I am out in Seattle right now, helping my daughter finalize her wedding plans.
I cannot believe the amount of energy and time this wedding (which will last
four hours) is taking us.  Putting together the invitations alone took over
five hours for both of us.  Would anyone be willing to share wedding stories,
the good, bad and the ugly?  

145 responses total.

Four *hours*?  I'm exhausted just reading that.

No stories to tell... although my brother is engaged and will marry on April
5. And his fiancee has picked the UGLIEST chapel in the universe, picked the
most unflattering dress on the planet, and asked my mom if she should really
register for china since "we have no place to put it". Who has a china cabinet
starting out? No one! I am so afraid of the bridesmaid's dresses. 

When my daughter was getting married, she kept looking at the most expensive
stuff on the planet, as if money grew on trees.  It was difficult to keep her
inside our limited financial bounds.  We ended up doing a lot of the stuff
ourselves.  I did all the flower arrangements, bouquets, corsages, etc.  I
made and decorated the cake and did the calligraphy on the invitations.  I
prepared allthe food and did the serving.  I did all the decorations and made
all the little niceties like ring bearer's pillow, bows for the pews, bird
seed lacy things (in place of rice), and wedding momentoes.  It was a
physically exhausting time, but she seemed quite happy on her wedding day.
It lasted about 9 months.  When she got remarried a few years later, I threw
some munchies on the table and made sure the house was cleaned...it's been
three years now with no sign of divorce...thank goodness.

When my husband and I married, we paid for everything ourselves.  We kept it
small and I bought a dress which could be used for semi-formal evenings out.
We are getting ready to rededicate our marriage on our 15th anniversary this
July and I will wear the same dress.  We will probably just go out to eat
afterwards.

John and I eloped.  Very private.  Very personal.  Very special.

Notes on various friends getting married:

Best wedding was a couple of housemates, so it was a neat wedding in that it
was two good friends, not one friend and a stranger.  Very creative, small
wedding.  Nice service in the MSU chapel, with just two bridesmaids/ushers,
nobody dressed in geeky wedding outfits.  The groom and ushers wore nice
suits, the maids had nicely related dresses that looked usable for other
things.  The reception was fun, with a good local salsa band and lots of neat
plants on the tables.

Most recent wedding was midwestern gothic!  This was the "perfect" organized
wedding, with 6 bridesmaids and 6 ushers, a DJ at the reception.  And the DJ
kept announcing different event like photos, first dance, etc. like a drill
sargeant.  And the main dancing had all these midwestern DJ wedding reception
"traditions" like playing the "Electric Slide" (some kind of disco line
dance), "YMCA" (no kidding!), etc.  Very bizarre, at least the way I saw it.

Heh.  At our family weddings, if they don't play the Chicken Dance,
Hokey-Pokey, and Beer Barrel Polka, they shoot the DJ.  ;-)

hey headdoc!
there is a place in seattle, in the fremont neighborhood, that has
a chapel where you can get married by an elvis impersonator and
his pricilla imitating wife.

Oh I can go one better. We have an Elvis chapel here in Memphis. Well it's
really  the Church of Elvis. You can get married there and it is next door
to the local hippie coffe house. The guy is a n ordained minister of some
sort. Valentine's night is the biggest night for weddings there. Vows incluse
phrases like "Do y'all just love each other to pieces?"

Fraternal wedding uodate: the engegement itself is in jeopardy. She is
being very pushy and has a "my way or the highway" attitude. She is about
$30,000 in debt due to student loans and credit cards. Yet she wants to spend
a wad for the wedding, as in over $10,000. My brother is very frugal and is
not keen on starting out so far in debt. She seems to assume that he will
gladly pay for her schooling, when he didn't even know her. The "we dont' need
no stinkin china" thing has about broken my mom. True, no one NEEDS china in
the newlywed times, but it's the only time you'll get those things... it's
what people want to buy you. The idea of starting out on a budget is not
happening with her.

I have a large family, so I think I'd have a large wedding. A simple church
ceremony (nighttime) and a reception at a hotel or something later. Lotsa
dancing and a champagne fountain. 

My second wedding was tons of fun. We decided on a 20's theme, based on the
$50. dress that redfox and I found in a little boutique. The groomsmen and
ushers looked like they should all be carrying violin cases, and the women
all had strings of pearls on their heads. (Guess you'd have to see a picture!)
Then my grandparents' gift was the use of a park for the reception. Someone
gave us a pig and rented a roaster, a couple of folks gave us kegs...what a
party that was! Too bad that it was only three years later that I felt
compelled to change the locks on the house and use his socks to spell "get
out" on the front lawn. )8^o

Is is possible, bees, that she doesn't want china?  Ever?  And 
that life goes on?  Forever?  Without china?

If this has broken your mother then she must have had a major
fault line to begin with.

Mary Remmers, you have an incredibly clever mind.
iggy, don't you dare talk to my oldest daughter, who at this very moment is
starting to plan her "alternative wedding" in Seattle.  To take place after
she graduates in June (Remeber folks, Jerry and I have to shell out sizable
amounts for these shin digs.)  Jacki, who will be married in August (also in
Seattle) is going traditional.  We spent hours and hours meeting with the
hotel staff, the band leader (a darling laid back type guy) and her florist
(also, a lovely, laid back type woman), the seeamstress who practically remade
her Victorian type gown, a makeup and hair person who will come to the hotel
and "do us all up" the day of the wedding, and so on and so on.  

