[Hoosier Kitty]

Hi ladies! I'm curious about your experience. I recently got engaged last saturday. Soooooooooooo my DF and I have been going back and forth when to get married. I have some questions to ask you if you don't mind answering!

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date?

How long was your engagement before you got married?

How did you decide the wedding location?

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?)

Any advices you could give me?


I've been married once and it was easy because both of me and my ex DH live in same state. My DF is from Louisiana and I am from Indiana. We decided to get married in Louisiana. We always want to get married on the beach or at a waterfront location. His aunt has a lake but it needs a lot of work to cut trees and all that stuff so we aren't sure. Plus if we get married at his aunt's lake then my family would have to drive 1 hour to Indy airport then fly to Houston then drive 2 and half hours to that lake house. I want a wedding location where the airport is near and easier for everyone to get to the location from airport.. instead of driving another 2 and half hrs. KWIM? HELP... Thanks

[Oreobaby]

Aaron...Congrats again!!

When I got engaged, we decided on a date right away...some times it's hard to get vendors (places to have the wedding) so you have to try to do it right away here...plus I was a Special Needs Assistant at the time, and wouldn't get time off of work, so wanted to plan my wedding around Spring Break here in Canada...plus spring break was in March, so I got extra discounts on stuff cause it was the "off" season.

We were engaged for 11 months before we got married.

Honestly DH and I wanted to get married...so getting married in the most fancy place was not something that we had to do. Our wedding location was nice, and had great food, but was also one of the more inexpensive places to get married. It was big enough to fit our guests, and close to the church we got married in.

My parents gave us some money, and his family gave us some money and we jointly paid for the rest.

Have you thought of a destination wedding. You can get married near a beach (even on the beach) and there shouldn't be much driving once you get to the destination. Also, I think a destination wedding is a lot less stressful...and with a LO on the way, the less stress the better...also, you have to think, do you want to be married before the LO gets here???!!! That will be a determining factor as well.

[LindsLuvsSi]

congrats!!

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? We decided soon after. We knew we didn't want to wait long and knew the location so had to book it fairly quickly after since the date we decided was 2.5 months after he popped the Q.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 2.5 months

How did you decide the wedding location? When we were dating we discussed where and I came across the disney wedding chapel- which was perfect for us, we were already there in orlando and disney is where we had our first date.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) i don't even know, i think he said he'd pay since i didn't have a job. my parents paid for the reception a week later at their house since our wedding was very small/inimate- only 8 guests. my parents paid for my dress and that stuff. I bought his ring. He bought his tux and my rings.

Any advices you could give me? the destination idea- is a good one! you could have it be your babymoon before baby comes too. even maybe try to find a place that video's the wedding so when you go back home you could have a wedding reception with everyone and watch the video. And if you wanted i bet some of your fam/friends would want to go to the destination wedding too, if you wanted that. There are many destination wedding places on the beach- you just pay for the package, some even include flights, accommodation, food and the wedding

Good luck~

[LuvsPecanPie]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? We didn't decide for real for over a year. Originally, we were going to have a 3 year engagement, but then we decided to shorten it.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 2 years (mind you... I was 20 and a senior in college when I got engaged Had I gotten engaged now, it would probably only be a year).

How did you decide the wedding location? We're both from LI, though we live in VA... so we decided to get married on LI since that's where a majority of family was.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) My parents paid for most of it... MIL chipped in for a few things, and paid for the honeymoon. We paid for the rest.

Any advices you could give me? You've got to do what's right for you and your FH. Try not to get stressed out by all the family 'advice'

[Lyz]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? quickly....within a few weeks I believe.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 11 months

How did you decide the wedding location? We are both from Delaware so we stayed here and got married.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? My parents are divorced so they split the wedding. DH's parents paid for the rehearsal dinner. I bought all the extras (invites, favors, etc) and bought my dress.

[polarbearmama]

CONGRATS Aaron!!

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? Not long, a few weeks probably

How long was your engagement before you got married? 9 months

How did you decide the wedding location? I'm from WA state and he's from ME, but I had been going to school and living in ME for awhile. We choose ME since it was more likely that my friends and family could fly out from WA rather than our friends in ME flying out there.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? My parents paid for the reception, we paid for the other stuff (photography, my dress, rings, etc.), and my MIL did the rehearsal dinner

Any advice you would give me? Don't stress or worry too much about all the wedding politics...If I had to do everything over again, we would've splurged on an actual honeymoon, instead we ended up taking a trip to WA to have a second reception for my friends and family that couldn't come to the wedding. Now, four years and a baby later...we still haven't actually gone on a "real vacation"

[jensma]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date?

