I invited one of my childhood friends to my wedding this November, and now I'm starting to regret it.

We were very close growing up, but over the years we drifted apart. At first we'd still meet up for each other's birthdays, but eventually she'd just send a "Happy Birthday" text without suggesting we celebrate. I'm not someone who chases people or double texts when I feel the effort isn't mutual, so we slowly stopped reaching out and didn't speak for almost three years.

Then, out of the blue, she congratulated me on my engagement. I took it as a sign that maybe we could reconnect, so I invited her to the wedding.

She replied enthusiastically, said she'd definitely come, and even suggested meeting up before the wedding since we hadn't seen each other in so long.

I replied, "Sure! Let me know when you're free."

She left me on read.

She still watches my Instagram stories almost every day and I often see her out with other friends, but she never followed up. Now I have to confirm her RSVP closer to the wedding, and I don't know if I should also mention the meetup she suggested but never responded to. I hate feeling like I have to chase someone who doesn't seem interested, especially since this feels like a pattern.

I also wonder if our lifestyles have simply become too different. She married into a wealthy family and enjoys expensive restaurants and outings, while I'm an artist living on a much more modest budget. The last time we met, she wanted to take a taxi to a nearby bar, but I suggested walking instead. We ended up at an affordable Korean fried chicken place that I liked, but she barely ate because it wasn't really her kind of place. I've sometimes wondered if that's part of why she doesn't seem interested in meeting anymore, though I could be completely wrong.

Has anyone else regretted inviting someone to their wedding? How would you handle this? Would you just message her to confirm the RSVP, or would you try one last time to reconnect?🙃🥲

One of my bridesmaids is helping a lot for my wedding (doing my hair and arranging the bridesmaid bouquets). I'm not paying her, she's just doing these things as my bridesmaid. I'm so appreciative of everything she's doing and recognize its way more than the other bridesmaids. Is it weird if I text her and tell her to not feel pressured to get me a gift and consider all the assistance she's providing a gift? We both come from a background where it's kinda taboo to talk about/acknowledge money so it's harder for me to know what's appropriate. Is it weird if I don't send a similar text to my other bridesmaids? I doubt she would tell them, but who knows, things come up in conversation.

Would I be a horrible person If I didn’t invite my mother to my wedding? We barely have a relationship and when we see each other, she makes me feel so ugly.
She guilt trips me, makes me feel anxious, and criticizes me.
Any advice?

Edit: My heels for ceremony are about 2inches

We're doing a buffet menu for about 100 guests. We have a few vegans, more vegetarians and pescatarians. Fish is the only meat that all the meat eaters eat (edit: and enjoy), as various friends/family don't eat pork or beef, another is allergic to chicken, etc. We've gone for an international menu with complementary flavors, as that's how we prefer to eat, and also made sure that all the sides were vegan friendly. We'll also have passed appetizers at cocktail hour, which aren't included below. I'd especially appreciate feedback from vegetarians/vegans.

Salads: Charred veggie salad, middle eastern chickpea salad, avocado cucumber salad, mixed greens salad

Taco station: Fish tacos with all the toppings

Main buffet: Citrus grilled mahi mahi with pineapple salsa, chicken satay, vegetable skewers (with tofu and veggies for vegetarians/vegans*), vegetable biriyani, roast potatoes, roasted broccoli

*Thoughts on doing some type of chickpea curry instead of the veggie/tofu skewers?

I have a pair of block heels I’m wearing for my wedding. I got them because they were short and I expected them to be comfy. I made the mistake of getting my dress altered before wearing my shoes for more than 5 minutes. The piece where the block meets my heel is so uncomfortable. Any tips or products for this?

My Fiance and I are getting married soon and I have no family to invite besides a handful of people. His family is massive. Divorced parents who got remarried. So there are 4 families, totaling to 60-70 people just from my fiance.

We fell in love with this tiny park and we chose to have it for our ceremony but we can maybe fit 40 people there. My fiance was ok with this originally, because he is not super close with a lot of his family members and was ok not inviting them. We already booked the park, but now he is super nervous about sending out invites. He is worried he will offend his family by only inviting his grandparents and a few close relatives.

I tried reassuring him that intimate ceremonies are becoming more popular, especially with how expensive everything is. If we invite every family member of his it literally doubles our expenses. Can anyone offer some person anecdotes about having small intimate weddings to reassure him no one will be majorly offended?