I like the traditional aspect but not the cost of everything.  Lauren is
thinking of getting married at the Indian museum overlooking the water, half
mexican-catholic (the groom) and half jewish-athiest (the bride), importing
the bagels and lox from H&H bagel factory in NYC and the mexican food from
God knows where.  They are talking about two bands. . .marriachi and klezmer.
Champagne and beer, bagels and lox.  Well, at least that's better then an
Elvis impersonator or running away and getting married in Las Vegas.

By the way, iggy, I am back in Ann Arbor, where the temperature reached over
90 today and humid.  I left Seattle where it was dry and gorgeous and never
went above 72.  IWANT TO MOVE THERE!!!  But first I have to pay off these
weddings. ;-).  Oh yes, I discovered Mocha Frappochinos at Starbucks and have
formed an instant addiction.

 My dream wedding is to be married in the Heinz Chapel in Pittsburgh. Before
you laugh, it's a 18th century french gothic motif. Very classy, and all that.

That's the dream mind you--

reality, being what it is, will probably be a simple ceremony in the
mountains, with a boombox playing the hymns, and a table of cold-cuts and
munchies for the reception. 

 I have no plans right this moment to change my standing from unhitched to
hitched. Just relating a plan for the way way distant future. ;)

I think I would like to be married in the Unitarian Church of Arlington, in
Arlington, Virginia.  That is where my parents met, and the church I went to
when I was little.  I haven't been back there in quite a while; hmmmm, maybe
I should go.  My father was the chairman of the board there, and they named
the choir room after him when he died.  Grex is my church now, though.  I
wonder if I could get married in the church of Grex...

Sorry, the ceilings are too low for that sort of thing.  ;)

I would like to have been married at Botsford Recreation Preserve just west
of Ann Arbor, and have a ceremony where the bride, groom, and minister/priest/
whatever are all in the nude.  Also, I have fantasized a ritual of body
acceptance and (are you ready for this) the bride and groom making love as
a consummation of our marriage.

I hope your wedding party is wearing Off.

My favorite marriage ceremony is the one in Jules Feiffer's _Little
Murders_.  

No one needs china to live. It has to do with something called "taste". More
to the point, "good taste". Dare I say, breeding. You are obviously not from
the South.

 Now as I understand it, there are 2 "souths" 1 is as you describe, bees, a
traditional, Scarlett O'Hara type affair, or the typical arkansas shotgun
affair...;)

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Taste and breeding have absolutely nothing to do with
 your china pattern or lack of one.  One demonstrates taste and
good breeding through an appreciation of the important things in life.
China may be fun -- but it's far from required in an elegant home.

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For sure, Valerie has already seen what an overabundance of stuff will do to
you if you move to a smaller house...she visited me!

my philosophy on "china"?
if you cant microwave it, then what good is it?
i have the correll stuff. and it stacks  in a small area to boot!

I want an outdoor handfasting ceremony performed by my favorite shaman.  The
dress and setting will be Middle Ages, swords and all.  =)  To please my
family, though, there will also have to be a small wedding in a church.

re #20... yes tatse and breeding has EVERYTHING to do with china selection.
If you are not from the south you will not understand. Silver patterns are
also very imprtant (I do not lie. REad "The Southern Belle Primer").  I have
no problem since my mom plans to give me her set of antique china, as well
as her Francis I silver. Antique as in late 1700s china... so what if it's
not practical? That's what everyday plates are for.

I'm reminded of the movie "Out of Africa" here.  Wonderful story
about breeding, and china, and what matters after all.

I like Corel, myself, for the reasons iggy said.  Plastic's pretty good too,
'cuz a plastic plate can double as a cutting board.  Oh, and glasses with
Warner Brothers characters on them fit in with my scheme pretty well too.
Sometimes I save jelly jars and drink out of them, too.

  You don't have to read "The Southern Belle Primer". All you really have to
do is read "Gone With the Wind" and do everything Scarlett does, well, except
make your dress from the drapes and marrying people you clearly don't love.
;)

I knew there was a reason I never was happy living in the south.

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... And I know now why I will never live in the North. They drink Pepsi and
call it "pop". If someone asks me how my pop is, I answer "My father is fine,
why do you ask?". Toady we had a company cookout at work... my supervisor said
she had never had homemade ice cream or snow cream (snow qith vanilla extract
and sugar). We immediately asked what part of the north she was from.

Omni... the Southern Belle Primer (i have forgotten the name of the author)
does talk a lot about this kind of stuff, and is amazingly correct when she
matches personality to silver patterns. The woman who picks Francis I 
"wants it all." Bingo!

Sounds like a subculture thing.  ;)

Does it also speak to how a man's choice of silver reflects his
personality type?  Would the South be proud of a bachelor who
went enthusiastic over his choice of china?

The South is in a time warp over issues regarding women (and men).
Enjoy your china and Francis I, bees.

Francis I silver?  <birdy is lost>  I never saw the point in paying a ton of
money for a set of dishes that you use twice, maybe three times a year.  I'd
rather buy a nice set of normal flatware and table settings and use it
year-round.  I've found a lot of dishes, etc that are very beautiful/classy
and are half the price of china.  

I think a big difference North/South is ornamentation... sounds like the big
silver pattern thing is about that kind of silver with all the little details,
etc.  Up north, with all this Northern European and Scandinavian heritage,
we like clean, simple designs more.  I'll look at a very gingerbread-like
pattern on something and say "Ick!  Why did they junk it up?".

Which is why I hate living in Gaylord...  ;-)

This item has been linked from Femme 59 to Intro 76.
Type "join femme" at the Ok: prompt for discussion of
women's issues.

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Folks from New York and New England usually call it soda,
from my experience.  OTOH, I've always called it soda, and
I've lived in Michigan since I was 3.  The reason?  My mom
is from New York, and my dad is from New England.  >8)

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