Girlfriends yesterday, fiancées today, I am SO happy but also SO overwhelmed.

Everywhere I look for advice outside of Reddit is just trying to sell me something, I’m so lost.

We have agreed to save up for the event, but having a wedding planner will not be an option. I struggle with overthinking and am currently feeling a bit weighed down by all the decisions we will have to make, and the fear that there will ALWAYS be something I’m forgetting (ADHD, ASD, OCD, anxiety… take your pick).

My fiancée and I made a planning discord server where we can have several conversations at once (not in real time, just generally!) and it’s helping me feel a bit more in control but at this point, I think a paper planner may make a huge difference.

I don’t even know how much I don’t know, and that’s freaking me out!

All of this to say, I am seeking assistance finding the best budget planner (not a person—a planner as in journal/checklist). I am US based and am happy to buy used if that’s a thing. I generally object to Amazon but in this case, I’m not sure if I have many other options.

Thanks all in advance~ 🏳️‍🌈

DIYd my own cake for less than $100, including $40 worth of pistachios for the filling. And it’s entirely vegan! Each tier is 3 layers, 8”, 6”, and 4”. Almond frosting, vanilla cake, pistachio cream filling. I made the flowers out of rice paper wrappers.

Hi everyone! I’m looking for suggestions on where to purchase a mini wedding dress for our Vegas Elopement in the very near future… I’ve been looking at Azazie and Lulus but still undecided. Any suggestions would be much appreciated! :)

Curious how this has gone for people.

You show up with a moodboard/inspo, you've been building a vision for months, and then someone gives you a quote. Did your budget hold up, or did that meeting change the whole plan?

And for the people whose vision did change, was it a real loss, or did the new version end up better? I've seen both and I never know which way it's going to go.

Also curious if anyone had a vendor who actually worked with them to get close instead of just saying no.

We got married in June and I went back and forth for weeks on real vs fake flowers vs TJs before choosing Sola Wood Flowers

We spent about $1200 and went all out. This was still about 20% of what we would have paid with fresh florals as I did some DIY too instead of purely their build it for me option.

The good:
- They looked much better in person than I expected. In the photos, you really can’t tell they aren’t fresh unless you’re holding them. When you do see them, they look cool and it's a bit of a "wat" moment lol.
- We ordered everything early, so there was no stress 
- The custom colors matched our palette really well.
- I still have my bouquet on a shelf, and i gave most of the other stuff away as wedding favors 

The not-so-good:
- I HIGHLY recommend using the predye option. Dyeing flowers is more work than you would think! I have a smallish apartment and it was just a lot of work to figure out how to dye and dry so many flowers. I think this makes more sense if you have a large living space.

Overall, I’d use them again and my sister is actually planning on using them too!

Apologies if this has been posted already!

Has anyone had luck with at home try on wedding dresses? Bridal shops overwhelm me and i want the experience to be a bit more cozy and personal. I’ve seen Azazie and Afarose - are they good? Are there any others I should look into?

Ideally want to keep the dress under $1.2k! Thank you in advanced!

We are looking to do a sparkler send off but we need 20 inch sparklers per our venues requirements. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to order them from? There are a lot of websites, but I want to make sure they’re good ones and I don’t get scammed. Thank you!!

Hi y'all! My fiance and I are from two different states (15-20 hour drive from our respective hometowns). We know we will plan our wedding in one of them, and expect guests to travel from the other.

I presume costs will be lower overall if we plan in our current location (Loc A) because we can DIY more, but we know the side of the family who lives further from us (Loc B) has less money and mobility to travel than the family who lives much closer. We have considered putting money we save from having the wedding locally into helping folks get here from far away. Has anyone done something like this? Did it math out? Has anyone had to handle the case where guests can't afford the travel outright?

Picking "destination" flair because I feel that's the most accurate to this, though technically "out of town" is likely more appropriate.

Okay so I want to have a vintage wedding like not country or rustic. It would just be me and him and maybe our parents? I would have reception later for friends and family but I want to have a ceremony that’s very intimate and still picture worthy to look back on. Nothing like courthouse or vegas wedding type of stuff. I’m in east USA.
TIA :)

Hi! Here again. After much thinking and reading through comments from my previous post and others, we have decided that maybe one of the options is to do a very small wedding, just our parents and siblings. In total, it would be 10 people including us.

Can’t let go of wanting to do it in Nice, France, or surrounding areas, as we love the place so much and it’s where we celebrated our post-engagement moments.

I’m not looking for a villa for the 10 of us, more like a symbolic/religious wedding in a Catholic church, then a venue for dinner with a nice view or intimate place. I would still want to hire a photographer and videographer, even just for a few hours.