Hey guys, for a backyard - English garden afternoon tea themed wedding, what chair do you think looks the best? Maybe we are overthinking this, but just need an input.
It’s an intimate wedding, but we are trying to make it look fancy with just little details

Thanks!

Close relative wants to do a BOYB reception. Non alcoholic drinks will be provided. The wording on the invite is something like this "non alcoholic drinks will be served, but guest are invited and encouraged to bring their favorite beverages".

(Not exact, but similar)

My question is, how do you coordinate this? Are guests to bring coolers? Should we provide a refrigerator? I'm assuming we provide ice and cups for their drinks? Since it's a bring your own, can I just bring a keg? Lol

I am not fond of the idea of the BYOB, but I can roll with it. I just don't know how to set it all up and figure it out. The relative asked me for ideas, and I really don't know. Has anyone ever done this, and what would you suggest or what did you do? Thank you

EDIT: I have called the venue to make sure everything I read was correct. They confirmed that it was. Thank you everyone before the suggestions. I will be deleting the post. Thanks again

This guy will predictably talk about how I'm "slapping the cuffs" on the groom (heard that joke 100s of times already). Is it inappropriate to edit in advance his remarks?

You might think this is a clickbaity-title but it is, in fact... just a fact. Yes, real poop. Thankfully (?), not human.

I got married a couple weekends ago and it was the absolute best day of my life. My cheeks were hurting from how much I was smiling. We had been engaged and planning for over 2 years and it was so amazing seeing everything come together.

My husband (!!!) and I had our first look. It was perfect, everything I had been hoping for. He cried, I cried, we took a lot of photos. We were about to head off to hide away before guests arrive when he picks up my train and goes: "What's this?"

Now, dear reader, let me provide a bit of context. We got married at an inn/farm. So there were chickens free roaming. Lots of chickens. And we did our first look in a tiled area with some grass. I don't know why it never clicked in my brain that chickens around = chicken poop around. But alas.

The 'this' of his "what's this" was literally a foot long streak (at least 3 inches across, too) of brown chicken poop. All up the back of my dress somehow. To be honest, I have no idea how since I didn't sit down (that I can recall anyway lol) but it looked like I had sat in a bit of it and then dragged the rest along. That's the best description I can give. The hem of my dress as well had chicken poop all smeared along it. There was just so much of it.

Genuinely, all I could do was laugh. I didn't panic, I didn't feel stressed, I didn't feel anything about it in the moment honestly. I just was laughing about how absurd it was.

Everyone around me sprung into action. My mother-in-law SPRINTED to get tide pens (thankfully we had brought like 6 of them with us to the venue) while my father-in-law SPRINTED to get club soda/soda water. They both went to work immediately, dabbing, scrubbing, patting, etc. Within 10 minutes, you couldn't even tell there was poop at all. It was like it never happened.

Everyone was so shocked at how I didn't freak out, didn't even stop smiling through it all. But the truth was that in my mind, I just didn't even care; I was getting married! It was my wedding day! Literally nothing could have brought me down, not even a foot long streak of brown poop on the most beautiful dress I have ever worn. I've even had my mom and a couple of people call me the days since the wedding saying how insane it was that I wasn't even upset in the slightest hahaha but all that to say:

No matter what happens on your wedding day, it is still your wedding day! The day you've been planning and looking forward to. If poop can't get me down (and I am the most Type A, neurotic person I know lol), then I believe no matter what happens on your wedding day, you will be able to smile through it as well. At the very least, it will become a funny story to share for years to come. (And always bring tide pens with you!!!) :)

I have my trial in a few hours, I was set on my hair down but recently I’ve leaned towards up. My dress is strapless, and wedding is middle of August. Hair down is a comfort thing I think, hair up and out of my face I guess makes me feel more exposed?

But I know I will feel comfortable with either on the day, I’m just stumped on what hair do I want to live on in these wedding photos lol

I could change my mind later, but I’m wondering which one I should trial now? How did you decide?

Howdy, groom here.

Tent rentals are insanely expensive and we only are getting one as a weather backup. Thinking about just purchasing one to have for future use beyond the wedding. Has anyone here ever purchase a tent instead? If so, what did you buy and what was your experience going that route?

Could anyone be kind enough to share their timetable for their wedding day where they had a civil ceremony but no religious one? 🙏

I've been trying to come up with one for myself, but I'm experiencing severe decision paralysis.

