GTKY: The Big Day

olivemomma · May 2019

We all have a big day coming up, but what about your first big day? AKA your Wedding Day! What was is like? Venue, dress, music, food, etc... Any funny stories... Let’s hear all about it!

olivemomma · May 2019

My wedding was fairly traditional. We aren’t religious so we had our ceremony and reception at this beautiful southern plantation. I had a flowy ALine strapless dress with some beautiful beading down the back and a floor length veil. We were supposed to get married in the gardens but a tornado decided to end that plan (literally a tornado siren was going off minutes before I walked down the isle). Looking back it makes for a good story and the weather cleared up shortly after. Short and sweet ceremony followed by food, drinks, and the party. We danced to can’t help falling in love by Elvis and I danced to I loved her first by Heartland with my Dad. We did all of the traditional things - garter toss, fed each other cake, etc. Looking back I don’t know if my 35 year old self would do things the same as my 25 year old self but it was a magical night surrounded by 150 of our closest family and friends.

heml · May 2019

I wore my mom's wedding dress that a local seamstress tweaked a tiny bit to make it look more modern. It was both extremely unique/special to do so AND much cheaper than buying a new wedding dress. We got married at a big resort that had animals, so we had an alpaca that hung out during cocktail hour while we were taking wedding party photos. I feel like it made our wedding super memorable! We actually already booked the same resort for Christmas eve and Christmas day. We're excited to take our new little one there to make more memories!

sourlemon · May 2019

@heml I also wore my mom's dress! But her's was only 6 years old at the time (remarriage) so it was modern enough for me. I had to fix the veil a little bit because there was some damage to the beading, and the dress had to be taken in a tiny bit, but otherwise it was perfect. I selfishly hope one of my daughters wants to wear the dress too, but who knows what wedding dresses will look like in 20-30 years.

We got married at a non-denominational church, however their main business is weddings. Meaning every Sunday, they set up the reception hall with chairs and it becomes a church, otherwise it was built as a wedding venue. It overlooks the mountains and cactus and it's amazing. The ceremony is a little before sunset so that they can take sunset pictures. I bit DH's finger during the cake cut thing (on accident) and kept trying to bite because I thought it was a tough piece of cake. He had teeth marks. oops.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5020794/uploads/editor/ix/uvdwtwuv345o.jpg

mrosek91 · May 2019

We had a traditional orthodox Jewish wedding at a hall in Philli. We chose it because it was halfway between my family and his so neither side had to travel too much. (~2 hours from each) We thought it was a nice symbol that we were starting married life by meeting in the middle.
I'm an accountant and we got married in May so my mom planned our entire wedding. She gave me a to-do list which was basically find a gown, and pick your bouquet, and she took care of everything else. It was perfect.
One funny story, the bride and groom can't see each other before the wedding starts, and the hall had this beautiful grand entrance where they wanted me to do my photos. So we posted a look out to let us know when DH was coming so I could go hide in the bridal suite for the amount of time it would take him to get to the groom's suite. He was running late, and I was getting very nervous. Finally the look-out comes in to tell us he's here. I go into the bridal suite to try and relax, and after longer than it should have taken we still weren't getting the all clear, so I sent my sister out to investigate. Turns out DH still wasn't there, his twin had shown up, and the look-out had confused him for DH. They didn't want to tell me because they didn't want me to be even more nervous that he hadn't shown up yet.
(He did get there only a little while later, and the ceremony started on time.)

Lotus_2008 · May 2019

We got married in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay chapel. It was planned (not an elopement!) and we had about 30 guests total. After the ceremony, we took pictures at the LV sign and the Venetian and had a reception/dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe. It was exactly what we wanted in a wedding and we had a blast!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5020794/uploads/editor/28/th8cdg12ol35.jpg

MamaK225 · May 2019

We got married in Vegas, but it was planned that way

All of his family is out west (Wyoming, Dakotas, Colorado) and all of mine is in New England - and we live in the deep South. So coming up with an "easy" place to convene was kind of hard. We first thought to do New Orleans because that was our first trip together, but it's pretty pricey to fly and/or stay there year-round. So we decided to do Vegas: figured everyone can entertain themselves (or find entertainment), flights and hotels are super reasonable, and that's their #2 business ... so it was incredibly easy to do all the planning, even 2000+ miles away.

