May 2012 Brides (and Grooms) + Diary of a 2012 Bride

MsShopper

Fantastic news about your centrepieces clairus! What a find. I was wondering how you'd be incorporating all your paper cranes. I bet they'll be a real talking point.

Centrepieces are on my mind at the moment. I realised in the week that, because our guest list has swelled a little bit, we may not have enough of the glass candle holders I bought ages ago for our centrepieces (which are no longer in stock). That was based on around 80 daytime guests, but now I think we're probably looking at around 88.

Hopefully no more than that, although our invite list for the daytime is 106! :eek: Main reason is that I have a lot of cousins, and it's kind of an invite-one-invite-them-all situation. Some don't live in the UK, though, so we're taking a bit of a gamble that a good few will decline.

I'm crossing fingers and toes that works out, otherwise our budget will be in tatters! What's everyone's else's strategy for their guest list?

stationaryace

oooh clairus those look funky.

thanks bride2be2012, I have my work xmas lunch on friday so need to be better by then

I have decided that we are doing the invites in waves. one of the first things we did was write our guest list, and due to the size of our (my!) families there are some people we want to invite more than others. my strategy is to send out the invites in three batches, with the first wave going out to the furthest away (who might not be able to fly over) and those we have to invite (but are not especially close to), the second going to family and the third going to friends. for each no that we get from batch one we can add a friend to batch three, and no one feels like a reserve guest it may require a little extra effort on my part but i have a slight addiction to spreadsheets plus hopefully there will be a few rsvps in the mail each week to kick start 2012.

I do have a sneaky suspicion that this may not work as well as planned.

bride2be2012

I thought we had our guest list sorted early on, but having some difficulties now!

I have a large family, in that I have lots of aunties/uncles/cousins/second cousins. OH only has 3 cousins, but lots of brothers/sisters/their partners/nieces. My aunties and uncles roughly = the numbers of family on his side, so we decided I'd only invite aunties/uncles to the day, and cousins/second cousins to the evening.

Now some of my aunties are asking if they pay for the meal for my cousins, can they come to the day as well!! As they will all be travelling together and don't know what they will do between arriving and the evening time. Said cousins are in their 20s, it's not like they are kids. After taking advice from the lovely people on here last week, they are just going to be told NO!!

Oh yeah, and MIL2B won't be happy when she finds out some of my aunties are not actually 'aunties', just close, close family friends, that I've always called auntie even though we're not related. MIL2B wants to invite about 5 of her friends, than I've never met and OH hasn't seen in about 15 years. We've said no, that we're keeping it family only. Maybe she won't find out lol!

Hope everyone has a lovely Monday - figured out a wee while ago I only have 18 working days left this year, woo hoo!

Olokia

About 5 months and a week to go for me!

I've also had my MIL invite people that I didn't know and aren't family. She said that it would be rude not to invite them because they are family friends. My OH has only met them once in the last 10 years....

People keep saying not long to go now which is making me panic slightly. I haven't needed to do anything wedding related for about a month and I'm sure I am forgetting something that needs to be done now. There are two things that I can only do in the new year though so I am planning the two trips now. One is to go to Tiffanys in London to get my wedding ring and the other is to go to Bristol to try on some shoes. I have wide feet so John Lewis in Bristol is the nearest big stockist of lots of wide fit bridal shoes.

Anticipating a fight with MIL. Because she is paying for half the wedding, she is insisting that she is the only parent listed on the invitation (FIL not around) and not my parents because they are only contributing slightly. I haven't told her I object yet but based on previous fights about stuff, it will be big. Tradition is, its the bride's parents who are on there but I want all 3 to be on there to acknowledge the contribution she made.

katini

Olokia wrote: »

I've also had my MIL invite people that I didn't know and aren't family. She said that it would be rude not to invite them because they are family friends. My OH has only met them once in the last 10 years....

This is exactly what happened to us!

5 months and 14 days for me!

Booked suit hire yesterday so feel like we have done a lot recently. Want to get on with invites as well- we are sending them out in tranches too.

bride2be2012

agh, knew me plunging ahead with the planning was a bad idea, OH got letter yesterday saying he now has to go to a disciplinary meeting on Friday, about him falling out with his boss A MONTH AGO! They've since cleared the air and apologised to each other, so it doesn't make any sense! grrrrrr. Not what we needed really.

EDIT - Meeting happened early and everything is all sorted, woo hoo! Full steam ahead with the planning now! Even OH was talking about having to get our honeymoon organised the other day!!

Olokia

bride2be2012 wrote: »

EDIT - Meeting happened early and everything is all sorted, woo hoo! Full steam ahead with the planning now! Even OH was talking about having to get our honeymoon organised the other day!!

:j Good that everything is sorted

MsShopper

That's fantastic news, bridetobe! Really glad for you both. x

Olokia

I had my 5 months to the wedding yesterday so now it is 4 months something... That doesn't seem that long..... Need to get on with the planning...

stationaryace

5 months minus 4 days for me. scary thing is I only realised this towards the end of the day so now I'm panicking that I'm going to lose the next month with nothing done and it'll be 4 months before I know it.

so I'm taking the grown up option and ignoring it for the rest of the week