I’m envious of Mom’s getting together. I’ve only met my daughters fiance’s parents once and they live several states away. We’ve still not talked on the phone. I’m not really a phone chatty person and from what my daughter has told me, her future MIL is not an on-line person. 
My parents and my husbands parents were good friends and we had vacations and Thanksgiving together. It was nice.
Me too @walkinghome ! When my oldest married, I didn’t meet the bride’s parents until just before the wedding. They live in another country and speak a language that I only learned in school (many decades earlier) so communication was limited. My son-in-laws parents speak English only as a second language and neither one currently drives, so again, we had only limited contact/communication. I will not meet the family of my daughter’s fiancee since they live in another country and will not be able to be here for the wedding.
Me three @walkinghome and @bookreader! However, MOG lives about 20 minutes away. FOG died several years ago and only sibling lives on the other coast. Prior to the engagement, I’d only met MOG once. She’s very introverted and according to my D, “weddings just aren’t her thing.” D & I took her out to lunch several weeks ago when her daughter was visiting. I’d hoped to discuss happy wedding things, since I don’t think she’s asked too much about the wedding plans. Instead, she and her daughter were at odds and the tension was palpable. The whole situation is pretty awkward. I feel badly for D and her fiancee that his side can’t seem to find the joy in all this.
Thanks for the rehearsal dinner ideas. I agree that D and fiancee shouldn’t have three pre-wedding events. I’m glad I have plenty of time to mull things over and maybe talk to the folks on H’s and my sides.
@MichaelNKat, I know I will be cheering regrets as well. 109 are invited, with space for 100. But if we get down to 75 we can save money by going with the smaller reception tent (outdoor wedding) plus fewer meals. Yes, I’m quite budget-conscious! How many of your invitees have not RSVP’ed yet?
I’m really glad my D and her fiancee are local, as we’re all having fun planning together. My other D is MOH and S is a groomsman and will also be the DJ/emcee, so they’re pretty enthusiastic. H is not quite as into it, but he sometimes gets involved.
The situation with MOG is a little odd. She’s local and I’ve known her for years. We get along well, so you’d think we’d be doing planning together. But she is a bit eccentric (in many ways) and is against the whole concept of marriage. When her S announced the engagement while they were all at dinner together, she said something like “Well, you know I’m against marriage on principle, but if you must get married I’m glad it’s to SnoozD.” D admitted to me she was a little hurt, but not really surprised. Similar situation to @Mansfield, but I hope MOG will come around at least enough to enjoy the wedding.
At first, it looked like we wouldn’t meet the bride’s parents until the rehearsal dinner. S and DIL didn’t like that idea, so they asked if we’d be willing to drive 3.5 -4 hours to meet her parents. Since her parents are divorced, that involved meeting her mother, her significant other and bride’s sisters for dinner, staying over at a hotel, and meeting her father and step-mother for lunch the next day, then driving home. We agreed to do this, and took off to do this the day after Thanksgiving 2014 (the wedding was a year ago). It went well, other than a highway accident (not us) on the way home that caused the highway to be closed. Our trip home took over 6 hours.
I’m glad we got to meet them in a more intimate setting than the rehearsal dinner or wedding would’ve been, but, other than holiday cards, we’ve had no contact with them since the wedding.
Just joining this thread - DD1 and fiance’ have set a date July 22, 2017 - have church and church hall reserved. She has a dress selected for us to order. Yikes. Fortunately H and I live only 100 miles away from her location. So I will be going back through this thread as I calm down. Still getting them into their jobs/careers which should settle out shortly. Won’t order the dress until that stuff happens. Deep breaths.
Congrats @SOSConcern ! The next 10 months will fly by! Especially after the first of the year!
My son and his new bride left on their honeymoon today. They’re flying to Cozumel, via Cancun on Southwest. They began boarding by asking if there were anyone was celebrating a special event. They let them board first and gave them a bottle of champagne. They probably should have checked their ids, as they are only 21 and 22, respectively.
@SOSConcern, welcome to the thread – your D and mine have the same date!
@toledo, the “honeymoon” glow must have been proof enough… Okay, probably not – good thing they are of age! I hope they have a great trip.
Has anyone been carded on an airplane? My kids sure haven’t.
Nice way to kick off the honeymoon, @toledo. I hope your son and DIL have a great time!
@SOSConcern, congrats! The fun begins!
Re: her dress…fwiw, when my D ordered hers (Aug, 2017 wedding)…they told her to allow for six months to receive…and then allow another two months for alterations (summer weddings are prime time). YMMV…
Thanks @gosmom - I want her to try on some dresses, and then go to a professional alteration place to measure her. That way, when the dress comes, she can go with minor alterations. The dress she wants is from Italy. She has a friend in Italy that can ‘make sure’ about the company. Under $2K. I believe we will want extra of the sheer fabric to make a veil. Not sure if she can use my headpiece, but maybe we can find something else on the headpiece too.
