So the reason I'm back on this site (after falling off the dieting wagon-yipes!) is that I want to lose weight because I'm getting married in a year and a half. It's super exciting and i'm scared to death. I don't know how we're going to afford a wedding, all of the venues in my area are insanely expensive. I'm going to make all the food myself and even the cake (I'll have my culinary degree by the beginning of next year) and i've already paid for my dress, but theres so much to do, soooooooooo i'm stressed about losing the weight and making the money. GRR! Thanks for listening to me rant. Good luck all you fellow dieters<3

There are cheaper options! While I did have mine at a reception center, we did all of the decorations ourselves. My flowers were from a grocery store - although, I should add that the person who ran the floral department did have her own store, but through personal circumstances no longer had it. My to be sister-in-law was also store manager, so there was a discount as well.

If you want an outdoor wedding, there are city parks (at least in my state) that you schedule parties for for free or minimal cost.

Try NOT to stress, but enjoy your special day! You may not even want to make the food yourself (maybe prep and have someone else cook it) because that would be SUPER stressful. I made my husband's cake the night before and I couldn't imagine cooking on my wedding day!

My fiance wants to get married outside, but I want to get married in a church, though none around here will marry anyone whose not a member and the churches around here are kinda scary.

I was planning on just doing the prep work and then having my bridesmaids help with the cooking. We're going to have fifty people, so not too many, but still a lot. I'm trying not to stress, but I don't really have much help and I started out with six bridesmaids and now I'm down to three because my friends all became crazy.

So... can't you rent the church space and have someone else officiate?

50 is nice a small -- very manageable. I knock of a dinner like that annually with 2 other friends. Key is planning things that can be made ahead and keep nice. What's your menu?

Take deep breaths and relax. Your union is the important thing, not the reception party foofoo. It's fun to have of course, but it's NOT about the after party. YKWIM? It's ok if you need to let go of some things on the menu/not making it yourself.

Hang in there!

A.

My friend who was getting married tried that and they won't let non-members get married. It's ridiculous and the ones that do charge almost as much as other venues and you still have to get a separate reception site.
I haven't planned the menu yet, I still have a while so I haven't really done much of the planning. Plus his sister's wedding is in a few months so I'm not doing anything until after that (we already bought the same dress and it became a big problem-she changed her dress in the end).
My friends are telling me not to do the cooking and the cake myself because it's not fair so my Man of honor says he'll do it which is sweet and he's helped me a lot with the thing i've done so far (wedding expo and dress shopping and dealing with the evil bridesmaids). My fiance is no help at all, he won't even settle on who is going to be his best man or who he wants to invite (he has a really big family) so i'm just putting it off untill the last minute. lol Thanks for the advice and listening to me rant<3

I DEFINITELY relate!! I just got engaged 3 weeks ago and our date is this Halloween O_o an we are broke broke broke too. FYI Micheal's has DIY invitation sets fairly cheap thats about as far as Ive gotten so far lol

we did get lucky with locations for the ceremony and reception. The parks department here owns a lot of pretty places and the one we liked was 250 for 5 hours, on top of that my boyfriend has worked for a hotel for 5 years and they are letting us use one of the large meeting spaces for the reception for free

your best bet is thinking outside the box at least you have awhile to plan

Oh, Hobby Lobby has them too!! We got 4 boxes at their 50% wedding sale for $50. Sooo much cheaper than buying them already made/printed.

I'm engaged but I don't have a date set. We're trying to save money first and we're both not really in a rush...haha. I think my fiance proposed to stake his claim or something.

My family's in the wedding business, so maybe I can offer some tips for you to save some $$$

- Try to get married in the off months, during the winter. Everyone gets married in the Spring/Summer/Fall when the weather is nicer. The work for the wedding guys dries up in the winter and you might be able to get a deal. Though you're in Southern California so it may be different.

- With the venues, try to get a Thursday night if you can. Some of them offer this and while it might not be terribly convenient for your guests, you may save some $$$.

- Find a package deal if you want video and photos. Some studios do both and getting the same one to do both will save you money instead of hiring different people at different places. Plus you'll probably have people who can work together and make things run smoothly.

