See I'm having kinda an opposite problem.... my budget is slightly larger than my friends' who have gotten married recently, and I feel like they think I'm "crazy" for spending what I am, or like trying to "one up them" when really my fiancee and I are just very lucky to have both of our parents contributing, and have a connection at our venue.

You've put that so sweetly, I don't think anyone but the most pitifully jealous person would have a problem with what you have. I surely wouldn't!

I'm sort of wedding challenged. I lost my girl card somewhere about 3rd grade and never re-applied for membership. I really just don't have it in me to do the "best" and the "biggest". It's not us. When we were venue shopping, I got hives going into country clubs, like they looked at me as if I should be the maid. F that noise, my money's just as green as the next. Finally found a place that's close, affordable, fun, and thankfully non-fussy.

The "big stuff" we took care of this summer before I left for Scotland. Church, Pre-Marriage classes per the church, venue, caterer, florist (friend of FH's and literally next door to the church, and the most reasonable in the area...complete score!), cake, dress, BM's and their dresses, decided on groom/groomsmens wear (well...kinda. They're all wearing black suits for the "wearable after wedding/not wearing someone else's trousers to get married" factor. I'm still trying to drop hints to get him in a kilt, but I don't think it will happen. Ah well, there's always Burns Night), we're building our Ipod playlist (complete and utter control of the music...muwahaha! Nice big band stuff for dinner, and fun/funky stuff for after), and our photographer is working for food/accommodations and the right to use our images for promotion (heck yea!).

The boy and I are still trying to decide on invitations. We've seen a bunch that we like, but the thing is, between the two of us we've got enough desktop publishing experience to create an empire. So I think we may be stealing a concept, using his web developer skillz/passwords for images/illustrations, and designing them ourselves and printing them through vistaprint.com. $500 for paper?! are ye kidding me? I could understand if it was your Doctoral diploma (maybe) but for Pete's sake, it's an invitation that most people throw in the bin the minute they get back from the reception. Nope. Not doing it.

I dunno, I look at Platinum Weddings and that other show, what's it called, on Style? and I think to myself, "christ, they're spending the GDP of a small nation on this wedding!"

OK I'll jump on the wedding bandwagon today. Last weekend in our paper it listed a couple who got married and the announcement said something like "they went on a mini-moon to Mexico". WTH??? Mexico doesn't qualify as a real honeymoon now? It's not "good enough"? I just thought that was a bit much.

Weddings are too "over the top" lately and I love it when people who aren't fresh outta college request "in lieu of gifts please bring a donation for xxx or a wrapped gift for spouse abuse shelter, etc."
When I see the Celebrity Weddings or Rich Bride shows I want to barf. One girls dad spent over 2 million and IMO she would have better served society if she had a $1M wedding and gave $1M for the poor Southern counties who have no tornado sirens etc.

Phoenix, I want your photographer!!!!

And what's the consensus on IPODing it vs having a DJ vs a live band...?

You missed my favorite:
http://www.disneybridal.com/spring20...ess=cinderella & click on Style KKC3. For some reason I'm technologically slow today.

I don't get what this 1) has to do with Cinderella and 2) how it escaped from 1989. I know the 80s are "back," but this is truly heinous.

We're very very lucky to have him, he's been a huge blessing. He made a very generous offer to do this to begin his career as a wedding photographer. He's previously worked in corporate photography, so he knows his way around a camera, and he's got a particular interest in doing Catholic weddings. I'll let you know how it turns out!

I'd love to have a live band, particularly, I'd love to have a ceilidh band (for traditional Scottish dancing...think square dance but with kilts and more fun) or a band that FH and I have gone to see a lot, called Corn Beef and Curry (traditional Irish music). We've got a lot of Irish/Scottish stuff mixed in because of our heritage, because we got engaged in Ireland, because I live(d) in Scotland/Ireland. However, both of these options can be quite pricey! We thought about maybe doing the Ipod for dinner on big band stuff (for my grandfather), then after dinner, switching to ceilidh dancing, then back to the Ipod for general boogying down. The problem with ceilidh dancing is that you've got to get people to participate. Thankfully it's almost always instructed by the musicians, like a caller would do, and I think people would be down with the novelty factor.

LegallyBrunette, you are absolutely right. I don't know how I could have missed THIS:
http://www.disneybridal.com/spring20...mages/kkc3.jpg

Truly the worst.

ETA: I keep trying to figure out what it reminds me of... I think it is a cross between the fairy godmother (which would definitely be on the cinderella theme) or one of those fairies from sleeping beauty?

^^^OMG is that a skirt or poofy shorts????

If it's culottes I'm going to DIE. The 80's are not THAT back.

I think the theme is "Ugly Stepsister"