Seedy and CD's little girl is getting hitched, hit 'em with your best wedding tips

Altitude Gator

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Steal a page from the Mike Leach ‘Advice To Live By’ and offer the couple $10,000 to elope.
This is how I ended up with the Model A. Great grandfather offered it to my grandfather to haul his daughter (my grandmother) across the county line (she was under aged for marriage) to elope rather than having to pay for a wedding.

Been the family ride for weddings ever since.
 

AlexDaGator

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Intriguing post. So many questions.

I'll turn this one:
"I married one girl 2 times in 4 months (but have never been divorced)"
into a wedding tip for you.

Several months before our Church wedding, my wife and I were civilly wed by a notary public. I did not consider us married as we weren't married in the eyes of God, but we were married in the eyes of the government. That gave us time to get a bunch of mundane sh!t done before the real wedding/honeymoon.

That gave us time to change her last name, get new drivers licenses, get new passports, open new bank accounts, get new credit cards (or update name on old credit cards), add spouse to health insurance and all the HR stuff, update beneficiary information for life insurance policies, update car insurance, etc.

We cleared it with the Church first so they understood they were only doing the ceremony, not the legal stuff. That also saved us time signing legal marriage forms after the ceremony.

Having all that done in advance was fantastic.

It worked for us because a civil marriage was meaningless to me. I didn't consider us married until the Church ceremony, regardless what the government thought (none of the government's business anyway). This tip might not work if the bride or groom attach some importance to the civil marriage.


Alex.
 

soflagator

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I'll turn this one:
"I married one girl 2 times in 4 months (but have never been divorced)"
into a wedding tip for you.

Several months before our Church wedding, my wife and I were civilly wed by a notary public. I did not consider us married as we weren't married in the eyes of God, but we were married in the eyes of the government. That gave us time to get a bunch of mundane sh!t done before the real wedding/honeymoon.

That gave us time to change her last name, get new drivers licenses, get new passports, open new bank accounts, get new credit cards (or update name on old credit cards), add spouse to health insurance and all the HR stuff, update beneficiary information for life insurance policies, update car insurance, etc.

We cleared it with the Church first so they understood they were only doing the ceremony, not the legal stuff. That also saved us time signing legal marriage forms after the ceremony.

Having all that done in advance was fantastic.

It worked for us because a civil marriage was meaningless to me. I didn't consider us married until the Church ceremony, regardless what the government thought (none of the government's business anyway). This tip might not work if the bride or groom attach some importance to the civil marriage.


Alex.

Lots of wisdom in this post. Somewhat similar. Wife and I dated only two and a half months before getting married, and the families didn’t even know each other. So we felt a wedding ceremony may not be the best place to meet. Flew to Vegas and got married, then did a formal ceremony and reception months later with everyone. For a host of reasons, it was the best move we could have made.

Side note. The myth of LV being some easy trap for getting married is just that. No different than anywhere else with the legal, courthouse stuff which isn’t anywhere near the strip. Same hoops and timeframe. People who make a mistake in Vegas simply made a mistake. May as well have been Lincoln, Neb in terms of convenience.
 

jeeping8r

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My advice after 42 years.... RUN.... Or do an "Apple Dumpling Gang" wedding, "You take, you take, you're hitched"

At my niece's hitching Wife and I were the longest married there besides the real old folks, When asked the secret I said "separate bathrooms".
 

Ironhead

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IMO...Hire a wedding planner.
If you're not doing destination wedding or just a small family only style wedding, a wedding planner will take all the stress out of it and you and Seedy can enjoy the day.
Shameless plug, My daughter has a very successful wedding planner business.
 

cover2

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Almost forgot. Be sure to get a good, memorable picture of you and dad to look back on with both joy and pride…

1683899978363.png
 

soflagator

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IMO...Hire a wedding planner.
If you're not doing destination wedding or just a small family only style wedding, a wedding planner will take all the stress out of it and you and Seedy can enjoy the day.
Shameless plug, My daughter has a very successful wedding planner business.

The problem is, outside of your daughter, the only wedding planners I’ve ever known of were either gay or secretly high-maintenance Puerto Ricans. I just don’t see either of those options being readily available in Kentucky. They’re on their own here.
 