Here is the dress: http://ameliasposa.it/catalog/item-94/
I think my DD was disappointed when I told her I believe we need to have the wedding be planned for about 100 people. Fiance’ and she have to set up a meeting with the priest (who she saw briefly today), who hopefully will waive or drastically reduce the hall fee; church was supposed to be waived as parishioner, but priest needs to tell their wedding planner - wedding planner said $1500. We can’t have half the budget already spent on dress and overhead! H is still nervous if he has a job into next year (H is 5 years from retirement). We are drawing from retirement money - we are over 60 so no penalty.
We can move on the dress as soon as DD gets hired into her RN/BSN job. She recently passed the national nursing exam, and where she wants to work needed her to be RN and not just Graduate Nurse.
I want to get a feel on the big budget items. DD is pressuring for a budget number. I threw out a number to her, and asked H - hopefully we can have a nice thing well within that budget.
Do you need a wedding planner? That could be one way to save $.
Nice dress but I wonder if its worth looking to see if you can get a similar look for less. Might be worth checking.
@SOSConcern, that’s a lovely dress but I’m worried about buying that style online because of the close-fitting sleeves. The sleeves are very elegant, but I wonder whether they restrict the bride’s ability to move her arms. If your daughter can’t dance and can’t hug people with the dress on because the sleeves are too restrictive, will she care?
The trouble with buying the dress online is that she can’t try it on and see how much she can move her arms before ordering it. It might be safer to buy a similar dress in a bridal shop.
The dress is GORGEOUS. But I’d be nervous too with it coming so far away. You mentioned July for the wedding, right? And she still wanted long sleeves?
Really do think about the budget - there are so many costs and components - you don’t want to feel out of the budget before you barely begin! Wedding stress!!!
@SOSConcern LOVE that dress!
Veils are a big rip off, IMO. Does she want a veil? The dress has such a pretty back, and if she wears her hair up like the model, she may not need. Just a thought…
The church has a wedding planner that we have to pay $250. Included in their 10 page wedding guideline. I imagine she is on some kind of PT paid position with the church. List of stipends sure does cut into budget.
DD will need to find out if the dress lace is stretchy or not. Good comments. Also good for the professional alteration person doing measurements to write up very specifics so dress can be made correctly. I am familiar enough with measurements with mom having been a professional seamstress (3 years Swiss apprenticeship).
If at church and church hall, bride won’t be outside at all in the dress. In A/C so dress should be OK. She really likes the look and modesty. She has to decide if she wants to blow so much of her budget, or if she can find something she likes versus ‘loves’. I am fine with her having this dress, but it is a risk coming from Italy if it isn’t made right to the measurements.
Wedding cake needs to be made with goat’s milk and no regular dairy (use margarine instead of butter) due to genetic allergy of future SIL and some of his family members. He can have soy, but really need a baker who can have a good tasting cake with this constraint. Otherwise we need a groom’s cake made with the goat’s milk??
DD has many components that are reasonable for a small wedding. I am most concerned with having very good food at reception within reasonable cost after the overhead. I will write a letter to the Bishop if needed (if some of the unnecessary overhead doesn’t get reduced or waived). I think wedding planner thinks she is doing her job, but does have me upset because I was not there to find out specifically about having the priest consider ‘the rules’.
Regarding cakes, I attended a wedding where the cake was very small, and only the bride and groom cut and ate it. The rest of the guests went through the dinner buffet and ate the fabulous pies that the restaurant was known for. The cake was homemade, minimally decorated, and was really just for the photo op of the cake cutting.
I would suggest you get a smaller cake made for the bride and groom to cut and eat, and then you can get less expensive sheet cake for guests. Or offer some other desserts that could more easily be adjusted to the allergies of groom’s family.
I think trying to make a large scale wedding cake that both looks and tastes good while avoiding the allergens might be an expensive and nerve racking endeavor. Our family deals with allergies, and we are used to substituting and having to eat things that seem slightly “off” due to the lack of real milk. But for all of your regular guests without allergies, they may grumble about having to eat goat’s milk cake.
Yes I really do think we need two cakes - the groom’s cake can be for those w/o regular dairy.
I would think it would be easy to make a cake that fits the parameters. Plenty of cake recipes contain zero milk at all. I think most baked goods are best with butter but that’s an easy fix as well using margarine, oil (like carrot cakes!) or coconut oil. Vegan cakes are made without eggs which makes it harder to make them taste good but with eggs allowed and just no milk/no butter, I don’t think it would be challenging at all. For frostings, traditional european meringue frostings often do not have butter.