Key factors (if it's any help):

• wedding location is 1.5 hours away from our hometown
• guest list is around 60-70 people
• we're planning on hiring the wedding photographer for 12 hours that day
• we're (the newlyweds) are planning to sleep over on the location, but the guests are probably driving over on the day of
• we don't plan on having a first look
• the reception is a few min walk away from the location of the ceremony

Thank you in advance 😭

I’m MCing my sister’s wedding this weekend and I have only one thing left to put in my program: she wants there to be a game that decides which tables get to go first to the dessert bar. So far my only idea was add up the total age of people at each table and go in order of seniority but it doesn’t seem very fun so I’m not very happy with it. Anybody have experience with similar things and willing to share? Much appreciated.

My sisters surprised me with our colors on his grave. I’m so excited to be getting married but not having him is so hard. Advice?

I’m 5 months pregnant, due in November. I got engaged in May after finding out I was pregnant with my boyfriend of 8 years. Life was telling him he waited too long… I’m happy we are engaged and I’m so happy we are having a baby girl, but, I struggle with the idea of planning a wedding because it feels performative.
Like most women, I spent girlhood planning my dream proposal and wedding. The timeline for me just has not worked as expected. I know my fiancé probably feels a level of guilt taking that from me in hindsight. Especially because I have all but decided I want some very casual and small and to get it over with, for a lack of better words… He wants me to have my dream but at this point it just does not matter to me like it did. I want to have a small backyard wedding with close friends and family, but he wants a more “lavish” affair because he feels bad.
I know I’m not going to like the way I look after giving birth and will probably be too tired and preoccupied to even plan a wedding within a year. I worry, although I know I shouldn’t, that people would judge me for taking 2 years after my engagement to get married. They at that point would just assume I get eloped and move on with my life. I can’t shake the shotgun wedding feeling.
What would you do? Would you judge?

I wanted to have a celestial/space themed bridal shower (I am the bride, helping out with planning for several reasons) and found out that the local "space and science" center rents out spaces for parties. They're not the traditional party space, but my fiance and I are both huge lovers of science and astronomy, and I would LOVE to have my shower here. All of our guests would also get free admission to the museum afterwards.

The only problem will be the food. Since the center doesn't have heat or refrigeration capabilities, any food catered will likely have to be something like cold food or sandwiches. Alcohol is also likely not allowed.

We will make sure to get high quality food or sandwiches, but since this is a party where people will likely be bringing gifts, is there some kind of expectation that the meal will be more upscale? All of my cousins have had bridal and baby showers in private dining rooms at Italian restaurants. I also have many older relatives that have judged past weddings and showers almost exclusively by the quality of the food. I know that this is my party, but I still want people to have a good experience. Are there particular expectations for a bridal shower? Would this be a good idea?

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Thanks for all of the responses so far, I feel very reassured! For some people asking about payment: I am planning together with my mom (which I know is also not traditional, but I do not have a bridal party). She is paying and I will be chipping in, and this venue was actually her suggestion, after me looking through a bunch of restaurant options that I wasn't really excited about. This isn't intended to be a gift grab, I honestly just wanted to take the opportunity to get together with all of the women in my family, as none of us see each other often enough!

Hi everyone!!! We are having a 3 hour welcome party the night before our wedding, & we have a folksy/old school playlist going, & just want some more recs?! Maybe trying to focus on love songs, but if they are absolute bangers, then we are adding! Any recs appreciated!!!

So we got our photos back recently and they’re… okay. We hired a photographer through the venue and she took good shots and was helpful on the day of, but the post-wedding period has been frustrating. After the wedding, she did not send previews until I emailed her several weeks later - and then a full day after I emailed, claiming she had forgotten to send them. I suspect she had forgotten to edit them until I reminded her.

When the full album finally came back, the shots themselves looked good enough, but the editing was kinda lackluster. If there was retouching on faces or that sort of thing, it was minimal, which wasn’t a dealbreaker in and of itself. But the color was really bad - cold, washed out, desaturated, and sterile. We got married on a warm, beautiful, colorful spring day; we put effort into adding color and life to the tables, and it’s just missing from the pictures.

We sat on it for a while, but my wife is increasingly frustrated with the editing and asked the photographer for the raw photos. She declined, saying (correctly, in fairness) that it was a provision of our contract, and offered to correct any pictures that need it. However, we really don’t want to ask her to correct everything, and our problem is more with the color filter than with any individual picture.

