Shortcuts: “He Won’t Help Plan Our Wedding”
It’s time for Wedding Week Shortcuts. For every question, I’ll give my advice in just a few sentences because sometimes the answer to a person’s question is so obvious and the need to hear it so great that being as clear and frank as possible is simply the best way to go.
So, your part is to come up with the idea and his part is to finance it? That seems unfair. If you really want him to help you plan and to gauge his commitment to tying the knot, why don’t you sit down and discuss your budget, ask him what he envisions for your wedding, and decide what steps you need to start taking — e.g. saving money, committing to a date and location, etc. — to be ready for a wedding in ten months. It probably wouldn’t hurt you to take a look at these 15 topics every couple should discuss before getting married; something tells me there might be a few you guys have skipped.
No, don’t ask your in-laws, who live paycheck to paycheck, to help pay for your rehearsal dinner! If they want to contribute to your wedding, they’ll let you know. A rehearsal dinner is typically for the people who are in your wedding — the people who have to rehearse walking down the aisle and taking their places, etc. — and can be as fancy as a five-star, multi-course, sit-down dinner, or as casual as a back yard BBQ or an evening at a pizza joint. Decide what your budget is and go from there. If you want to do something for your out-of-town guests, which is nice but certainly not necessary, consider hosting/organizing a brunch the morning after the wedding, which could be as simple as bagels, some cream cheese, a fruit platter and coffee (which is much cheaper than including all of them in your rehearsal dinner!).
I would love for E’s wedding to help me repair these friendships, but I realize that probably won’t happen. I would hope we can all be pleasant and friendly to each other, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they just ignore me. Should I say something beforehand to clear the air? Should I just wait and see how things go when I see them? Should I let them make the first move? — Nervous About Burned Bridges
A wedding really isn’t the best place to try to mend broken friendships with people you haven’t seen or spoken to in ten years, and saying something beforehand could prove to make things more awkward than you already fear they will be. Just go to the bridal shower and wedding prepared to be cordial, knowing that the worst that will happen is you’ll be ignored by people you don’t even really know anymore, which certainly isn’t the worst thing in the world. At best, you’ll have an opportunity to show through your behavior that you’re a different person today — maybe even one your former high school friends would be interested in getting to know.
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Ah man, these aren’t as entertaining as the usual shortcuts. I can’t be snarky. Tear.
LW1 – Wendy nailed it. Nothing to add.
LW2 – Wendy nailed it again. I have been to rehearsal dinners as both an out of town guest and part of the wedding party. The out of town guest thing is nice if you can afford it, but if you can’t, just keep it to the wedding party. Oh, and my cousin lives and got married in Hilton Head South Carolina. They threw a shrimp boil at a park for the wedding party. We had a lovely time. Another cousin go married in the Chicago suburbs. She didn’t have a wedding party, so no rehearsal dinner. She did host a brunch the next day for out of towners. It was lovely. So I say do what you want and can afford.
LW3 – Wendy nailed it, obviously. This is not the time to try to mend bridges, which could end up causing unecessary drama for the bride. Go, be your new and improved self, be friendly and have fun. It has been 10 years for gosh sakes. If they are mean to you, you don’t want to repair the friendships anyway.
I went to one where they just had “lunch boxes” of sandwiches, chips and fruit salad on the lawn of where the ceremony was taking place. Super inexpensive, but really nice.
That’s really cute!
LW1: Why did you decide something that both of you should have decided together? Your fiancé has a point that if you don’t have the money to do something, you shouldn’t do it. He said it in a pretty passive aggressive way, but it sounds like he’s concerned about money rather than not wanting to marry you. Just communicate and ask him what he wants!
LW2: Some people do invite out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner, but that’s not always possible. Almost all of our guests were out of town too, so there’s no way we could have done that. Your guests probably won’t expect it anyway. You need to invite: your parents, grandparents, members of the wedding party, the wedding party’s date (if they’re bringing one to the wedding), and the officiant and his/her spouse. I’ve been to a wide range of rehearsal dinners, and I really don’t think it matters what you serve. I’ve been to them where there was a fancy catered dinner, and I’ve been to them where the couple bought pans of fast food pasta from Fazoli’s. Your wedding party shouldn’t expect anything fancy.
Something’s bugging me about LW1 and I think your point’s it. That she decided. I feel when we started planning after we got engaged that the first thing we did was talking about the weddings we pictured. I saw pretty immediately that I was going to need to back down from having a small wedding as he cares so deeply for the people he knows and wants to take this opportunity to host them that it got me excited to do our 160 person wedding too.