Ironhead

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The problem is, outside of your daughter, the only wedding planners I’ve ever known of were either gay or secretly high-maintenance Puerto Ricans. I just don’t see either of those options being readily available in Kentucky. They’re on their own here.
Her main territory is from and between Wilmington and Jacksonville N.C..
Funny, She's been doing this since 2013 or so. I've even helped her out a couple occasions.
I've met some Gay bartenders, DJ's and caterers, but not any actual planners. Oh, I'm sure they're out there though.

I think you would be surprised at where there are multiple planners in any given area.
It's fairly competitive.
 

AlexDaGator

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IMO...Hire a wedding planner.
If you're not doing destination wedding or just a small family only style wedding, a wedding planner will take all the stress out of it and you and Seedy can enjoy the day.
Shameless plug, My daughter has a very successful wedding planner business.

Agree unless you're doing a very small wedding.

Everything wedding-related is overpriced. Wedding planners often have relationships with vendors and can get you discounts with vendors (and some kickbacks for themselves).

It makes sense because there's always last minute nonsense. Somebody RSVP's for one and shows up with 4, or you say "no kids" and somebody brings a couple of kids, that sorta thing. Your carefully and meticulously planned seating chart becomes garbage. You can't deal with that while you're doing the wedding photos after the ceremony. That's for the wedding planner to figure out.

If you don't want to pay for a full wedding planner (they can be very expensive), at least hire somebody to help you day of the wedding. Doesn't have to be a professional. Can be any reasonably competent person with decent organizational and people skills, but not a close friend or family member who knows the guests. Give them the itinerary for the festivities and let them deal with adding a chair here or a table there, calling to get more beer or ice delivered, being the gatekeeper for toasts ("I'm sorry, I understand you were her best friend in 8th grade, but only the best man and maid of honor are doing toasts"), and dealing with any other little emergencies that might happen. If you do it at a hotel, often the hotel provides an event planner that does this stuff for you and the cost is baked into the price of the banquet room (but you should tip the event planner generously).

If you don't hire a wedding planner, don't tell the vendors it's for a wedding. The prices go up a lot. I need a DJ for a 4 hour event, what are your prices? I need 2 bartenders for a 6 hour event, how much do you charge? That sort of thing. Everything wedding-related is inflated. Skip the videographer though. Nobody ever watches wedding videos. Nobody. Ever. Spend the money on a great photographer (preferably one working with an assistant so somebody can do candids with the bridal party while the other does candids with the groomsmen/ushers and the arriving guests. Think in advance about the wedding album. You want the album to tell the whole story so include a few pics from the bridal shower, the bachelorette party (the safe ones, not the ones with them drinking out of penis-shaped bottles and kissing strangers in a bar), rehearsal dinner, the pre-wedding hair and nail thing, include the mailings (save the date, wedding invitation) and the programs from the wedding/reception. A nice gift is to pay somebody to create the album.

If you can do the reception at a venue where you can bring your own alcohol, you will save a fortune. Every venue that serves alcohol rips you off on it. A lot. It's not hard to DIY with the booze. Offer 2 kinds of beer (one should be light), 2 kinds of wine (one red, one white), skip the champagne, sodas/mixers (sprite, coke, coke zero, cranberry, maybe sour mix or grenadine), and 3 or 4 types of liquor (depends on your friends, choose from bourbon, white rum, dark rum, tequila, vodka, or gin), cherries, lime slices, that's it.

Alex.
 

Bernardo de la Paz

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If you can do the reception at a venue where you can bring your own alcohol, you will save a fortune.
And you get to pick what gets served. I imagine folks in kintucky are very particular about their bourbon.
 

CDGator

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One of my BFF’s offered her daughter 100k to skip the wedding and buy a house but she turned it down. They spent just over that on the wedding. Nicest wedding we’ve ever been to but I’d take the money over a party in a heartbeat.
 

Ironhead

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I’ve seen some of the budgets for these huge weddings.
Quite a few are over 6 figures.
Beach front 12 bedroom house rented for 10 days for a huge wedding on the beach.
It’s crazy what some people are willing to spend on a wedding.

I’ve paid for two weddings.
One was around 35,000
Second one was about $2,000
My youngest, wanted something a lot less elaborate.
 

Bernardo de la Paz

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One good option if your daughter doesn't need a bunch of stuff is to do a honeymoon registry instead of a gift registry. The way those sites work is that you make up elements of the honeymoon for guests to pay for, but you really just get the cash to spend however you want.
 

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