Relax. Breathe.

The thing that makes planning a wedding a big job is that it is planning a big party for a lot of people.

But you are having at most 11 guests, not including your children. With that small a group, two months is plenty of time. Maybe too much time -- you are getting yourself into a state over it!

I think you probably know that there is no way anyone can tell you "how a ceremony goes." There are all kinds of ceremonies. Talk to the officiant who will be performing yours; s/he will help you plan the ceremony and make sure all the necessary elements are present.

Take the pictures whenever it is convenient.

I would think a huge dress would seem sort of out of proportion for this tiny wedding; I would go for the more sophisticated look of a terrific springtime dress. But if it is your romantic dream and you want to spend the money, go ahead -- you aren't hurting anyone. I had a friend who bought an absolute Cinderella ball gown, with sparkling jewelry and shoes, for the dinner the night BEFORE her wedding -- and they were just going to a regular table at a not very fancy restaurant. I thought the personal shopper at the store who talked her into it really saw her coming, and the other patrons in the restaurant must all have done double takes, but what the heck, she felt like a princess.

I am am curious why you are planning on having a tiny wedding now and sort of another, big one later (what you are calling the vow renewal). Why not just do it all at once?

Make whatever kind of veil compromise works best with your husband. Maybe a tiny blusher veil would be enough for him, and it is traditionally more appropriate anyway for a third marriage. If you are wearing a spring dress rather than a big gown, you can tell him that really just a little blusher veil would look a lot better anyway. And don't worry -- you can see through them!

Best wishes to you for a lovely wedding and a happy marriage.

I like gellcom's reassuring advice. For a dress, I would wear a simpler wedding dress --a tea length or floor length straight dress or A line rather than the full fairy princess wedding dress. There are lots of gorgeous straight wedding dresses. A shorter veil will do the job too, and maybe possibly you could talk him into compromising with the veil not pulled over your face at all. If he wants it pulled over your face, it will still be quite lovely and if you don't use lots of layers to your veil, the photographs will still show your face. From our experience at our DDs wedding (her veil was off her face), few photographs are made of the bride's face at the time when she wears the veil over her face. Lots of those shots are long shots to show the scene.

Actually, you have done all the big decisions already. Now it is just up to you to work on them. Where are you planning to hold the reception? If you or a family member has a nice home, the reception could be there either in a garden, or patio, or home itself. I would arrange for some music to be playing in the background to give it that special flair. The minister will have great suggestions for the ceremony itself. The photographer can shoot candids all day or you can arrange for a formal shoot before and after the ceremony with candids done at the reception. This photographer will certainly cost much more than your entire budget, however.

Thanks ladies.

The reception will be in the church also, in another room. My boyfriend emailed me pics of the two rooms, it's like a meeting room. Simple, but nice.

Getting married now cause we love each other. Plus, he's basically been shunned from his family by everyone but his grandmother. She's very ill, and honestly probably isn't going to live very long, and she's the ONLY one on his side of the family who isn't holding my past against us. And it's very important for him that she's there. I understand, and honestly, I don't want to be engaged for a year or two.

I think I'm going to go with a simple dress, like either a white bridesmaid dress or a spring time dress. This dress is what I'm thinking of.

Here is a link that might be useful: dress

That dress is gorgeous! I think it is perfect.

Will add my input as I've been married a few times.

I've done the hall thing with the JOP with a JC Penney wedding dress, tea length. It looked great on me.

I always longed for a wedding dress though & when I met my current hubby, we went back & forth on how we wanted to get married. Neither of us had anything like a "real" wedding and decided that we'd like to have nice photos to look back on.

I started looking for a dress. Had no clue what I wanted. I went to a few snobby wedding dress stores, then found a small shop in a nearby little town. The owner & I really clicked. She let me look at everything and humored me when I tried on 30 dresses. I always went back to the 1st one though and since it was a sample, she gave me an awesome price (think it cost $600)

We wanted a rose garden. I made multiple posts on various GW forums looking for the perfect spot & went down to FL, visiting Cypress Gardens & Harry P Leau. We decided on Cypress. They had a package for about $1,000, which included flowers and use of the gazebo, entry for a certain amount of people, plus someone to marry us. Also included were pictures. All in all, including my dress, his morning tux (think that's what it was called) plane tickets, hotel & the flowers I bought from Walmart & put together, we spent under $2,000.