With LW1 too, I have doubts that they don’t have ANY family/friends. Heck, even most of my acquaintances love a good party and if I was open to letting them in they’d be there in a second. Did the Vegas decision really miss some sort of bonds with someone like that uncle that’s not really an uncle or something?
I don’t know if he wants to get married or not. That’s something to be discussed between the 2 of you, use the link Wendy gave as it’s great. Also, know that it might be the plan he’s rebelling against as he may not know what he wants in a wedding but knows it’s not that. Vegas isn’t for everyone, he could be wanting a courthouse, nearby park, to visit some other place, or something else that hasn’t been taken into account because these conversations sound extremely one-sided.
You two need to learn to communicate prior to thinking about an aisle.
I agree about the deciding. You can’t decide it all and expect that he’ll just go along with it. I think that might make him feel like he’s an interchangeable groom. The wedding should be about both of you and reflect both of your tastes. I really liked the library checkout card idea (to the extent that I figured out a call number that meant mylastname/hislastname wedding) but that represented me – a librarian, not us so I scrapped the idea and found something else.
Maybe picke a few things for your fiance to be in charge of (like finding a marriage commissioner or music). Also after doing a lot of research, I would show him my top 2 or 3 options for something and we’d decide together which to go with. He didn’t want to look at every single thing, where I wanted to make sure I made the best choice from all my options. When I tried to show him all the options he would get frustrated and I would get upset because I felt like he didn’t care about the wedding. Our compromise engaged him in the planning process and satisfied my need to do lots of research.
I took LW1’s letter a lot differently than everyone else, I think. It sounded to me like she was trying to get his input on the wedding, but he won’t give it. I know the “I decided” thing sounds bad, but I feel like it might be a red herring here. That said, if you are trying to plan a wedding, if your fiance won’t discuss the plans with you, you should take that as a red flag, not as a sign that you are supposed to plan it all by yourself. Plus, unless they were planning to just go down to the courthouse, I assume going to Vegas by themselves would be a lot cheaper than any other wedding they could put on.
Either way, I agree that they both need to learn how to communicate. I would be wary of marrying someone who either has no interest in the wedding or is not able to properly communicate if he has a problem with how I’m handling it.
True, true. We all sometimes say something that throws off what we mean, so if it is a red herring, I completely agree with you.
Ooh, I just thought of something else for LW2 and her out of town guests.
You could send an e-mail with some ideas of things to do or places to eat. Maybe a top 10 list or something? That would be a nice gesture. Unless they’re all from your area and have moved away. Then I might not bother.
We did a little section on our website for out of town guests with local sites, restaurants, directions, etc. And we’re doing a small “welcome bag” the hotels will hand out with some local visitors bureau handouts with more info. it’s definitely possible to make out of town guests feel comfortable without hosting a dinner for them.
Love welcome bags! What a cute idea to include those little brochures.
Just now thought of this- The reason all the hotels booked up are because of the Devon Horse show! It starts May 23rd.
Ah, good point!! There is that huge soccer tournement in Downingtown too. Like 800 youth teams. Oh well, if they don’t have a room yet I really don’t know what to tell them!
I like that idea. My family doesn’t really do the huge gathering type events so it’s hard to see a rehearsal dinner that I’d go to with more than immediate family and bridal party.
We did that too. It really helped keep the out of town family entertained. Great suggestion for the LW!
I was going to do something similar too. Like Gator Girl, I was going to have welcome bags for the out of town guests with a few beachy items since I was getting married on the beach and then a few things for attractions around Jupiter, Florida and a list of some great places to eat.
I really do think it’s nice to do something a little extra for the people traveling. Again, though, do what your budget allows.
Us too – and since we had an evening wedding I know a lot of our guests did visit one of the attractions we suggested
LW2 – My wedding had about 75 out of town guests. So for the rehearsal here is who we invited – Parents, Grandparents, Siblings, bridal party, and people as part of the ceremony (gift bearers, readers, ushers), and the dates of all these people. That still made it around 40 people. Just to give you an idea.
For my wedding, we also invited about 40 people to the rehearsal dinner: parents, grandparents, bridal party, siblings, the officiant, and all of our international guests. We also let them bring kids and dates. When we first started planning it, I couldn’t believe how many people we had to invite and how much it was gonna cost. We ended changing the venue three weeks before the wedding in order to save like $500.
The last one is odd—I think she’s really overthinking (which most of us are guilty of, it’s okay). LW, just be friendly & try to put out of your mind the last time these people have known you. You aren’t that person anymore, & I would assume they know that. I agree with Wendy that this isn’t the time to reconnect…but yes, being cordial, casual, and generally open will have the effect you desire. Don’t say anything to “clear the air”, though. That will only remind them of the past, I’d think, & it could turn out to be very awkward.
