It’s nice when sibs are the wedding attendants and helps minimize hurt feelings among friends, IMHO. I’m sure it is a slightly bigger dent in Bank of mom and dad, but hopefully obey one wedding per kid. 
:x
My daughter just asked her bridesmaids to get dresses the same color and hem length. She’s really aware of costs, not only for us but for the whole bridal party. For the bachelorette thing, they’re going to one of the bridesmaids house at the beach for a weekend in early fall. It’s sometimes hard to know where it’s important to pay full price and where to cut corners. We live a life of looking for the best value at the lowest price.
Younger d is a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding next weekend. Dresses were bought at a wholesale place in the Garment Center in NYC and not expensive as discounted at around $165 or so. They are wearing the same color from the manufacturer but several are wearing different styles, as several to choose from. Shoes are being finalized. One of the other girls in the bridal party was a bridesmaid recently for another friend, destination wedding and the dresses were $600 so, the bank of mom feels that this is a good deal.
Yes, all three bridesmaids are siblings and it makes it so much easier not to choose amongst your friends. Two more days for us, the weather looks perfect, a houseful of relatives, and hopefully next week I can share some wisdom with all of you!
My D’s bridesmaid dresses were from J Crew and were discounted 40% on Cyber Monday in November, so roughly about $108. I ordered several sizes for younger D to try on, luckily could return directly to the store nearby (no alterations happening for her!). Younger D also got her shoes from H&M for $9.99. (I wore the same ones.) Hope all goes well, lassie3, it is an exciting time!
I was checking into a hotel yesterday. Quite a long checkin line and it was apparent to me that there would be a wedding going on as several people ahead of me checking in were being given white boxes of goodies all done up with a bow and monogram by the front desk staff - goody bags from the wedding couple.
While waiting in line, I started chatting with a nice young man standing next to me, standing sentry beside a luggage cart laden with garment bags containing tuxes. Turns out he was the Best Man for the wedding. He told me how he had his speech prepared for the wedding 2 months ago (good best man!). He was excited but nervous about standing up in front of everyone to give his speech and he stated he hoped it went well. I asked him if it was a big wedding. He told me he wasn’t sure if it qualified as big because he hadn’t been to many weddings in his life but that it was 600 people. I told him that, yes, that was a big wedding. 
I’ve never been to a wedding that big. I wouldn’t even know who to invite to get to a wedding that big!
We had 750 at my wedding reception–over 1000 folks had been invited. Most of the guests were friends and relatives of our parents. I would have been happy with a much smaller wedding but was fine with the wedding we had as well.
Boysx3’s second son is getting married this weekend. I made a chuppah for the wedding and she sent me a picture of it on the columns this am. GOOSEBUMPS!
D did exactly this. One of her bridesmaids, a super organizer, organized the shoes. D didn’t care if they matched, but I liked that they did.
@CountingDown - What a blessing you are! I’m sure it is beautiful.
Alterations to D2’s bridesmaid dress are complete: $85 to reset zipper and add bra cups to bodice, dress $210. D1’s dress needed more work, but hoping to be done this week. No idea what it will cost as this will be the third fitting, but I will just pay up. Seamstress had a big job with it, but I am so glad I found her as she only does bridal alterations and she is GOOD.
D1 and I chose the pictures of S1 last night that will be placed on each table, table number matching S1’s age, same for FDIL. Besides the studio and school shots, I didn’t have that many of him alone as I usually took family or sibling shots. We had fun going through many packs of prints.
With less than 5 weeks to go, we are in good shape. The seating chart windows will be completed when I know how they seat their guests and how many tables they end up with, but I have the materials in hand and the design done.
Newest dilemma: how to return the rented suits. Sunday wedding, tux shop closes before end of reception and is 40 minutes from venue. All but S are out of town so they will not be around on Monday. We are thinking that the men can change at the reception and give S or the new inlaws the suits, but the presents need to be transported also and car space will be limited. S and DIL leave for honeymoon Tuesday, so I think the job will fall to them.