I found a super reasonable dress during tax-free weekend (seriously, how in the blazes are wedding dresses part of that!?) and had minimal alterations; it had a lace-up back so I had +/- 10 lbs variance. He bought a black suit and we bought "Lochness" green ties and a sash for the attendants. "Lochness" because it was incredibly hard to find this specific green. We got married on St. Patrick's Day (my favorite holiday) - which was a Thursday, also my favorite day - and had about 50 guests attend. All-in-all, we spent less than $4,000 on the entire thing: dress, suit, accouterments, the wedding + pics + flowers, the reception + food + drinks. It was such a great time and really easy/laidback ... we're both itching to go back out there again! (And bonus: I won $1200 my first day there, which paid for the entire week's worth of whatever-we-wanted-to-do for me, DH, and our friend who accompanied us for the first 4 days before everyone got there!)

Lotus_2008 · May 2019

@MamaK225 Vegas weddings for the win! I also found it incredibly easy to plan, even from long distance. We stil have people who rave about it to this day!

I just remembered an interesting story from the wedding. When we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license, we noticed that there were lots of news vans parked outside the courthouse but thought it was just normal. Later, we realized that OJ Simpson was there on trial for robbery charges at the same time we were there!

thirdtimesacharm2019 · May 2019

We got married in September (outside in the south) and DHs finger was swollen, so I couldn’t get his ring on and started laughing uncontrollably right in the middle of the ceremony. I also forgot to eat and almost fainted. But other than that it was pretty amazing! And we have great pictures.

heml · May 2019

@thirdtimesacharm2019 We has the opposite problem... my mom lost MH’s ring while we were taking photos before the ceremony, so we used my dad’s band during the ceremony. It was way too big so MH had to clutch it weird to keep it on

BigBadWolf12 · May 2019

Our wedding ceremony was in our church, our musical family members got together as a band to do all the music (guitar, bass, drums, piano, cello). We both loved our ceremony - cut out stiff we didn't care about and put in stuff we wanted.

Our reception was in a refurbished horse feed factory. It's now used as an art Centre - displaying local artists' work and running after-school art and craft workshops for kids. All the weddings and events held there fund the programs they run. It was all brick, wood, and window.

We went home from University two weekends into the term, got married, went to Niagara Falls for the rest of the weekend as our honey moon and we're back in classes Monday morning haha. We were in a co-op program that went through the summer too, either working or schooling with no time off for 5 years so instead of waiting, we planned or wedding for the best weekend we could find haha. No regrets.

wanderlustsoul · May 2019

I’m totally gonna AW and post a million photos. We had a beautiful wedding at a former wine cellar. We wanted an untraditional venue and we got it. It looked amazing and the food was sooooo good. We aren’t religious so the ceremony was on the other side (it was massive).

We got married at the end of October and it was randomly 23 degrees (Celsius) and so sunny! We got so lucky. Everything was perfect and so great. Whatever went wrong, I just brushed it off and moved on. This was our menu:

Our sweetheart table was my favourite (I chose every single flower):

This was my dress:

Our wedding was featured in a wedding site haha.

Bonus pic of my cute dog!

cato99 · May 2019

@AKuzReve your wedding was absolutely beautiful! The aesthetic is fabulous and the menu is mouth watering.

Our wedding was lifetime ago, lol, in 2007. My mom's family is from the New Orleans/Baton Rouge area and we got married there during Christmastime, at the family church. Same place and same general seasonal time as my parents and my mom's parents before them (December 20 and 21 for them, December 29 for us), so it was traditional within the family. Our reception was at my uncle's historical mansion and pretty nontraditional in that I didn't want speeches or formal dancing times or a sit down meal, just a jazzy champagne party. We had a jazz trio, lots of nice wine and champagne, pretty cocktail food stations all over the place but not a sit down meal. It was relaxed and glam and fun.

agpandme · May 2019

I never wanted a wedding. I despise attention focused on me and the thought of financing such a large stressful event for one day seemed silly. I always rather invest in something much longer lasting. My husband agreed.

I made an appointment at the court house and we got married in front of his parents, a good friend, and my parents. I highfived him when the person said to kiss. It was so awkward but it had to be done LOL. We went to dinner afterwards and then continued our lives as usual. Zero regrets now 6 years later.

MamaK225 · May 2019

@AKuzReve - OMG, I love Zinnias and feel they don't get enough attention

@agpandme - That's what I *really* wanted, but DH insisted on something slightly "traditional" because he didn't want me to have any regrets. We actually walked out of the chapel to "Let's Get It On" for *extra* awkwardness (mostly because it was a big song with all our parents/aunts/uncles ... and, you know, a wedding).