We actually had moved in together in April after dating for 5 years. I told him around Christmas that I thought we should go ahead and get married, and he said, okay. So we started planning our wedding. I didn't get my ring and official engagement until the next April, on our 6th anniversary. We were already planning but didn't decide on an exact date until we picked a location. I had my heart set on October.

How long was your engagement before you got married?

We were technically engaged for 6 1/2 months but we had been planning for 4 months prior to that.

How did you decide the wedding location?

We are from the same hometown so we knew we'd get married there. There are limited venues so it wasn't a hard decision. We looked around, and decided we could get married in my parents church for free, so we'd only have to find a reception venue. There is a very old private college that had built a newer place to have events. So that's what we ended up with.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?)

I was actually just having this convo with my best friend who got engaged a couple of weeks ago. IDK i guess it was always assumed my parents would pay for the wedding. My mom and I just started shopping right away but i think the first thing we purchased was my dress. I actually ended up paying for several things but the bulk of the expense (flowers/linens/venue/dress/food etc) was paid for by my parents. His parents paid for the rehearsal dinner and linens/flowers for that.

Any advices you could give me?

make lists of what you need to do. I'd suggest looking for a place in the middle of where you're from if you can't agree on a location. This is what some friends did and it was kind of a nice vacation and no one felt put out for being the ones that had to travel. Lake of the Ozarks might be nice. I'm not sure how a beach wedding in October is gonna work but I think you could figure something out...or you could all go south to Padre or Galveston in TX.

Just have fun!!

[ndsai05]

First, congratulations!

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date?A week or two, we wanted to get the ball rolling and vendors go quick!

How long was your engagement before you got married?
1 year

How did you decide the wedding location?
I'm from St. Louis and DH is from TX, but since we were living in St. Louis at the time that's where we had it. We're Catholic so the ceremony location was easy to decide, it was the reception where we had to do research.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?)
My parents paid for the reception, DH's dad paid for our honeymoon, and DH's mom did the rehearsal dinner and transportation for the wedding party. We paid for everything else (flowers, photographer, videographer, cake, dress, etc.)

Any advices you could give me?
Let this be YOUR day, don't let anyone else change it from what you want it to be.

[mlyster]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? We got engaged on a week vacation in Mexico and we had the date decided before we even went home - so it was probably only a day or 2 that it took us to actually decide.

How long was your engagement before you got married? We were engaged for a year and a half. I wanted a summer wedding and we got engaged in January. No way I wanted to plan a wedding THAT fast (considering venues and photographers are hard to come by in our area).

How did you decide the wedding location? It was not really a decision. I had always assumed I would get married in my hometown. We had met at school but as it turned out my DH's dad grew up in the same home town I did and it was not too hard to convince his family to come to my home town for the wedding. We actually got married in my parents front yard (loved it) and had the reception across town in the only hall in town (I am from a town of 200).

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) I assumed we would pay for it ourselves but my parents gave us a set amount ($5000) and his parents did the same. In the end that covered all our wedding expenses. His parents also surprised us and paid for our honeymoon so we didn't end up out of pocket for anything. But we were prepared to pay for it all.

Any advices you could give me? Have fun and don't worry about what other people want you to do. It's your wedding and you and DF need to be comfortable there. I have heard lots of people say that destination weddings are the way to go but I would not change having mine the way I did. Close your eyes and think about what you want the day to look like when you walk down the aisle to DF. Then make it happen. I have friends who got married in their living room with a JP because when she thought about her wedding she saw nothing more than her DH so they did it very simple - no dress, no cake, no fuss.

[Sota]

First off, congratulations!!

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? It wasn't too long after we got engaged. We basically had to find a time when all our immediate family could show up and we could both get time off of work.

How long was your engagement before you got married? I think it was under a year. We were already living together, so it wasn't like we needed time to get to know each other.

How did you decide the wedding location? I found the most perfect place to get married in the town we were living in, but it would only seat 80 people. My mother-in-law kept pressuring us to invite all these people (his brother's first wedding had almost 500 people). I don't like being the center of attention and I really wanted my wedding to be just close family and friends, not someone else's best friend from the third grade. So I told DH that I wanted to go out of town to get married and he could pick anywhere, I just wasn't dealing with other people telling us what to do. Most of my friends and family would have to travel anyway, so they could get a vacation out of it. We were going to do the beach, but ended up deciding on Vegas because it would be the cheapest and easiest for people to travel to. And even leaving town we ended up with some people neither of us knew at our wedding!