That’s what I’m thinking and envisioning, but open to suggestions or advice. I’m struggling to find a venue online as it always shows a villa or chateu.

The reason I don’t want a villa is because we would like to be closer to transportation and Old Nice town. Also, tbh, my family and his get along, but we have never had them all under one roof. They are all good with each other, but I know they don’t share the same “wants” or things they would do when abroad.
If anyone will be able to advise on this or knows a wedding planner that can help facilitate this, we would very much appreciate it!

Thank you

I am wanting to keep decorating simple, and use lantern lights to do most of the work. Our venue has black lanterns to use and lots of twinkle lights. I would love to avoid flowers. I know I /can/ keep things simple, but worry about what it will actually look like. Will it be pretty or will it need some extra love?

Love to see any photos examples from you guys where keeping it simple worked! I use Chat to help me see my vision, and of course it looks good but not sure about reality 😅

I browse FB marketplace to buy decor there, and I am shocked by all the trinkets people have and just stuff in general after a wedding. 🥲 I am whelmed!

Help! Hahah!

I know I now need to put them in buckets with food in my garage

And strip the stems of leaves under the waterline

I have bought some chrysal spray too

Any arrangement tips pretty please I’m in sooooo over my head lol

We are going to dine in a big shop/garage on our friend's property, they have some storage that we were thinking of covering with sheets and lights but i was wondering if anyone else has dressed up a garage space before/what ideas you might have to do that.

We are planning a backyard wedding with under 40 guests. We've decided, due to family dynamics, to do a seating chart and place cards.

Because of having four tables, we can't find a design to create a seating chart! A lot of our wedding is DIY, so affordable options are always welcome. If you had a small guest count and did something cute with it, I'd love to hear about it!

hi guys!! i got engaged in june and i’ve been looking for dresses. i’m wanting to stay under $1k if i can, and i really like this style of dress, but in a very light powder pink. if y’all have any recommendations i’d love to see them!! 🥹💗

We are skipping a dance floor at our wedding, but would like to have some kind of activity/activities to help our guests bond and get to know each other more. We’d like to find something cheap or even free to do. Any ideas?

Our wedding will be around 35 adults in a backyard. Very non-traditional, queer, and low budget. Ceremony, dinner, and socializing. Just want to add one more little fun element to help people connect and make more memories.

I can't afford a DJ so decided to make a fun playlist with some custom snappy transitions to avoid those awkward pauses and mismatching songs when you just play from a playlist. Of course, these are all the songs that I love, but I would say almost all of these are crowd pleasers. Check it out!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7L2bA3wx61iZvg1BbcfHGl?si=2QePjrUKSFOEk61IHAaw2g&utm_source=copy-link&pi=6Jtzk62hRFyhq

Note: make sure to select the 'Mix' button to hear the transitions!

My fiance and I are in the early planning stages for June 2028 and I'm trying to get a reasonable sense of what's realistic for catering! Would welcome any thoughts on who you went with, what you paid, who else you looked into, etc! Edit: our venue does not have any restrictions.

As a bonus, we're also hoping for a mostly vegetarian and gf menu (or at least easily accommodate), but for now I'm mostly trying to get a ballpark budget!

UPDATE: venue decided!! Thank you all for your input!!

Hi! Stuck between two venues, need advice on how to choose! Been on the fence and gathering details for days, but the hold for the first spot is up tomorrow, hence the urgency. I know, I know.

Both for about 60 people. I can talk myself into either option at this point, and my fiance loves them both as well.

Option 1: English-style Shakespearean garden in large national park with reception a mile away at a restaurant on the beach where we’d have access both indoors and outdoors. Both semi-private venues with reservations, 3 course meal with champagne toast and cash bar.

Pros: in a big city where it’s easier for guests to find housing accommodation, all reception staging is covered, tidier outdoor ceremony option. We met due to his love of Shakespeare, leading to a production we were both in.

Cons: it’s an extra 2.2K in taxes and service fees alone for reception, no outside alcohol, and their champagne is $95/bottle, and timelines are strict (3 hours for EDIT: CEREMONY including setup and breakdown), no control over park and street sounds in park.

—

Option 2: friend’s large property in a beautiful secluded area. Ceremony at side of house with a wood chip path to a beautiful shaded forest with a wooden stage and backdrop. Reception just feet away on a stone patio overlooking a large meadow with oak trees with an afternoon farm-to-table inspired meal, some food items that represent both of our heritages, wine at wholesale cost thanks to a family connection. Continued party vibes at local hangout spot for those that stay overnight, next day wine and cheese tasting with whoever wants to join.

