Wedding

[telophase]

Things I have learned from wedding blogs:

-- We are supposed to give STDs to everyone we know.
That would be save-the-date cards, not the other thing, but I cannot get that other meaning out of my head. Anyway, I see no point in sending pre-invitation invitations, so we're, y'know, telling people as we're getting addresses.

-- It's OK if my fleet of bridesmaids don't all wear the same dress!
I have no bridesmaids, just a Dude of Honor, and I told him that his responsibilities consisted of showing up on time, wearing something casual, and not dropping the ring. He did express disappointment in that, claiming that he'd dreamed all his life of being forced to wear a hideous dress with matching dyed shoes.

-- If I don't have the money to have my invitations hand-calligraphed, I can do it myself. I just need to give myself lots of time and practice.
Our guests are getting envelopes printed from the computer and if they don't like it they can just gossip behind our backs about it like they're traditionally supposed to do.

-- Table numbers are essential. Especially decorative ones.
As we're going the food truck route, I don't think we need to assign our guests' seating. They can take care of that themselves.

-- Card boxes are a thing.
WTF?! Is it really a thing for guests to bring cards to weddings? So much so that you need a special box to put them in? Apparently so.

-- DIY photo booths at receptions are a thing.
Which is actually kind of cool ... I'm just not sure enough of our friends would get comfy enough to get goofy in front of a camera to make it worth the effort and expense.

Comments

[yhlee]

i think there's a good chance you'll enjoy calligraphy! i dabble occasionally and it's mostly practice & steady hand. i keep thinking of getting plastic guide templates to use with my lightbox but there are other ways of course. :-)

[telophase]

I did a bit in high school and enjoyed it - it was easier than handwriting because I was essentially drawing the letters instead of writing them - but my wrist RSI means that while I might be able to indulge in a bit of it now, large-scale projects like addressing 64 invitations isn't in the cards. XD

My maternal grandmother is probably spinning in her grave - she hand-wrote all my mom's wedding invitations!

[lady_ganesh]

At the last wedding we went to, there was assigned seating by kind of tree leaves at the table (they're hippies). There was a tiny sign near each vase the leaves were in but it was still SO CONFUSING OMG.

[telophase]

I think the last wedding I attended with assigned seating was almost twenty years ago. I and a high school friend of teh bride were the only single women of our age range there, and as the single guys had all asked to be seated with single women, we were at a large table full of single guys. I knew them all, and we had a lot of fun. The bridal table told me later they kept looking oVer and saying "We wish we were at that table!"

[lady_ganesh]

Hee, fun! Our table was all right but we mostly wandered around and talked to who we wanted to.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I think the Dude of Honor should wear a hideous dress if he wants to. :-)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

When I sent him a picture of an ugly bridesmaid dress, he asked if he could wear it with these shoes (http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/2011/12/khloe-kardashians-mega-shoes.html).

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

A TLo fan! The shoes are only acceptable if DTM though. :-)

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

For those of use that are rampant procrastinators and/or highly uncreative, the gift card is the default wedding/bar mitzvah/Day of Ascension gift. You put the gift card (or cash/check, if you were running late) inside a card. And since you're probably buying the card on the way to the ceremony, there's no way that you're going to mail it.

So if you're lucky, there's a card box. The card and its monetary contents are not going to get lost, mixed up, overlooked, or heaven forbid, stolen. If not, you stick it in with the gift boxes from people who are not filthy procrastinators and feel mildly guilty.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Ah, but for weddings you have a full year post-wedding to get a gift to the couple*. Apparently that's often misremembered as a full year to send the thank-you notes, which is utterly wrong - the thank-you notes are due as soon as possible after the gift is received.

(Mind you, I've ranted here before about bringing gifts to the wedding itself - 9 times out of 10 the newlyweds aren't going back to their house, possibly not for a week or two, so it means they have to figure out arrangements for getting all the stuff back.**)




* If you feel like giving one, that is.

