Who Plans The Wedding?

[Libby]

Going through the wedding planning process has been an eye opening experience for DF and I.

I'm just curious to see who actually plans the wedding? The bride and groom? The parents? Both parents and bride & groom? Baiscally is it planned by those paying? Who planned yours?

In our case - we're paying for our own wedding, not asking for one cent from my dad. We want him to show up and be a guest. As a parent he wants to add input so to make him feel included we've added a few traditions into our wedding. We have regular discussions about things and well, so far it's worked

Now that we're getting closer to the actual day as he keeps stating (its still 4 months away ) he's suddenly come up with 'things we need to do'. Its a long laundry list and a lot of it we're not going to be doing b/c (1) we never planned on doing anything of the sort and (2) its not in our budget. We've already tweaked the budget a few times to accommodate a few traditions but we're not willing to go overboard like he's asking. We secretly think he's trying to force these traditions and 'extras' on us due to me being the last one to be married off and my 3 older siblings bucking any form of tradition and doing what they wanted for their weddings. That's 5 weddings between the 3 of them and not once did he try to put tradition on any of them. Nice huh?

Who knew that dad could be such a bridzilla?!

[krbshappy71]

I don't have experience with this as I eloped but what comes to mind is to treat it like any other event you may have planned that he tries to jump in on, say a Road Trip. "we should, you should, you oughta...." comments can be treated with, "thanks for the input, I'll think about that." "I'm not sure if we'll do that but its a neat idea", "I'll write that down and discuss it with my man"

But then I'm a very avoidance type person.

[frugal is fun]

We paid for our own wedding and I planned my wedding with a little input from DH. Although as it got closer and things were being confirmed thats when DH wanted to give his input. Um NOT! too late.

My mother on the other hand added more people than I would have preferred to the list. I don't remember any big brawls but I know it was a bit uncomfortable for a week or two.

My parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and I think his parents just gave us money.

I totally think its better to pay for your own wedding if at all possible because then you make the decisions based on your budget, not based on some crazy scheme some else thinks is a great idea and now you're torn because they are paying.

Bottom line, its your wedding and your budget, do what you are comfortable with and try to explain nicely to dad that its just not going to work.

[Darlene]

Should be the bride and groom especially if they are paying. If parents want to chip in I'd just give them an amount and let them choose how they want to spend it. Do not give money with strings ever, just leads to no good.
Dd is engaged & planning hers.. I will not be a buttinski mother.
We got married by the mayor and his Mom put together a nice luncheon just for immediate family. Was lovely, no stress for anyone & I'm still married to the same guy since 1984.

[pollypurebred39]

My Mother, myself and my DH planned ours. That said, there wasn't much to plan, it was more like a baby shower then an actually wedding. I'm sure if it had been bigger my Mother would have had lots more ideas.

[frugalwarrior2]

I planned ours. We paid for it on our own.
-Got a dress at a resale shop that carried new wedding samples.
-Got invites printed at a small print shop
-DH rented a tux
-Got hall rental for $100. as my MOH had a MIL who was president of the ladies group. Food incl. (VFW Hall)
-MIL paid for booze
-no rehearsal dinner/no family from out of town
-Cake small bakery $100.
-bridesmaid dresses from the same shop
-MOH dress Wards catalog
-Photographer was a friend (his gift to us)
-no DJ. Just played some music
-did my own hair
-made the bouquets from flowers I bought
-made the table favors
-used my DU's church/pastor $45
I'd say we spent about $1000-$1500. for 100 guests.
We bought bird seed and drove off in our own car. Actually made money from the wedding. We went to Canada w/ a 40% exchange.
The 2 arguements were how many people his family could invite
and Dmom didn't like the way I worded my announcements. Not too bad.

I was shocked my Dmom wasn't interested in helping plan. And DH getting a tux was huge for him.lol

[Contrary Housewife]

DH and I planned (and paid for) the whole thing ourselves. That consisted of me asking what he wanted and him saying "I don't really care, it's supposed to be your day, whatever you want." I did run things by him, though, like the date and location. We had a fairly simple (nondenominational) chapel service with a judge and a restaurant dinner after.

I asked my MIL if there were any wedding traditions she wanted to incorporate and she said no. No other advice was asked or given. My family offered nothing, no money or advice. Kind of sad in retrospect. My mom asked if they were 'supposed to do anything at the ceremony'. I had already decided I was not going to be walked down the aisle, what we did is I went halfway and DH came up and met me and took me to the altar, kind of symbolic of our relationship. (And I don't think he could have waited, lol) But I had my father offer the first toast at the reception, which I think is traditional.

I think maybe your father is looking to be INVOLVED in your wedding, maybe he is feeling the loss of his last little girl extra hard. So he's offering suggestions, trying to be part of the planning and activity. Maybe you could work with him to find him a task to be responsible for, something to do at the wedding, something to be in charge of at the reception?

I kind of wish our families had wanted to be more involved in our wedding.

[FrabjousDay]

My parents let me know how much they would contribute towards our wedding, and I planned our budget around that amount. His parents also contributed a set amount towards the rehearsal dinner. I did the majority of the planning with some help from family and friends. My loved ones know how particular I am.

[jas]

For my first wedding my dad and his gf pretty much planned it. I do know I did pick the colors. I guess the church too. Dad picked out the reception place and the food. I had no experience with any of it and I guess my dad's gf took the ball and ran with it. ex-dh's parents hired some little band that was terrible. Good thing I didn't know that much about weddings, It was fine and we all had a good time. The marriage didn't last.

I am sure it would have been different if my mom had still been alive. She died 3 years earlier.