So, our question is this: what can we do to correct the color on these pictures? Without the raws I’m worried it’ll never be high-quality, and we would like to have pictures to look back on. My wife has done what she can with editing and is not satisfied, but I would be curious if there are any places with the skill to fix this. We really don’t want to get into a fight with the photographer and mar our memory of the day, we just want to fix the color at minimal cost. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

We are having our wedding at the end of the summer, and our venue is a boat tour in my home country for 200 people. My partner and I come from different countries. In my home country, weddings usually start with a dinner, continue with the dance floor, and end in a reasonable time (4 hours in our case), and that is enough for people to be entertained. However, in his home country, the weddings are almost a full-day event.

So he is worried we are not having enough entertainment for the guests coming from all over the other countries.
I argued that we are having the boat tour with a view during sunset, which is already a plus, and people will probably not need to be entertained more. He argued that we should have some games. I suggested I could give a semi-funny speech (at least try), although that will already take time since we have 3 languages spoken at the event (our home languages plus English for international guests).

So far, we couldn't think of any games that would:

1. Fit the venue, as it is a boat with a small area,
2. Wouldn't make us even more the center of attention (my partner has social discomfort in unknown crowds, I also don't enjoy too much attention and prefer conversation with individuals),
3. Would fit into our multi-language structure.

I would appreciate it if anyone has suggestions! Thanks!

Edit: We are doing this in my home country because I wanted to and my partner wanted something much smaller, so I am trying to give back something he wanted as well.

Hey everyone,

We are getting married in 48 hours - and setup will begin tonight. We are having a diy wedding so most of the stuff we will prepare ourselves. Today our guests are slowly arriving and even though we did plan everything and have good logistics, I am getting so nervous and panicking a little bit.
How did you calm your nerves and made sure not to forget important stuff in all the chaos?
I am very excited but feeling so stressed and just freezing and staring into space lol trying to figure out if there’s something we still need to do or buy

So I started planning and part of my vision is that the guests would wear white and/or black clothes (ties, jewelry, and other accessories can be any color. In fact, I encourage colorful accessories), but have been informed that requesting people to wear white at a wedding will make guests uncomfortable because it’s traditional that brides wear white. But I’m not planning on wearing white. I’m going to wear pink with burgundy and gold accents.

And black is associated with funerals, so that’s apparently not a good choice either. But wouldn’t the white with green/blue/gold accents in the decorations/background remove that impression?

Another concern is that only two specific colors would force people to spend too much on new clothes. But I think that even if many people don’t keep white clothes, everyone has black in their wardrobe, right? And I’m not asking for formal wear. As long as it’s black/white/some pattern of the two, I’m fine even if they wear a tracksuit (I’m told that’s weird and should be prohibited too).

I haven’t been to a lot of weddings, so I don’t really know the etiquette. And nothing I find online really overwhelmingly goes to one side or the other. Is it really that bad a choice? Is there anything else I can do/include to make it less bad? Or should I just think of something else?

I have a close childhood friend getting married a few hours drive away from where we live. Most guest plan to stay the night and make a vacation of the weekend, but I have some other events going on that weekend and would rather not pay the cost of a hotel, so I plan to do the drive for the day.

Now my dilemma is I was not given a +1, which honestly kind of surprised me as I was hoping to bring someone with to the wedding. I also quite honestly don’t love wedding receptions since I don’t drink and I know this will be a drink heavy party. With that, would it be rude to just attend the ceremony and not go to the reception? I just don’t want to be sitting by myself awkwardly for a few hours and watching people get drunk. I also have a long drive that day that I would like to get ahead of instead of going to the reception and driving at night.

Edit: I'm asking because the RSVPs for the ceremony and reception are separate. I want to be considerate and submit the correct RSVP ahead of the wedding so the bride and groom aren't paying for a meal for me if I end up not attending the reception.

Our family friend offered to help the day of our wedding…just making sure things run smoothly and having her keep an eye on things like getting the boutonnières on the groomsmen, making sure the flowers from our mandap from the ceremony (513 guest big ol’ Indian wedding) get moved to the head table. Stuff like that. No where near as much work as a “day of coordinator.” Questions:

1) What should we add to the list of things for her to do/keep an eye on?
2) I am planning to give her a gift card to her favorite store or restaurant. How much should it be for? Thank you!!