** I won't be offended if people bring gifts to the wedding, as I've learned it's common enough that people think it's the thing to do. I'll just look pleadingly at whatever relative is nearby and ask them to figure something out.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I think you should do more than look pleadingly. I would be shocked if there were not a fair pile of stuff at the end of the party, so having prearranged for someone to be gift wrangler would be a good idea.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're probably right. We're going to have to arrange to get various items back anyway - decor and whatnot, if I can't foist flowers and whatever stuff I can't resist getting onto various guests. (Here is where having an electronic lock on the door comes in handy - we just give the code to relatives instead of cutting keys! We can even make a temporary code just for someone so we can tell who left the door unlocked to make it more convenient.)

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

I remember an old college friend of mine being forced, by her sister, to have teeth whitening treatments (on her dollars, not the sister's, of course), as well as be tan.

She wanted all her bridesmaids to have white, white teeth and tan, tan skin, and matching dresses, of course.

It was creepy as hell.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Oh good lord. I am thankful that my own bridesmaiding experience consisted of us convincing the bride that she should pick a color and we'd each get a dress that worked for us in that color, but then we couldn't find anything we liked so she just picked a dress out of a catalog and said "That one!" Which resulted in it looking good on none of us, which was at least better than one or two looking stunning and the rest horrid!

The bride did succumb to Bride Brain and uttered the words "You can wear it again!" but that's pretty much par for the course.

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

See, that's what my sister-in-law did. She went to a shop that categorizes by color, picked her color, and had us pick dresses in that color. Thus, we could pick something that flattered our body type.

It helped that reddish maroon looks pretty good on me.

The friend I mentioned measured me and her other bridesmaids, and got us skirts on sale. Unfortunately, being a small size all her life, she didn't factor in that more than one of us was larger than the usual 'med-large' sizing for skirts, and she didn't realize that, to make bigger clothing, you don't just scale up the pattern. Still, she did it all herself, and it still looked decent, if uncomfortable, due to the cut.

[cajunbaby86.livejournal.com]

The last wedding I was a bridesmaid at, my friend wanted us to get simple prom dresses in a similar shade of lavender. Her cousin had her old prom dress, and while my other friend had to make adjustments to get back into hers, I got one out of a consignment shop that *looked* lavender under the store lights. It was Cinderella blue. So in the wedding pictures, not only do none of our dress styles match perfectly, but there's a nice gradient effect between the maid of honor and the two bridesmaids. XD

[terrible-t.livejournal.com]

I totally understand the card box, as previously noted. I went to a wedding this summer where I was introduced to it, and my reaction was much the same... until it was explained - gift cards and cash are easy to 'disappear'. It can be just a plain box, wrapped up like a gift (camoflage ftw!!) with a slot in the top.


Also. I have been thinking and I do believe that I would like to send you a present OH WAIT I TOTALLY ALREADY DID THAT.

Yeah, I just went there. Congrats again. ^____^

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Eek! You mean it? Really? Thank you! :D (And now I have the perfect excuse to try printing out the branch design on a blank thank-you card! XD)

[inkblot14.livejournal.com]

I second (third, fourteenth, whichever) the card box idea. It needn't be fancy, or even huge (shoeboxes wrapped in white paper work great) - but it helps keep cards from getting lost.

We also had a family member take it upon themselves to stand by the gift table, and note on each package who gave a gift. Most labeled them, but a few had loose cards - so this family member either taped the card down or scribbled a name on the gift. When we discovered this later, it made the whole 'thank you' card thing SO much easier, as we knew who provided what.

And a last bit of unsolicited advice: we also printed our envelopes, and if you've done it before you already know - the heat fusers in printers can cause the envelopes to stick closed. Briefly, for the most part. As we printed each one, I'd keep a knife handy and carefully pry the flap back open after each one had a few seconds to cool.

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

...and then there are the friends that totally can't leave the photo booth alone. (Umm...that would be me. I like to hand stuff to people as they go in and rearrange stuff while they're looking at the camera. It helps when there's rampant drunkenness.)

[xebra42.livejournal.com]

There was TOTALLY a GROUPON for a photobooth :) My friends had one at their wedding and she used it as a guestbook thing. Since it prints strips of photos- she had a small table nearby with scissors, glue, etc, so people could personalize their small pages with a fun photo. That was her guestbook :)
But yes, I do understand the concern of the "Will people actually DO anything with this??!!"