I totally agree. Honestly, everyone in high school does stuff that is a little rough. Honestly, I have found that the things I agonize over others have completely forgotten while some people hold on to events for years that I forgot.
LW2: Hosting a brunch for your out-of-town guests will still be expensive. (Any time you’ve gotta feed a large number of people, it gets pricey. Even if it’s just pastries, cheese, and coffee.) Plus, that means you have to schedule, plan, send out invites, and attend another event on the weekend of your wedding. Trust me, you don’t want to do that. A lot of couples are exhausted the day after their wedding–they don’t want to hang out with family, they just want to rest and fly off to a beach somewhere.
Instead, I would make little welcome baskets: bottled water, fresh fruit, chocolates, Tylenol, some information about the area and local attractions, etc. Find out where your out-of-town guests are staying and have the hotel put the baskets in their room before they check-in.
On the flip side of that, I really regret not doing a brunch the next morning. There was a lot of family in from out of town that I don’t get to see very often, and you really don’t get a chance to spend much time with them during the wedding. As exhausted as I was, I wish we had done a very casual brunch (like yoga pants and a tshirt kind of casual) with everyone the next morning. It does add up, but it’s worth it, IMO.
I think this is such a good point, especially after you said that you got very little time with your guests. My favorite part of just about every wedding I’ve been to is the morning after stuff, whether its a fancy brunch, bagels or sitting in a hotel room together. Everyone is chilled, plenty to talk about, no stress at all. Short story-my favorite memory ever with my best friend is from the morning after her wedding. I went alone (no plus 1!), but stayed the night in the hotel. I was looking forward to sleeping in a bit by myself since I never am alone in a hotel, but at 8 am, her and her husband were banging on my door saying “its Mr. & Mrs. X!” It was so cute. The 3 of us all just chilled out in our PJs for about an hour or two, had mimosas and bagels. It was the best.
We’re debating the brunch thing right now. I think I want to do it. People are traveling like 500 miles for our wedding, I’d like to host them as much as possible AND get to see them as much as possible. I think your post just swayed me.
Something else I thought of for the pro day after event, you get to discuss the wedding, tell fun stories, etc. while it’s fresh. You wont’ have to wait weeks or months to hear about the good time people had. Or to laugh about a disaster that might have happened.
Very true! I miss getting to know what happened. I didn’t get to see the cake being delivered or the caterer set up, and I really wish I got to discuss it with my out of town aunt and find out what happened when she was helping with set up.
Yes, definitely do it! Especially since you’re not leaving immediately for the honeymoon. That’s the only reason we skipped it, and it wasn’t worth it at all.
We did decide to go on a minimoon to Philly for two nights Sunday, but we weren’t going to head in untill 2 or 3 pm. I’m going to do it.
I guess you just have to know yourself and how much you can handle in a three-day time span. We had twenty guests who flew in from another continent (all family), so the day after our wedding, my parents hosted a BBQ for those people. My husband and I went to the BBQ, but honestly, we were so tired that we were hardly conscious. I wanted to see all these family members since I only get to see them maybe once a year (it’s actually more like once every two or three years), but I was too exhausted to be very social and it ended up being hardly worth the effort.
I loved my brunch. We had it at a friend’s house and everyone rehashed the funny things at the wedding and got a real chance to chat longer with people. It was wonderful and I highly recommend it.
DO IT!
You can get the greatest breakfast pastries from Costco. Seriously, I wish I had occasion to eat 12 giant muffins more often because theirs are insane good.
Brunch doesn’t have to be hugely expensive if you just go the pastry route. If people want eggs that badly, there’s bound to be a Denny’s somewhere. Coffee and pastries and you and your husband shmoozing is all you need.
Bonus- we own a restaurant that does Sunday brunch 😉 I like the pastry idea though, maybe for Saturday morning!
My in-laws hosted a (very delicious) brunch the day after our wedding at their house and it was so nice. We spent time with all of our out of town guests and just relaxed. It was wonderful and I’m so glad that we did it.
In my family, we think of the wedding as kind of a family reunion/get together. My sis had one and four of my cousins had one. Nobody was put out. I think it just depends on what kind of family/friends you have.
And theattack is right, you don’t get to spend much time with people at the wedding, and this helps with that.
I went to one brunch at a restaurant, the others were either at a local park or the bride’s parents house.
LW2: If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, then don’t invite the out-of-town guests. I’ve come from out of town to a few weddings and was never included in the rehearsal dinner. I guess I didn’t realize it was a thing. I’ve been to a few that included BBQ. Those seem inexpensive.