This sweet story came across my facebook feed this morning:
http://www.boredpanda.com/wedding-flower-girls-grandmas-joyce-drue-ashley-elizabeth/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook
Call me churlish, but the story about the bride asking her grandmothers to be “flower girls” at her wedding rubs me the wrong way.
I love that she wanted to include her grandmas. But I hate when people treat elderly people like children! That’s expressly what she is doing here!
Also having them wear identical dresses and throw petals just seems undignified. (Believe me, I definitely don’t think everything has to be dignified, but I hate when grown women are treated like children whether they are twenty-five or eighty.)
Anyway, I love seeing posts about little touches at weddings but that one doesn’t do it for me. Sorry to be a downer!
Sharing an idea for those planning weddings.
Lovely moment at the end of son’s wedding on July 9th - was last dance of night.
Perhaps this is standard for all weddings, but everyone made large circle around bride / groom, while swaying and singing PIANO MAN. Son didn’t pick that song, DJ did, and while there may be better songs, everyone knew lyrics, and it was lovely moment of unity at end of evening. Everyone joined in towards end, and lots of group hugging went on !!!
Highly recommend that this is planned
If they wanted to include the grandmas, why not as bridesmaids? Oh well, not my wedding and it appeared everyone was thrilled.
At my niece’s wedding, toward the end of the evening, the cousins just took over the dance floor and we’re having a great time dancing with each other and taking tons of photos with and without the wedding couple. They had a great time!
One of the things I am really looking forward to at my daughter’s wedding in October is the music selection and dancing. My daughter and her fiancée have 125 guests on their list, the vast majority of whom are either musical theatre performers, professional dancers, life event industry djs, MCs and party motivators (dancers) and fitness industry professionals. The entertainment company my daughter and her fiancée work for on weekends is providing the music and they handpicked the DJ and MC they will have. The energy level is going to be beyond comprehension, lol. I’m in training just to last the night :).
@michaelNKat…we have a similar experience going on with my D’s wedding at the end of September too! Most of the couple’s friends are musical theater performers, actors, singer/songwriters, etc. While there will be a DJ for most of the celebration, earlier in the evening, including for the ceremony, various friends, all of whom are professional performing artists, will perform.
Here’s a music question for all of you: ipod music. This is where there is no DJ, just an Ipod as the music source. Have any of you done this? Is it a good possibility? These modern ways are so confusing…
Love that idea, similar to what D and her H did to close their wedding:
DJ had all guests form a circle around the couple as they redid their first dance. Then the couple went around the circle, hugging each guest and thanking them for coming. I thought it was a gracious approach to signal the party was over, and to send guests on their way.
Bumping this to ask about your experiences with reserving room blocks at area hotels? This is one of the tasks that was delegated to me twice before; I hoped it would take a week to get it locked up for d3, getting married next July. It took 3 weeks. Each time I found it difficult to get a response from hotel sales managers, whether I emailed, phoned, or filled out the online proposal request form.
Apparently both theknot.com and weddingwire.com offer online services that say they’ll negotiate for the best rate for hotel blocks. I prefer to do this myself and am happy to report success - rooms for up to 60 guests at a nice Hilton Garden Inn for $104 a night, and rooms for up to 50 at a Hyatt House for $159. I’d pay that much for the Hyatt - the rooms are quite large, will sleep a total of 4 comfortably in a 2-room suite, provide a full kitchen, living room area, and free breakfast to order.
I know some people will think both choices are too expensive and some will think neither is ritzy enough. But those folks are welcome to book rooms wherever they’d like. The venue is more than half an hour away from the hotels, which are within a couple of miles of each other, so we’ve hired buses to get people back and forth. I hope most people will find this enjoyable (though there are sure to be some who don’t).
That sounds wonderful and I’m sure your guests will be THRILLED that you are providing buses. The rates seem very reasonable. How much of a discount does that represent? (It is helpful to know what kind of discounts people are able to negotiate).
Just curious – How far in advance do people need to book the rooms to get the negotiated rates? Also, is there a minimum number of rooms that have to be booked to get the negotiated rates?