Do you know anyone with a large property? I went to a wedding in the bride's parents backyard. They rented tables, linens, etc, so they saved a huge amount on the venue, etc.

being engaged was such a crazy fun time especially since i had to do all the planning by myself! my finace at the time was in another state doing his first year of grad school.

funny thing about weddings. you can plan and plan and plan, and snafus will happen. every married person i know, especially the women, can list all the things that 'went wrong' at their ceremony. mine personally?

- the flowers were the wrong color
- the pastor forgot to include the hymn
- my parents were listed as parents of the groom, and his as parents of the bride
- i dropped the base of the candle when we were lighting the unity candle
- i had to bite my tongue cause i almost had a serious fit of giggles.
- all of the groomsmen were in different style of jackets because the tux place messed up
- my brother had to step in as a groomsman, without a tux, wearing his air force dress blues
- my hair refused to curl like i wanted it to
- the lady that hemmed my maid of honor's dress, well, didn't. it was still super long
- and to top it all off, we were late to the church because we got stuck on the way cause we forgot to get gas the night before and the place we stopped didn't take credit cards.

but you know what? i still believe i had a perfect wedding, because at the end of the day the marriage certificate was signed and officiated and we were married, which was the whole point. also, as far as everyone attending that didn't do the planning? they didn't know there were problems, and assumed it went off perfectly.

i know it's rough, but don't stress too much about little things. i used a lot of online places for things, favorfavor.com was one of my favorite for little knickknacks. my mother in law thanked me loudly for not turning into one of those women who acted like the wedding was more important than the marriage. and when the day arrived, everything could have gone wrong and i still would have been happy to claim "just married"... last thing that helped me was: don't stress about "high quality" for stuff that just needs to look pretty for a few hours. why spend 50 dollars for a name brand fancy thing when you can spend 10 for one that looks just as nice? people don't notice the little things like that, all they care about is the dress and "kiss the bride!"

good luck with your planning and your weight loss! enjoy the crazy, and look for good deals!

Thank you guys so much for your advice and comments! I feel so much better knowing I have people to talk to! I have my man of honor, but that's really it. My family and friends aren't really into the wedding thing so I don't have many people to talk to. (Most of my friends are either the 21 year old party girls or already married with kids or not in this state).

pnkrckpixikat: I'm jelly! I wish it was that easy to find a venue! You really didn't leave yourself much time to plan though! Yikes!!!! Have you decided on your theme or is halloween going to be your theme?

KatTheAmazon: That's a great deal!

sontaikle: I would have chosen a winter date and a thursday, but we decided to get married on a friday the 13th and this happens to be the one in 2013 so we couldn't resist so 9/13/13. Thank for the advice!

chubbybunny29: That would be a great idea, if we knew anybody with any land at all. Our family lives in track homes and our friends live either with their parents or yeah, with their parents...lol

konfyoozed- Wow! That sounds like an amazing and wonderful and crazy day! At least I don't have to worry about the maid of honor dresses since both of my maids of honor have backed out. At least I have my man of honor! A year and half before the wedding and i've already lost two out of my wedding party-doesn't bode well! lol I'm planning on getting little things at the dollar tree or something because that's what i do for all my events and things, I agree that if something is only going to look pretty for a few hours, why does it need to last beyond that! My fmil kinda scares me though, she's already been mad about the wedding because he didn't tell her we chose a date and she blamed me!

Yikes! @ the mil thing :s

halloween is our general theme, we both love this zombie song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPNqub966Tw

so its kind of our main theme, im using the art from the video for the save the dates and invites, and we are talking about getting some balloons printed up in our wedding colors with some of the art work too. we contacted the singer about permission but had no reply so we are crediting her and the artist and not worrying too much about it past that.

Yeah, I'm kinda scared of her. She seems nice when the whole family gets together, but there's always that feeling that she just doesn't like me. So I don't know what to do, I've tried bonding, but then when he didn't tell her the date she got pissed and said "i know your gf doesn't like me, but you could have told us" and when she found out we're engaged she asked if he wants to take care of me for the rest of his life. I would really like her if I could get over this whole feeling of her not liking me.

OMG this song is AMAZING! If your looking for more creepy love songs, definitely try Ludo- The horror of our love is really creepy, but totally awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNYbBEb3B8Y

Our theme is superstition, since we're getting married on Friday the 13th. With a little bit of Alice in Wonderland Madness thrown in. I have a weird obsession with Alice in Wonderland, especially it's darker representations.