My second wedding dh and I paid for most of it. I would have eloped being it was my second. We had small wedding though to please his parents I guess. Small chapel wedding, reception at his parents house. They have a really nice house though. His parents paid for the food, which was more like meat and cheese plates, fruit plates ect. A good friend of mine had her aunt make the cake it was really nice.

We got married around the holidays so his parents had the house decorated and I just went with red.

[imagine]

My parents paid for wedding

My dad only put input into what the ringbears gift was as it was his friend's grandchild. He also decided and shopped for what would be severed at the friends and family reception at our house.

Hubby decided what the tux would look like, what the groom's cake would look like and he requested no organ music and no singing.

Everything else I got to plan with my mom's approval.

I picked my dress with in my mother's strict rules with her shopping with me and final approval.
I made my bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquet my mom wanted the smell of real flowers so those she picked.
My mom said invitations had to be plain white with black embossed letters she compermised and I had white invitations with embossed white flowers on it and gray embossed lettering.
She picked the cake had to be all white.
She decided she "wouldn't let me walk down the aisle without eye shadow" so I picked out a very light color. She made sure I had it on before I walked down the aisle .

Come to think about it the only thing I totally got to pick out or get completely what I wanted was the Groom.

I was the one of the best days ever.

[MissSeetonFan]

There are all sorts of websites that will tell you who traditionally takes care of which aspects of the ceremony, reception, etc.... That being said, my dh and I planned and paid for everything except maybe travel by others, and the bridesmaids dresses.

[Libby]

We're having a very small & intimate ceremony - max 25 people. Its going to be a one stop shop that provides the ceremony venue, decor, officiant, light hors doeuvres, drinks, cake, photographer for 2 hours. Its just what I wanted. All I need to do is show up dressed and ready to roll with my own bouquet and marriage license. Full ceremony and reception done. We were not planning on giving favors but then dad chimed in and is basically forcing us to do so. (more info below)

We've decided to have a second reception via Chinese style banquet dinner - we honestly thought we'd just go out for dinner as a group and order the group menu. My dad basically freaked stating we need to order from the 'wedding banquet menu' - its the same menu that we had for his surprise 80th birthday party but 3x-4x the price *insert eye roll here* Again, we upped the ante to make him feel special and proud of his last child being married off especially in front of his family.

More things demanded by dad:
Wedding Favours We had not planned on having any and then dad super stressed the importance and tradition of giving the specific ones he wanted so we weren't going to deny him of tradition. Then we learned the cost - approx $25/person or family. He keeps bouncing between both options.

Hotel - dad says we need to each get our own rooms at two different hotels the night before so we can get ready there and see each other at the ceremony venue

Limo's x 2 - we also need two limo's (one for each of us) to drive us to the ceremony

We have since kiboshed the hotel and limo's and have explained to dad that we don't feel that tradition is applicable to us. We both plan on getting ready here at home and if need be, in the same room. I will have my hair and make up done at home as well and then DF and I will drive ourselves to the ceremony venue first ahead of everyone to set things up.

All thats left to do is find our wedding attire and commission it to be made, figure out the wedding favours and obtain the license. Oh maybe squish in a hair and make up trial before the big day as well. Everything else is done and paid for!

Thank goodness for having a budget and saving for this day in advance. DF gave me a budget and I immediately cut it in half and used that instead - this way we can afford to go over on some things - but only if we really need to.

As for dad - I'm not sure how else to include him into this b/c there's not really much room to include anyone except the bride and groom - this is specifically why we chose to have a very small and intimate ceremony. We don't want to inconvenience anyone by asking them to be a part of the bridal group, we just want them to attend and be a guest and enjoy our special day. I do plan on having dad walk me down the aisle and be my witness - both of these things he knows

[Mrs K]

Well, Dh and I planned and paid for the whole thing. We chose not to involve our family specifically to avoid situations where we would be forced to do something we didn't want.
As an example, MIL is very religious (catholic) but we didn't want to get married in a church or by a priest. We knew she wouldn't be happy with our choice, so we didn't actually discuss it, we just said what we were going to do and that's it.

It might seem disrespectful or cold hearted, but we knew what we wanted and decided that it was our day, so we would do what we wanted. Paying for the whole thing also helped out with that; kind of "I'm paying, I'm deciding" type of thing.

I also decided not to invite my half sister from whom I'm estranged. I know it made my dad sad, but I took time to explain it to him and I believe he understood where I came from, and accepted it.

In planning your wedding, I think it's important you put yourselves first; this is YOUR day! You should enjoy it, and I feel you should get to decide how it's going to "go down".

I know I'm not being much help but, still, enjoy every bit of the planning and of the day! Great memories to be made!

[Libby]

Mrs K - we're trying to do something similar along of what you did but we're trying to incorporate dad into it to show respect. I just find it very odd that he chose NOW to become a bridezilla whereas he had 5 previous wedding opportunities where he could've stepped in as well. I did speak with my siblings and they've all informed me that they never really asked dad for anything but money (not all did though) nor did he interject with any form of tradition....which leads me to believe that he's dumping it all on me as I'm the last one to be wed.

[mndtrp]

My wife and I planned ours, with input from my mother when we asked her. We payed for our own wedding, and we put our foot down on a lot of things our parents wanted. My mom simply said "ok", her mom brought things up over and over again.

My family did reimburse us for our wedding, because they paid for my sister's wedding a couple of years earlier. My parents try to keep monetary things equal between us, but we didn't plan on this money. Our wedding was under $3500, and I think my sister's wedding was a bit more.