LW3: I agree that the wedding isn’t a place to try to mend fences. I feel like what’s most likely to happen is they might politely say “hello” if they run into you. I’m not sure if that’s what you consider ignoring you, or if you think they’re going to literally pretend you don’t exist if you cross paths. Either way, it’s not the end of the world.
LW3 – As someone who was also depressed and terribly unpleasant in high school, it’s unlikely that people remember the things you said and and did to burn those bridges quite as clearly as you do. And even if they do, they know just as well as you do that a lot can happen in ten years. Don’t confront it directly and they’ll probably assume you simply grew up. If it comes up at the reception, and these people have been friendly so far, apologize and explain how unhappy you were. Don’t go into specifics, don’t justify, don’t say anything that isn’t light and superficial, and don’t bring it up yourself. If they’re nice, assume that they figured out you’ve changed. If they’re jerks, still stay as cordial as possible and assume that anyone who can’t give someone a second chance after ten years is a judgmental shithead and you never have to see them again after the wedding if you don’t want.
LW3: I was very depressed in high school so I know where you are coming from. You aren’t the same person anymore and you don’t want your past to dictate who you are today. I can guarantee you though that everybody, whether they’ve been depressed or not, regrets shit they did in high school. How they treated people, what they wore, how much sex they had, etc. Everybody looks back on certain moments from that part of their life and cringes. Don’t feel alone! Those ex friends are thinking “I hope no one talks about that time I shit my pants” too.
I also discovered, having re-connected to some high school friends and befriended some people I wasn’t even friends with, my perception of myself was completely skewed when I compared notes to the people around me, up to and including the people I had knock-down, drag-out screaming matches with. I viewed myself far more negatively than even those people did. So chances are, LW may not have done anywhere near the damage she thought she did.
LW3 – I had sort of an opposite experience at one of my oldest friend’s weddings, I’ll call her M, she got married when we were 21. To make a very long story short, when we were in 6th grade, a good mutual friend of ours had a lot of issues, I will call her A, including depression and cutting. Her mother, for whatever reason, failed to see the issue at hand and blamed a lot of her daughter’s problems on me, which resulted in a huge blow out between the mother and my father. Soon after went to my gym teacher with another one of our friends to voice our concerns, knowing we would likely never maintain a close friendship with A again, which we did not.
Both M and A moved to FL to neighboring towns in high school and remained very close – A ended up being a bridesmaid in M’s wedding. I was nervous about going to the wedding and seeing her again as she had caused a lot turmoil in our small middle school class and caused a lot of problems for me personally.
During the cocktail hour before the reception, A came up to me and apologized for everything that had gone down when we were in middle school. I really appreciated her honest apology and I told her to let the past stay in the past and for both of us to just move on with things and enjoy M’s wedding.
People change significantly in the years after high school, and I can’t blame you for being nervous, but I think your best bet is to go to that wedding with confidence and treat those who you mentioned from high school with kindness and respect, even apologize if the timing and setting is correct. Everyone has tough times, and if these people are holding on to things you did or said 7-8 years ago (unless it was really, truly awful) then that’s their problem.
I totally agree with this. Frankly, the wierd thing about high school is that you are forced with this random group of people based on location only. You share your upbringing but you don’t choose this. So I feel like some of my most dramatic moments was dealing with myself and all of these other people’s issues. And you can see that so many of these people turn out fine but we still remember the crazy situations that happen.
I haven’t had time to read through all the comments, so this may have been mentioned already.
You don’t need to have a rehearsal dinner if you don’t have a wedding rehearsal (because the dinner is meant to thank your guests for taking the time to come to the rehearsal), and unless you’re having a really complicated ceremony, you don’t need one. If you and your fiance want to rehearse with the officiant/musicians, they should be getting paid for that time and don’t need to be invited to a dinner, and there’s no need to host yourself anything. The cheapest option here is to skip the rehearsal altogether.
LW2: We had no wedding party (just my kids, our musician friend, and our pastor), but a crap-ton of out of town family. Having people fly/drive in from so far away without getting a chance to chill with them seemed wrong, so we had a pre-wedding potluck cookout. We provided drinks, hot dogs, and burgers and asked everyone to bring a side. It was perfect, fun, laid back, and easy. No one complained and EVERYONE who was invited came. Even if you’re from out of town, you can swing by the grocery and pick up a bag of chips or a veggie tray. (We got married on property neighboring our home, so we were able to get double usage out of our tent, chairs, and rented dishes, too.) The point is to hang with the people you love, not to throw a stuffy dinner. The people who care about you won’t care if they have to bring a dish, and the people who do care are probably the ones you were hoping would decline anyway. 🙂
Rehearsal dinners – If Peter is in a wedding, but I am not (but I’m attending it), do I have to go to the rehearsal dinner? Please say no.
