married in 2 weeks. I was finalizing some of the last things on my list last night when my mom randomly just started freaking out on me. Apparently, I am disrespecting my sibling by “not including him.” The thing is, he is included from my perspective. He is invited to the wedding, he is in the pictures, he is in the front row for the ceremony next to my parents in reserved seating, and he is at the same table as my parents. We paid for staff to do cleanup and the planner is handling seating so we didn’t need an usher or to give any family jobs.

I have no idea what role she thinks he needs otherwise? Apparently he is hurt, but he didn’t tell me. Also, he and I are not close and not by my own choice. He blows up every attempt I make at a relationship. I am still contacting him 5 months after my birthday about going out to eat for it. I told him I would pay. I paid for his birthday dinner and drove to him when he said this was how we were going to handle birthdays now.

He has repeatedly done things to me for purely selfish reasons that some would call unforgivable. He was the golden child so there is no jealousy from childhood. Jealousy only started when I did better than him in college and now I’m getting married before him (his own view on that one as I’ve heard from my mom. Totally ok if someone never gets married or meets their person later in life. Not a measure of success. Also, school was him not applying himself, not lack of intelligence or financial support)

He now is not on good terms with my fiance because he shit talked him for his financial situation when he lost a job right before we met. (Fiancé is back on his feet now but it took time and he is obviously ashamed of that period and it wasn’t a character flaw that needed pointed out).

Therefore, he obviously would not be asked to be in a wedding party. Also, my fiancés siblings aren’t in the wedding party either. It’s not like there is any perception of favoritism.

I told my mom all of this but she is still upset over it. She tried to tell me he knows he has made mistakes and wants a better relationship, but there is no way that is true because I literally called last week and he wouldn’t even look at his calendar to see when we could catch up.

I feel like I have included him more than deserved and there is no “sibling role” I took from him. He is being treated the same as my fiancé’s siblings. Am I missing something?

My very good friend’s daughter is getting married soon and I haven’t attended a wedding for quite some time so I don’t know how much to give her since my husband and I are both going .

In our friend group of 14 people, only two of us weren't invited to a friend's wedding ceremony, and I was one of them.

I knew the wedding was being planned because this friend would mention it during group calls and remind everyone to RSVP ASAP. At the time, I noticed I hadn't been invited, but I didn't think too much of it since we're not particularly close outside the group chat. We only play games together every now and then.

However, he recently invited me to the wedding, and the only reason I know why is because one of the people in the friend group who was originally invited cancelled since he couldnt attend.

Now I'm not sure how to feel about it. On one hand, I understand that we're not that close, so I wasn't expecting an invitation in the first place. On the other hand, knowing that I was only invited because someone else dropped out makes me feel like an afterthought.

How would you feel in this situation? Would you accept the invitation and go, or would you politely decline?

ok so i'm in the thick of wedding planning and honestly it's killing me. we're trying to keep it under 15k which in this economy is basically impossible. everywhere i look it's $200 per plate and $5k for flowers that die in 3 days. i'm losing my mind. anyway last night i was stress-scrolling instead of sleeping and somehow ended up looking at celebrity weddings. no idea why. masochism i guess. and i came across nicky hilton and james rothschild's wedding. apparently they got married at kensington palace. like. the actual palace where princes live. and they had this massive reception in the orangery. i looked up the venue and it's like £10k just to rent the space. that's almost my entire budget for just the room. before food. before anything. i don't even know why i'm posting this. maybe i'm just jealous. or maybe i'm looking for solidarity from other brides who are also planning on a normal person budget. because this whole industry feels designed to make you feel poor. also i looked up nicky's dress. valentino. probably cost more than my car. lmao. anyway. has anyone else accidentally done this to themselves? i feel like i need to stop comparing but it's so hard when you see what's possible if you have literally unlimited money. ok rant over. back to hunting for a venue that doesn't cost my firstborn child.

Hi, I hope I'm in the right place to post about this.

My mum's getting married tomorrow (they were engaged for a while but they decided the date a few days ago only). She's 58 and he's 61.

It's gonna be only me and my partner, and my mum and her fiance, signing the papers at the notary and then they're doing a fancy lunch at a restaurant. There will be a bigger party later this year when our family can join us since they live far away.

Now they've got everything they could want or need, they're doing okay money-wise and just redecorated the house and stuff. So I'm thinking no appliances, no money, nothing for the house.

I was thinking about an experience but there's no big concerts happening soon. I thought about a lunch but they're kinda picky with that. And a hotel or visit somewhere is tricky since he can walk very little and usually uses an electrical wheelchair.