The playlist in the reception was all over the place (my - joking - DJ name is ADD-DJ): everything from "Shots" by LMFAO to "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Marrison to "Beast of Burden" by the Stones to "Rude Boy" by Rihanna. Great time across all the generations of people who could attend.

purplg8r · May 2019

We got married at the Wedding Pavilion and then had our reception in the ballroom at the Grand Floridian at Disney World. Our theme was Cinderella’s carriage and glass slipper. My dad and I rode in Cinderella’s carriage on the way to the ceremony and he had the biggest smile that I’ve ever seen. Then H and I rode it to the reception. We snuck away during the reception to get some pictures during the fireworks. We also did a Magic Kingdom bridal shoot so we got to take pics early in the morning before guests arrived. It was truly a fairy tale!

grangerhp37 · May 2019

We got married in August 2016, so just a little over 3 years before this LO is due! We got married in a hotel that had a beautiful ballroom - as much as I would have loved an outdoor venue at somewhere like a winery, I didn't want to have to worry about weather and we wanted the convenience of all of our guests being able to stay overnight onsite instead of having to worry about transportation! Our reception was a blast!

I was nervous all day while getting ready about everything getting done on time - my hairstylist had been flaky the week before about responding to my questions, then I found out right before the wedding that she didn't have an additional person to help her curl hair like she said she would so she would be working by herself, THEN she showed up an hour late... But all ended up being fine and we (and all of our guests) had a great time!

hillaryo14 · May 2019

We got married in October 2014 at a beautiful ranch in the Texas hill country. There was a slight delay in the shuttles getting there that take the guests to and from the hill where the ceremony was held, but that was the only hiccup. We forgot to light the unity candle and some other minor thing we wanted to do and the DJ didn't play a couple things we requested, but overall, it was a perfect day!

Allycat11 · May 2019

@purplg8r I am insanely jealous, your wedding looks gorgeous! We are huge Disney fanatics and gawk at any wedding we see when we are at WDW.

Allycat11 · May 2019

We had a pretty traditional wedding in late October. Ceremony was in a church, reception was in a hotel ballroom. I wish we had chosen a more unique venue but it was still gorgeous. Food and cake were amazing. We had an awesome band and open top shelf bar. People ate , drank and danced for hours...one big party. I was 9 weeks pregnant at our wedding. We had never prevented and were told due to my PCOS it would be very difficult to get pregnant. So I did not drink that night and *TW* miscarried 2 days later *end TW*

Here is the dress, the beading detail never shows up well in pics and a bit blurry due to cropping.

Here are the shoes I was obssessed with! Plus my late grand mother's jewelry that she left to me. The shoes were ruined after pics from walking through mud and a rotting pumpkin.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5020794/uploads/editor/ev/wc188ux0evgm.jpg

Our photos were taken in a gorgeous area that has a lot of vintage looking fake houses...I dont get the point but it is cool. We paid big money for our photographer, who had a predictable family emergency 3 days before our wedding. We ended up with a fill in for him who was not nearly as good, I was super disappointed. He also had us kiss a ridiculous amount in photos...it was awkward. Also, DH is 6'2", I am 5'0" so even with those giant heels there is a solid height difference lol.

sourlemon · May 2019

@Allycat11 I feel you on the height difference! DH is 6'6 and I'm 5'6. I was wearing cowboy boots that only had a 2 inch heel so that didnt help much!

ElcaB · May 2019

@heml & @sourlemon I love that you both wore your moms' dresses!

Our wedding was beautiful. We had an outdoor ceremony followed by an indoor lodge reception. My family made the food (which was delicious) and we had the best time! BIL made the worst best man speech I've ever heard at a wedding to date, but thankfully my sister's MOH speech (which was really a sang parody of Ice, Ice, Baby) made up for it & had all of our guests cheering like crazy.

Naturally H & I ended the night with a stop at Taco Bell because it was 1 a.m. and we were starving.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5020794/uploads/editor/7s/xvaqw4q2jtzp.jpg

MamaK225 · May 2019

@ElcaB - Is it EVEN a wedding if there isn't a late-night stop at Taco Bell??!

All of these are just beautiful

newmamakt · May 2019

We got married at a castle and it was magical

I did get pretty drunk that day but everything really did turn out perfect. Part of me wishes I had drank less but the other part of me still justifies it because my family had driven me insane by wedding day and I just wanted to let loose.

Our ceremony was outside in front of a lake at the castle and my favorite part was they had a love lock fence. In the ceremony we placed our lock and threw our keys in the lake. Downside to the outdoor ceremony is it was August 5th (also my due date now 2 years later!) and it was insanely hot.

I frequently look at our wedding pictures. Our photographer is my now sister in law and she outdid herself and didn’t charge us a penny. Best wedding gift ever!

GTKY: The Big Day

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