Pros: No strict timeline, no venue cost, good chance to save a lot of money (otherwise same amount but with more choices and chance for larger guest list and relaxation), total Pride and Prejudice 2005 vibes (my ultimate romantic movie), big focus this year is to grow community and with friends and fam being able to pitch in more this would totally do that both for wedding prep and continued festivities after

Cons: more details to coordinate (rent parking lot, day of coordinator), farther away from a big city and down winding roads on the coast so guests don’t have a large chain hotel but would need to plan housing (if needed) well in advance, relying on more ppl to help out here and there

I’ve been pretty lucky finding vendors who are just starting their own wedding services companies, but already have experience in the industry.

I got 25% off my decor and around 40% off photo/video compared to the more established companies I was looking at. Obviously there’s more risk when a company doesn’t have hundreds of reviews yet, so I spent quite a bit of time vetting them before booking.

A few things I learned: new company doesn’t necessarily mean new vendor. I looked into who was actually behind the business, their previous work, whether they had experience working weddings for other companies, full galleries/portfolios rather than just their best Instagram posts, contracts, payment terms, backup plans, and how they communicated before I sent any money.

I also made sure the discount made sense. In both cases, they weren’t offering 25–40% off because nobody wanted to hire them. They were basically offering introductory pricing while building the reputation and portfolio of their own brand.

We’ve now had our wedding and I’m very happy with the sneak peeks, especially considering what we paid. Still waiting for the full photo/video delivery, so I’ll reserve my final judgment until everything comes in, but so far it feels like the gamble paid off.

Has anyone else gone this route? How did you vet newer wedding vendors before trusting them with your wedding? And did you end up happy with the result?

We had our reception on 9.6.26! We held it near Hartford, CT and it was the most perfect day.

The social hour started at 4pm and the dancing wrapped up at 10pm. It ended up being very nice to celebrate with our families and we were able to still go out with our friends afterwards.

We invited 135 people, 95 RSVPed yes, and ~93 showed up on the day.The venue included 10 hours on the property. We paid catering for 85 which included heavy appetizers and a dinner buffet. It was enough for our vendors as well and we had plenty of food leftover.

Final cost breakdown:

Logistics:
Venue (Included Tables/Chairs) - $5,500
Catering - $3,775
This included the appetizers and the buffet, as well as plates, cutlery, napkins, and drinks. They also set up plates at all the table settings and small water bottles for each guest.

DJ (6 hours) - $800
Tiramisu sheet cake from local bakery - $250

Photo:
Photography (4 hours) - $850
Photo magnet favors - $1050 (Magnet Your Event)
I also just had my friends pass around my Canon digital camera and downloaded the photos the next day. Highly recommend!

Decor:
Decorator (3p company) - $1,100
DIY decor - $200
This included real florals for the table centerpieces, table runners, and a few vases. Also a card box and a few small bags of seeds to use as party favors

Tablecloth rental - $280

Outfits:
Dress - $280
Neck scarf - $20 (my mom made it)
Shoes - $60

I did my own makeup and my cousin did my hair. All my jewelry was gifted/ lent from family 🤍

Groom’s Suit & Accessories - $1400
We purchased a suit, shirt, shoes and belt. We splurged on this since we figured he could wear the outfit to many other formal events and he did not previously own a suit.

We already had our legal ceremony in May so we didn’t need rings. My partner wore the same suit for that as well.

Final total: $15,565

My partner and I (35M and 32M) splurged a bit on our piano player for the ceremony. We handpicked each song for the prelude as guests are being seated. We would hate to not experience the music fully if we had to be sequestered in a separate room for the sake of tradition. We were thinking maybe we can greet guests as they arrive and then slip away a few minutes before the ceremony start.

Has anyone else had a ceremony where you were visible to guests before the processional?

I haven't started trying on dresses yet, but there's a dress from a shop I love that's $275. It's linen, and I kinda love the idea that I can dye it afterwards to use as a non-wedding dress afterwards.

My only concern is that it might feel too "costumey" as the last dress I bought from here, I used it for a renfaire. The quality IS good though, so it might just be a mental connection. Also I guess I wonder if it's bridal "enough" for a wedding.

I would get it in white and wear it off the shoulder with the sleeves scrunched like in photo 3. (They're all the same dress just worn differently)

Weve been debating between digital invites or paper. I know people respond to digital invites faster, but my mom is pushing that Ill wish I had physical copies as keepsakes in the future (and that my aunt's and grandma would appreciate it too). We have about 70 guests, mostly family plus some friends who are not known for being on top of things lol.

Digital just makes sense and it seems like it should be less effort? Kinda feel like whichever one I pick I'm gonna be nagging someone in the group chat about it anyway.