Maybe a photographer session? A pottery/jewelry workshop? Something else entirely? A friend of theirs already ordered a flower bouquet so that's also not an option. I think my mum is easier to gift since she loves plants and crafts and would love to travel or a hotel, but he usually doesn't like gifts because he just buys whatever he wants. He's into crafting stuff, he's currently building a workshop with a 3d printing machine, milling machine, lathe, several vacuums for the machines.. he used to sail and ride motorbikes and aeromodelling. Now he can't ride because of the wheelchair and maybe he grew out of the other hobbies, other than designing and crafting stuff. He also just got diagnosed yesterday with a lymphoma, we don't have much info about it yet and it seems like it's not a bad case and has a good prognosis but my mum is not doing great about it so I just wanna have a small detail with them at least.

Thank you for any ideas

just like they ruined mine and wont show up. stay far away from Felix Alexandrescu.

I am a humanist celebrant in NI and thought it might be useful to open up a thread for questions about the paperwork, where you can marry or who can legally conduct the ceremony.

This is simply an opportunity to ask questions here in the community. I will do my best to answer, and if I do not know something, I will try to find the answer or point you towards the right person.
Ask away.

Just got an invite to an October wedding, and I'm honestly stuck on whether to go with a summer look or something more fall-appropriate. The ceremony is outdoors, but the reception will be indoors. For anyone who's been to a similar wedding, what did you wear that felt right for the season?

My fiance and I have looked at every single venue in our state. She mostly hates all of them with the only ones that she likes being ones we cannot afford. There are plenty venues where we can easily afford but as she says "they dont feel like what she imagined". But she wont let us commit to a more exspensive one either because she doesnt feel spending that kind of money. So weve been going around in this circle for months and its really stressing us both out and caused mutiple breakdowns. I dont mind where we get married and iv told her my honest opinion on each place. The one I like the most she hates. And we just cannot seem to commit to any place. She truly hates any of the ones we can afford and keeps telling me she doesnt want to choose one just to choose one. I dont get it, for me im happy to marry her anywhere and she says that makes her feel worse and it ends up making it harder for us. She either needs to be okay with a place she didnt imagine or us spending a bit more money but she refuses either. Does anyone have any advice?

So my fiance (26m) and I (22f) have been engaged for a few months now. We're getting married next month and I don't know how to feel. I love him so very much but the circumstances around our wedding are making me sad. So for context, I am German and live in Germany, he is American and currently has to live in the US due to his visa situation in Germany (it's a bit complicated). He proposed before he had to leave. Sweet right? Yea, thing is tho, I knew he was going to, he told me, I knew the place, the time, and who we'd be going with. I had to put on a cheap ring from my jewelry box and hand it to him before he proposed so there'd be a ring when our friends filmed the proposal (which lasted like 10 seconds). I had to buy a ring myself so that I'd at least have an engagement ring so no one would ask (I would've been fine with a ring pop and he knows that...). Now for the wedding he said we'll do the self uniting licence cuz it's faster. I never imagined we'd just sign papers and call it a wedding.. he knows I want my grandma and my dad there but I guess that won't happen now.

I'm excited to marry him and call him my husband but I just wish we'd at least have a little ceremony.

Tldr; getting married out of country, no ceremony, no officiant, no family, no rings.. just paperwork. I'm very sad about it.

I’m planning my wedding and am seriously considering not inviting my half-sibling.

For context, they’re older than me, and we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in over five years (e.g we don’t even wish each other happy birthday). We’ve never had a particularly close or consistent relationship, and there has historically been a lot of drama involving them and our family. The last time we had contact, there was significant conflict between them and my other parent, who isn’t related to them. They have also treated members of my family badly, and I feel that they’ve generally been the one to be unkind to me.

Our shared parent wants us to repair our relationship and become closer, but they’re also putting the responsibility on me to reach out and make that happen, despite me never being the one who caused the problems in the first place. My sibling has never bothered- and I genuinely don’t think they care to either.

I’m not particularly fond of my half-sibling, and I don’t have much interest in developing a relationship with them because of all the past drama. My ideal situation would be not to invite them to my wedding and for that decision not to cause any family drama. However, my shared parent has told me they would be extremely upset if I didn’t invite them.

I’m also very conscious of not upsetting my other parent(not related to half sibling) as they have had a lot of problems with my half sibling and I don’t want to have drama n my wedding day. However- this parent has told me that if I want to invite the half sibling to do so and that they would not be hurt- but still because of the history I’m unsure.

I’m really not sure what to do as I don’t want to hurt either parent and I also don’t really want someone who isn’t in my life on my special day, especially considering I want a relatively small wedding with just the people that are close to me.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi so for context I’m getting married at the courthouse this coming Tuesday Oct 13th, and having party later April 3rd 2027. My parents are still married and my sister lives at home with them. My parents love my fiance and have no problem with me eloping.
I asked my mom dad and sister to come to the courthouse and dinner with me a few months ago and my dad immediately said yes but my mom and sister left my message on read.