No, you don’t have to go. Just be sure the hosts know you’re not attending so they can count you out. We had a few dates back out on the rehearsal dinner, and that’s money we could have spent on something else. (Don’t even get me started on how many people didn’t show up to the wedding. Thousands of dollars we didn’t have to spend on food.)
That many?!
We had 6 total who didn’t show up, and I was already kinda pissed about the half of them who didn’t bother to contact us about it (I mean it was too late to get our money back, but it still would have been nice to say something). But that wasn’t THOUSANDS!
I haven’t tallied it up exactly, but we had probably four or five empty tables when there was supposed to be one extra table for overflow. I’m estimating we wasted about $1000 on food, not to mention booze, favors, and the time we used for tying on all the bows to their chairs and making their place settings pretty. My boss and coworkers didn’t show, his mom’s cousins didn’t show (2 of which RSVPed no, then changed it to yes the week before the wedding), a few friends and their parents didn’t show, two families RSVPed for three children and brought none, and several people didn’t bring dates who said they were going to. I can’t think of who else. I’m a little hurt/angry about it though.
Even your boss and coworkers? Wow! What did you say to them when you returned?
Nothing. And they haven’t said anything about it either. It is super awkward. We all went out to lunch before the wedding to celebrate, but they didn’t mention if they intended that to replace their wedding attendance so I assumed it didn’t. This is part of what makes me nervous here in my position, like I’m so disliked or disrespected that they don’t even want to come when they said they would or something? Maybe I’m overthinking it though.
I can’t believe you didn’t say something. Like, hey what happened guys? Everything alright?
I assumed it would come off as aggressive if I did, probably because I felt aggressive. And I wanted them to come forward about it on their own. I just figured it was better for me to not start something about it at work and to just quietly fume over it.
Yeah that’s what we did with my husband’s coworkers who didn’t come, until I eventually made him say something because I was annoyed.
For what its worth, everyone who didn’t come had a good excuse (car broke down, stomach flu, mom in hospital), so it might be helpful if you assume it was something horrible/unavoidable and feel badly for them rather than angry. Although they are still jerks for not ever- even once things cleared up- bothering to text or email or anything to say “sorry I missed it, hope it was great.”
I’d be super mad. It’s so weird your boss just didn’t show.
My parents keep arguing for an overflow table and I’m just not interested. So we’re not having one.
The only reason we did one was because we didn’t do a seating chart and because we figured people were flaky and rude enough to bring extra guests. If you don’t think that’s a problem there’s no reason to.
I’m totally with you. We had 3 overflow seats at 3 tables which only had 9 people, mostly because I hate odd numbers more than I hate rude people who come without RSVPing.
If someone shows up unannounced they deserve to feel as awkward and uncomfortable as possible when its obvious that they weren’t expected and accommodations have to be made on the spot. Passive aggressive maybe, but screw them!
Just polietly decline. But please, for the love of all things holy, RSVP on time!!
Yay! Thanks ladies.
Concur with above skipping the rehearsal. Ours was pointless. People can walk down an aisle and stand in a line without any additional instruction. Unless you need them to do something complicated or unusual, it’s just a waste of time on a time crunched occasion. I wish we had skipped it at mine.
If you do need a rehearsal, then a dinner just for those attending the rehearsal is sufficient, and it doesnt need to be at a fancy restaurant. And if you feel the need to host your other guests a little more, you could always hit up Costco (no, seriously, I’m in love with Costco baked goods) for cookies and little cupcakes and do like a dessert get together at the hotel after the rehearsal dinner.
We did this on Thursday night before my wedding for the early out of towners:
the hotel we stayed at was a Residence Inn, which is an extended stay/business traveler type. They actually have free dinner for hotel guests in the lobby on weeknights. We told our guests we’d meet them for dinner down there, then brought some desserts from Costco to make it a bit more festive. Then we just camped out with our guests in the lobby and ate free dinner plus our supplied cupcakes. See if you can find something like that…?
Rehearsal Dinners are a good thing to cut to save money! Brides think they “have” to do one. Still more explode the bill with a big guest list (no, you do NOT have to invite people who are not in the wedding party!) Unless you are having a complicated religious ceremony or lots of songs and readings, odds are good you don’t even need a rehearsal. Just email everyone with an order of the service.
I’ve been married twice (widowed once before this) and our rehearsal dinner was a boring waste of time that cost $700 for the stupid dinner afterward. We skipped it my second wedding. Everything went fine!