We made the day about us & I'll tell you we had a really good time. I uploaded pics to my picasa account if you're interested. There may be doubles as I didn't check. The gown I had is beaded everywhere and could have had an underskirt to make it fuller but it would be too full for our day. Not nuts about the veil but it worked. I would change it if I had to do it again. We wrote our own vows using cards we'd given each other, so they were really special. He said a line, then I said a line. As you can see in our photos, we are laughing and smiling. The day really reflected us. We had no family there.. the people in the photos are GW members that live down there.

Your FH (future hubby) has not had a wedding, so please think about this. Just because you are going to use a church hall doesn't mean you can't do something like we did. We also said we were going to redo it at a later date so that everyone could be there but never did, we've been married for 6 years now. Make this one count just in case.

One thing my photos don't show are my shoes. I have a bad back and since hubby & I are the same height, decided to find sneakers (like Keds), then I took the excess lace from my dress after being altered and used Fabrictac (quick setting invisible glue from Rag Shop) to glue it on the sneaks. I'll have to see if I can find the pics to add, they came out really good.

The dress you picked is cute. If you decide to go with a true wedding dress, you can change into it at the reception.

I'm going to past in a few dress styles, see if you like something. They are not overly done dresses but pretty & say "wedding", some are not as flashy as mine.
First
2nd
3rd
4th
5th, simple with bow
Sweetheart w Spaghetti Straps
simple w/ capped sleeves

another simple w/ bow
beaded capped sleeves
simple, pretty dress
pretty, simple & elegant
another beautiful dress, love the veil too
reminds me of my dress without as much beading

Hope I didn't over load you with dresses as I love looking at them! Maybe you'll see something or your FH will and it will help you decide which direction to take this. As you see there are various types of dresses that aren't too poofy and over-done but will allow you & your FH to have it feel like a wedding when you look back as it sounds like this is what he wants.

btw, if you need help, I don't come here often, feel free to email me from my member page.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our wedding

I'm clueless to what kind of dress to wear. We're planning on renewing our vows and having a bigger wedding in the future. Is it appropriate to wear a huge dress? At first I was thinking a simple white springtime dress, and now I don't know. BF wants me to wear a veil, cause he wants to do the whole "lift the veil and kiss" part. Honestly, I don't want to wear a veil. I figure, I'm paying for a photographer, why do I want a veil in my face? Plus, I feel like I'm going to be "missing" out on the whole ceremony if I have something covering my face the whole time.

I've been thinking of your post most of the day; probably because you remind me of myself with being unsure. The fact that he's talking about a veil makes me wonder if you should seriously look at wedding dresses. I found the price of the one you linked to and see it's about $200. Keeping that in mind, I went to see what I could find.

I was curious about my dress, I remembered Sweetheart but couldn't find anything made by Sweetheart so I went and got the dress out and looked, it says Sweetheart Gown 2464. I then was able to find one place that still stocks them. I don't know anything about this place, but a lot of the dresses are classic The Bridal Shop, Sweetheart sale and they have a section where they sell the samples, so you can get a dress pretty cheap. I saw some a little over $100, with most being in the $200 or $300 range which isn't bad. If you look on the left, you'll see other gowns 50% off. Looks like they may even have matching dresses for your girls. I see a few that would work for you (price & not being poofy), and depending on the underskirt, it doesn't have to be as full as you see in the picture.

I had a lot of fun looking at dresses and need to get married again! lol

Princess Style Wedding Gown - similar to mine, less beading but $400. If you click the link to the left - 15% OFF Stock Dresses, they have cute dresses on sale.

Sweetheart satin embroidery A-line gown $200

I'm basically clueless, and we're trying to do the wedding for under $1000, since we're footing it ourselves. My boyfriend's parents and family will not be present, as they are not on speaking terms with us (long story short, we used to live in another state about 10 minutes from their house but they kept trying to break us up. They didn't like the fact that I have two kids already, I'm "ruining" their sons life, blah blah blah. Basically my boyfriend got sick of the drama, broke up with me. I came home to TX, and two weeks later he packed up and moved down here). So no family from his side going to be there. Sad, but what can you do?