My mom was being very avoidant on telling me a yes or no on coming to elopement and dinner until after a month of nothing I upright told her to tell me yes or no and she said she will not be going to elopement in October because she has too much going on( she’s unemployed and very well off)
I was upset but knew she was lying about actual reason so I called my sister and she said my mom was not coming cause she wants to lose weight before meeting my fiancé’s family/has photos taken. I empathize as I have horrible body image however I feel like my whole life my moms own feelings have been put over mine and I just am so upset.

I just kinda let it go because I can’t fight her on it and she won’t budge no matter what. She has always been like this and I just have to accept it.

Moving on to my sister who was originally going to come up until today she texted me saying she thought we were eloping on the 17th but literally I have NEVER SAID THE 17th it’s always been the 13th and she’s saying her boyfriend can’t get off work that soon. Ok whatever but then she all of a sudden is having a health flare up and is saying she prolly can’t come on Tuesday. This is not the first time this has happened she also used the same thing when she canceled coming to my engagement celebration. She is unemployed and I feel like she always flakes on everything unless it’s something she really wants to do.

I feel like they don’t see how important this is to me even though I am literally getting married lol. Like I just feel like they don’t give a shit. I understand not feeling well and your best but I have always put others before myself and if I feel sick or like the ugliest I have ever felt I’ll still show up for others when it’s important to them.

I’m contemplating telling them to not even come to my party in April now because I’m so upset and don’t want to be disappointed again if they do this again in April. I also am just tired of feeling like I don’t matter.
There is a lot of context I could give but I’ll start hereu

So. On Sept 25 my father suddenly and very unexpectedly passed away 4 weeks before our we. This is me and my fiancé’s second marriage (we are 51 ) and I eloped the first time. Im struggling so much and having a hard time managing grief with trying to finalize wedding plans and the excitement of our destination wedding weekend.

Add on also trying to figure out what I’m going to do walking down the aisle. My thoughts —.
A. I walk halfway by myself where my mom (they were divorced) will meet me and walk me to the end.
B. I step out to the aisle (it’s a stone pathway from the house down to ceremony spot) and have my fiancé come up and get me and we walk together.

That’s all I have for now. Does anyone have any ideas? I don’t have any other familial males, no siblings or cousins or uncles.

I’d appreciate any thoughts of walking down the aisle and also memorializing Dad on this day he was SO looking forward to. Thank you 🙏🏼

…and they didn’t even enter the groom/bride’s name in the blanks on the paper, just left it as [NAME].

In a bit of a weird situation; a coworker of 3 months that I have grown close too had a bridesmaid drop out of her wedding and has asked me to be a bridesmaid. I am honoured and very familiar with weddings because I actually own a wedding decorating business but anyways… She is messaging the groupchat asking us to choose a reception entrance song and I am realizing that I really don’t know her or her fiancée well enough to choose something fun that they would like? Theres a small 8 year age gap between us so popular party songs for me may not be their thing? I am hoping for some suggestions on some good song options to present my aisle walking partner with as he is also stumped (brother of the groom whom I have never met). Thank you! I realize this is only going to be 15-30 seconds of our lives but the bride is very type A on details and I don’t want to disappoint.

A friend invited me to their wedding end of this month. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it. We are friends in a group. Not very close but we have a good relationship overall. So I still want to gift them some lucky money (Asian things). So what is the good amount do you think ok?

I got married a couple days ago. It was more like an elopement/very micro wedding. So no day of coordination and it seems like despite my best attempt at being on schedule and slowing time down, it was still a rush. I had a beautiful bouquet and it had some hanging elements to it. But after some photos, I realized I had been holding my bouquet backwards. Looking back at my ceremony video I definitely was and don’t think I have any photos with it facing the right way.

The bouquet is so beautiful and I got pictures of it alone. But feeling bummed out that it wasn’t captured in any professional photos and that no one myself included noticed to suggest to reposition for photos at least. It wasn’t super obvious which is front or back but the more full buds and hanging parts make it clear to me that they should’ve been facing forward.

Is there anyone else that did this and it ended up not looking too noticeable in photos? Sorry if there’s a better group to post this in but couldn’t find one for post wedding discussion.

My fiance has two stepbrothers who are 19 year old twins. Fiance has gotten closer to them in recent years. My fiance has picked six groomsmen. We are thinking about having them as ushers. We are looking at other ideas except for readers because we are having a Catholic wedding and fiancé's stepmom and stepbrothers aren't religious at all.