Well, I did, but for good reason. I was too young and lacking self esteem and was more into the wedding planning than the marriage planning. Three days before my first wedding, I was sobbing, all alone in my apartment, because I realized I was about to marry someone who I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with. I was just at the point where my self esteem and self worth was high enough that I was realizing how emotionally abusive he was to me. I didn't know how to stop the wedding machine at that point (huge, formal, very expensive wedding) so I went through with it. 14 months later, I was divorced. If even one person had said "You can still back out of this", I would have at that point. But, I was really afraid to say anything to anybody. I thought my parents would be pissed off for all the money they spent, etc. As a parent now, I realize that, while you might initially say "What???", you wouldn't care about the money lost if it would keep your child from being miserable.. or worse, abused.

If you get serious jitters, please do some thinking about why. If it's just nervousness about the day, ok, that's normal. If you're seriously freaking about taking those vows with that person, please re-evaluate.

Several years later, when a friend was clearly marrying the wrong person for her and I was standing up in her wedding (she had been my maid of honor.. twice), at the rehearsal, I took her aside and said "You don't have to do this if you're not sure about it" and told her about how I had felt just before marrying my first husband. She said "No, I'm sure, this is what I want". She was filing for divorce 3 months later.

This is just SOOOO important! I didn't have jitters, but halfway through the actual ceremony, I looked at my now-ex, and visualized me hitting him with my bouquet and walking out of the church.

Oh, the money I would have saved - to say nothing about my sanity!!

We are going to do donations, but with a twist. We are going to give our guests choice of three or four charities. Then based on that is how much we are going to donate to each charity.

I can't tell you how many favors I have gotten that have ended up in the trash or a drawer somewhere.

We had our reception in the Celestial Seasonings Tea Room in Boulder, so I gave out a sample bag of tea, a book of matches (with our name and date of wedding) and a scented tea light candle, all bundled together in tulle. I made up some saying about us that went along with all that, but can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Someone on here said earlier that donations were kind of a slap in the face to your guests. Along the line of, we thought about giving you something but decided on this instead. I had never thought of it that way but now I'm leaning towards something small and edible possibly instead of spending too much on favors that wont' get used. Though, Jonathan liked the idea of a pretty silver wine bottle stopper... I'm thinking some nice chocolates in a cute little box.... I mean, our guests are already guests at a nice party, and not to sound selfish, but it's about US darn it!

I like that idea. You should put cupcakes in little boxes as the favor. Everyone likes cupcakes! (Well I do, and if I get married will probably have this as my favor :) )

I adore this idea.

I'm a big fan of edible or otherwise useable favors, instead of some stupid little trinket. We're doing chocolate golf balls and we're going to get some golf tees made and make an arrangement of some sort. Our reception is at a golf club and we're both golfers. And then we're going to have chinese takeout boxes for the cookie table.

i just came from a soror's wedding (my LS, actually) and the groom had a cake made to look like the Kappa shield/crest. i think she shouldve gotten an SGRho cake, but she didnt want it. something about it being too overboard. sigh.:p

then again this wedding was 100+, and in addition there was a wedding cake plus cake that had already been served. so i dunno. he may really enjoy a chess-designed cake.

I'm getting ready to visit America...because my brother is getting married in 3 weeks (yaaaaaaay!). Because I've lost a significant amount of weight since moving to Scotland...none of my nice dresses fit (as in, unalterably). Mom also mentioned that she'd help me buy it as a belated birthday present.

The deal with their wedding is:
-3.30 pm, Saturday
-Ceremony is at their (gorgeous!) college chapel
-Reception is at a nice resort nearby.
-I believe I am meant to do a reading, so presentation is a liiiittle more important this time round.

Things I don't want in a dress:
-Strapless. While strangely, my body can pull this off quite well, it annoys me and I want to be dancing. Plus the whole church thing...there's no rule against it but i feel super weird wearing a strapless dress in a church...like wearing a club outfit to high tea with the queen?
-Halters. Really, really unflattering on me.
-Floor length. It's going to be really warm in the chapel, plus I'm clumsy. But for the right dress, I can make exceptions.

Things I do want:
-Tea length.
-Bright colors...yellows, tuquoises, orange, etc. Black and red are pretty much out, and her bridesmaids are wearing a sort of celery green, so I'd prefer not to wear that (plus it isn't a good color on me either).
-Relatively cheap.

This is what I've come up with so far as contenders:
Monsoon Tellulah (adore the color and the length. worried about the ruching on the bodice. Also, 65 pound for a dress...is a lot of USD. Upside: I can go and try it on in the store before I leave Scotland). Also, is this too "day casual" for a wedding?
http://www.monsoon.co.uk/invt/25228136

Another monsoon dress, that I love more than words...except for the 180 pound (360usd) pricetag.
http://www.monsoon.co.uk/invt/25230865

Then there's JCrew...which might also be out of my budget (and I want to tell that model to stand up straight!)
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product...atId=cat302205
I love the blue in this one:
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product...atId=cat302205

Nordstroms webpage is down at the moment, but I found a few on there that would fit. Does anyone have some suggestions, or heck, even store recommendations? I'm beginning to forget American retailers now!

So, I am in a panic. Just realized this early moring I have four months to my wedding, and I am so behind in planning. (Yeah, remind me after the wedding how crazy it was of us to decide to buy a house also.) I feel like a terrible bride right now, mid-panic attack. ARGH!

Just needed to get that off my chest.

I think it depends how big your regular cake is. If your wedding cake is small and you just do a few sweets (one of each for each guest or something) and get a small grooms cake, it'd be fine. If you're getting a giant wedding cake and planning on making 200 cookies, another cake would probably be too much.

I ordered this for a wedding a few years ago and the fabric laid really weird on me -it's sort of a shiny cotton. Have you looked at the J.Crew sale section at all? They usually have some decent deals in there on the website and your mom could always order it and you two could take it back if it doesn't work!

Phoenix, I've been looking for dresses to wear to an upcoming wedding recently too--here are a few that I thought were promising:

Nice color, but is it too close to a halter top?
http://www.anntaylor.com/catalog/pro...=Misses#ATLtop



Again, love the color, but it definitely strikes me as the kind of dress that you absolutely must try on first.
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse...292&pid=579328

Same color, maybe too casual?
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse...292&pid=564546


Available in several colors
http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2989011/...bo=6014189&P=1




http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2970228/...bo=6014189&P=1

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2901136?...origin=related




Also, I tend to have really good luck with Lord & Taylor's dresses, but the website was being tempermental. They can be pricey, but they have fabulous sales from time to time and do carry some affordable lines.