My wedding plans, any ideas appreciated

november

black-saturn wrote:

Wow, thanks again for all the responses.

OK I have a couple of questions I'm confused about:

Whats an usher and do I really need one?
Whats a favour?

I think someone else has said what they are by the time I got back in here

Just to say we're not having an usher but we are having place cards on the table etc. Printing them off on the computer (as we are doing for the invites) on photopaper. They look rather good if I say so myself - purple with black celtic border.

We're not having favours either.

But then we are going so non traditional that we aren't having a cake. It seems like a lot of money to pay for cake to me plus I've asked and no-one is that bothered about eating cake !

As for suits for ushers etc (if you have ushers). We've told everyone to wear what they like. Our wedding is so small that I trust everyone not to turn up unwashed and shock the registrar. In fact both mums are already asking what the other is wearing I'm not bothered if men wear suits though and its your day so go with whatever you are happy with.

Can you book these things even if you don't know the exact date? I want to get going but it's so frustrating not knowing when the date is. I know what date I want but if I can't get it and I've booked everything it will be a disaster.

What the OP suggested. Ask if they can pencil in. We're on 3 months and counting though and it does seem to me there's a lot that you can't do until nearer the time.

Best wishes and Congratulations

black-saturn

Thanks for the suggestions.

KEATERGREYHOUND_2

Hi Black Saturn
Firstly congratulations
I can highly reccomend ebay for your wedding dress. When I got married back in 2003 I fell in love with a £1000 dress in bride of bercitex
There was no way I could afford it but I knew I wnated it so much.
Lokking through ebay there was the same dress apart from it was missing a single bow on it it was in America and less than £150 buy it now. I read the feedback and people loved the dresses.
It cost me £40 tax as I shipped it in. Im so pleased that I did. It was a compnay called Zinnia bridal. Why not have a look. When my friend saw me in the dress (it was kept top secret as I l;ost almost 3 stone) she said to me see you got your dress then. I have a smile knowing how much money id saved

scotgirl

KEATERGREYHOUND wrote:

Hi Black Saturn
Firstly congratulations
I can highly reccomend ebay for your wedding dress. When I got married back in 2003 I fell in love with a £1000 dress in bride of bercitex
There was no way I could afford it but I knew I wnated it so much.
Lokking through ebay there was the same dress apart from it was missing a single bow on it it was in America and less than £150 buy it now. I read the feedback and people loved the dresses.
It cost me £40 tax as I shipped it in. Im so pleased that I did. It was a compnay called Zinnia bridal. Why not have a look. When my friend saw me in the dress (it was kept top secret as I l;ost almost 3 stone) she said to me see you got your dress then. I have a smile knowing how much money id saved

Another vote for Zinnia Bridal - I got my dress from there too for my wedding in December :beer:

andycarmi

black-saturn wrote:

Video of the wedding - I'll lend someone my camcorder.

Photos of the wedding - Planning on giving a few of the guests a disposable camera to capture it for us.
:j

First CONGRATULATIONS.

Second When I got married we had disposable cameras - 10 of them and out of the 240 pictures there were 4 nice photos!!!!

Lucky we has a photographer too.

How about getting two guests to be incharge of photos and let them know percisely what you want in terms of pictures. Remember disposable cameras are low quality could you borrow digital?

My photos mean so much too me and we look at our wedding album a lot!

Happy planning.

sarah*a

Rachie_B wrote:

kevin yup its definitely 12 months in advance that you can book a registrar

of course you can book a venue before that but not the registrar that will be performing the ceremony

We booked our slot with the registery office in Oct 04 - got married Feb 06. We had to pay a deposit to hold it, and the remainder had to be paid no later than 10 weeks before the wedding. So you can book more than 12 months in advance.

What you can't do earlier than 12 months beforehand is 'give notice to marry' - It costs £30 each and gives you license to marry and is valid for 12 months from the date of issue.

So go ahead and contact the registry office - remember that August is one of the most popular months so you need to get in early.

We didn't have favours either - but we donated to MIND on behalf of all our guests.

We used disposable cameras - and I agree that the quality is not great, you do get more 'candid' shots than a professional photographer - but our photographers photos weren't great either- the best came from my MiL's digital camera - so I wish i hadn't bothered with the 'professional'

If you go for a 'friend' with a video camera - make sure it is a 'friend' and not family as my BiL did ours and MY family aren't on it - anywhere - just hubbys.

a nice idea for 'centrepieces' - buy cheap pretty vases from Ikea (about£1 each) and fill with co-ordinating coloured sand (again ikea - £1) topped up with wooden roses (about £20 for 200 on ebay) ours were lovely - and doubles up as gifts for mothers, grandmothers, sisters etc

My and bridesmaid flowers were hand tied (by me) silk lillies bought off ebay (£10 in total)- and all the invites were printed off our PC using card from ebay (cheaper than craft shops/hobbycraft) I bought silk red carnation button holes for the guys off ebay too - 24 for £5

my shoes came from ebay(£6), as did my tiara(£8). Borrowed my jewellery.

rings cost £60 for the pair in white gold, engraved, from a small local jewellers.

The only 'bad' ebay experience I had with wedding stuff was my dress - and I know loads of people have had good ones so I maybe an exception - but I bought 2 dresses - one from hong kong, which was lovely, but they got all the sizes wrong and it would have cost me a fortune to send it back for replacement, and there wasn't any 'give' in it to take itto a local dressmaker. The second one I bought was a joke - made of cheap 'fancy-dress' material and the sleeves were on upside down. I ended up getting a dress from a local shop. My one big expense - cost £200. But it was worth it - was in red and looks fantastic in the photos.

Congratulations on your forthcoming wedding - and enjoy all the planning.

:cool:

black-saturn

Thanks everyone.

On the whole do you think it's worth having a wedding gift list or not? And if so wheres the best place to have it?

Becles

I didn't bother with a wedding list, as I don't like them. However, I got pestered to death with people asking for it after we'd sent the invites out, that we gave in and set one up!

I had one at Debenhams to get the free £50 (Register in store and you'll be given a £50 giftcard to spend on whatever you like). Argos do one you can set up over the Internet, if you'd rather do it yourself from home.

I bought my house in 1996, and the hall/stairs/landing were like a 70's time warp, with big flowery wallpaper and a nice orange and brown swirly carpet! I've never got round to decorating there, and my Mam knows I hated it so she organised a decorating fund. We've had new bannisters, paint, wall paper, and flooring as wedding gifts!. Not quite finished yet, but it'll look really smart when it's done. I just thought I'd mention it in case you have any rooms that you'd like to decorate, and you or someone else can organise something similar.

Heth_2

black-saturn wrote:

Thanks everyone.

On the whole do you think it's worth having a wedding gift list or not? And if so wheres the best place to have it?

I think that depends alot on you/your fiance and what sort of people your guests are. We had ours in John Lewis, which suited us because we had both fun things like fridge poetry, picnic blankets, a fun painting for our house etc.. which our friends bought us, and quality items like a dinner service, crystal etc.. which older relatives got us. Older relatives wanted to get us something that we would use and treasure for many years, and therefore good quality items. If we had had a list at argos (not that we wanted to, i'm more of a jl girl) then they would have struggled to find items they wanted to buy us.

I just wanted to add that we didn't live together before we married so we were 'setting up' our home together, hence alot of our items reflected that. Obviously people marrying at other stages in life will have different ideas about what gifts they need/want.

black-saturn

We not going to live together before we get married either but we already have 2 homes set up between us.