I'm sorry, that stinks. It's a shame they can't look past the fact that you have 2 kids. These days it's getting hard to find a woman without kids when you get to a certain age. I have a step grand daughter and love her like she was my own blood; so I can't see how anyone couldn't.

Are you hoping that his family will eventually accept you is that why you may have something else later? IMO, $crew them. Do it for yourselves and make sure that you and your FH are happy.

Okay, I've gotten a lot done since I posted last. My mom and I went to David's Bridal, but I didn't see anything that looked like "me". So we decided for her to make me a dress. Cost us $58, and it's already done. Strapless, floorlength, slight flare at the bottom. White satin, with black bands around the top and under the bust, and three black bands on the bottom (one around my hips, one around my knees, and one around the bottom). VERY pretty, and felt like "me". I'm still iffy about a veil, but know that I'm going to do a rhinestone headband. Nothing fancy with my hair, especially since I just got a haircut, and apparently to the hairstylist, "shoulder length" means "barely chin length". But DF loves it, so that's okay. I'm actually getting my bridal shots on Wednesday, so I'm going shopping for the shoes tomorrow. I'm thinking bright pink shoes :) Decided to go with a floor length dress. I've never had a wedding. Got married the first time when I was 19 and was way too young, and my second husband was abusive. So damnit, I deserve it. :)

We were planning on doing something bigger later, when we thought it was going to be like 10 people at this one. But right now, we're at 40 people, and the list is growing. DF wanted to invite a couple people from work, but since he only works with 10 people, and his boss is going to officiate, we can't just invite a couple employees. So that added 20 more people (co workers and spouses). Plus, I have a bunch of people who are basically inviting themselves (stuff like "I can't wait to see you walk down the aisle" and stuff like that). At first, I thought, NO WAY. But now, i don't care. The more the merrier. Besides, the sandwich trays and stuff are so inexpensive, what's a few more people?

I don't care about his family, just my fiance's feelings. They can jump off a bridge for all I care. It's ridiculous to hold my past against me, and to penalize their son for it. Trust me, they are the last people who should throw stones. I just hate the hypocrisy.

DF is designing our invites, and is almost done. So they'll go out this week. Centerpieces are done, favors are almost done. We're just doing simple food, like sandwiches and veggie trays.

So engagement pics have been done, bridal shoot is on wednesday, invites are almost done, dress is done, centerpieces are done, my girls dresses are done. I'm ready. :)

Just a little unsure of how the reception is going to go. We're not having a DJ or caterer, no dancing, just background music. No seating arrangements. I'm just afraid that everyone is going to be sitting around, staring at each other. Like a middle school dance or something.

I think it all sounds terrific! Don't worry about people being bored. They will be talking and eating, just like any party. It's going to be great.

And your dress sounds smashing! Lucky you to have a mom who can sew a dress for you. I LOVE the idea of the pink shoes. Try to post a picture when you can -- we want to see!

I don't think you're clueless at all! It sounds to me like you've planned a wonderful wedding. I'll second what gellchom said, you shouldn't give another thought to worrying about people sitting around staring at each other. They'll be socializing and enjoying themselves. I'd love to see pictures too. I wish you all the best.

Sounds lovely. A beautiful spring bride who will actually enjoy her wedding as will her groom. You are doing well in all your planning. And your guests will be able to enjoy watching the lovely couple and meeting friends too. Congratulations again.

Gellchom, good advice, good advice!

I wish mommy2two would post back with a picture and let us know that it went off without a hitch. Good to see that everyone doesn't have to fall into the huge-out-of-control-affair trap. I had quite a simple wedding almost 30 years ago. I know of people who had the elaborate affairs who are one their third spouse in less time than my marriage (to Mr. Right, of course!)

Thanks for the compliment, neesie. You made me feel good.

Please don't make the mistake of equating big weddings with bad marriages, though. I have been to loads of weddings of every size, level of formality, and level of lavishness, and I can tell you that there is no relationship at all. They can all be fun or boring, and they can all precede good marriages or bad.

I'm glad your style of wedding worked for you. But it's not necessary to criticize a different choice; it sounds kind of judgmental. Not every large or elaborate wedding is a "huge-out-of-control-affair trap."