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?)
We paid for a little bit and helped some people out with flights and hotels, but my parents paid for the most of the wedding. Our wedding was pretty inexpensive though, at least by today's standards. My in-laws threw a big party for us in their back yard when we returned, which allowed my MIL to invite everyone she had been pressuring us to invite to the wedding.

Any advices you could give me? It is your wedding so enjoy it. Don't let other people pressure you to do things you don't want to do. And don't get caught up in the little details. I had a friend who almost canceled her wedding because she and her fiancee couldn't agree on green beans!

[hearts.0nfire]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? Pretty quickly. We also got engaged to hopefully get into the apartment we are in now.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 13 days after.

How did you decide the wedding location? Since we had multiple weddings since we did a Halloween themed one we chose a place that we thought would be cool. I chose the place for the wedding last year since it was where I always dreamed of having my wedding.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? We paid for everything with our first one (which was only food since my friend is a minister) and my mom offered to pay for the second one.

Any advice you could give? Totally agree with the other girls. Remember it is your day and don't let anybody convince you to change things unless it's what you want to do. Congrats again Nicole, i'm so happy for you!

[Sam914]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? As soon as i knew when my church and reception place were available... once i e mailed both those places they only had one date available in October and thats what we went with

How long was your engagement before you got married? 11 months

How did you decide the wedding location? We got married in my hometown, at the church my parents got married at, Dh wanted me to choose because he wanted what would mean the most to me. He's from VA and in the long run most of his family did not end up coming because it was out of town

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) My mom paid for everything, with my dads life insurance money since he had just died 10 months prior. It ended up being a blessing because otherwise we would not have been able to have the wedding we wanted. If we had wanted to do something extremely extravagant and gone over the amount my mom offered we would have paid the difference. Dh's mom paid for the rehearsal dinner.

[BabyBird]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? We set our date about a week after we got engaged.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 11 months

How did you decide the wedding location? My home town

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) DH and I paid for most of it and my parents chipped in for some of the bigger expenses.

Any advices you could give me?

I have a few suggestions. The first thing you need to find out is when your divorce will be final. Your divorce has to be completely final before you say "I do". If you know when that will be great, but if you don't know for sure yet, then I would wait to set a date until you know. You don't want to pay for venues and such and then have to cancel because you are not legal. As far as who pays for the wedding, who paid for your first wedding? If your parents helped then I honestly would be hesitant about asking them to pay for a second. JMO. If they offer then great but if not, I wouldn't ask. I would never dream of asking my parents to help pay for a second wedding. As far as where to get married, it sounds like you want a destination wedding so why not pick a beach in FL, so that everyone has to travel. That way it isn't more of a burden on one side or the other.

[Sam914]

I agree with bird's (omg i'm sorry im drawing a blank on your first name) suggestions...this is dh's second marriage. The first time both his parents helped... this time only his mom offered to pay for the rehearsal... we wouldnt have expected either of them to pay for anything again

[Celry]

I totally agree with april. You need to make sure you know when the divorce will be final and then I'd even give it a few months just in case you have setbacks. I also agree that if my parents paid for one wedding, I couldn't ask them to help pay for a second. Most people have a very small wedding the second time around. If this is your fiances first wedding, and he wants a large wedding, then you should talk to him about his family and/or him being responsible for the bill.

[Hoosier Kitty]

Thank you everyone for responding. The more DF and I talked yesterday and today, we have chosen the date.. we will get married during Thanksgiving 2011. That way everyone is off and can come to the wedding. My family and his family are not big on Thanksgiving so it's perfect timing. We haven't decided on location yet.

Originally Posted by BabyBird

The first thing you need to find out is when your divorce will be final. Your divorce has to be completely final before you say "I do". If you know when that will be great, but if you don't know for sure yet, then I would wait to set a date until you know. You don't want to pay for venues and such and then have to cancel because you are not legal.

I am sorry but not its any of your business but my divorce is being finalized VERY soon and of course my divorce will be legal and finalized waaaay before I marry my DF. Of course I'm not going to marry if my divorce wasn't finalized. Thanks anyway.

[Mrs.Paradise]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? we already knew we wanted to get married before he even proposed...

How long was your engagement before you got married? it was about 5 months... almost 6...

How did you decide the wedding location? it was close to our family... sorry I know this doesnt help you...

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) well my Dad gave us $500 and that was it... my inlaws were great they paid for the luncheon and flowers and some other things...

Any advices you could give me? just do what you want to do... dont let other people tell you what to do... you need to do what YOU want!!! because its YOUR wedding!!! my SIL's little sister just got married in july... and her inlaws are AWEFUL!!! her SIL's were in the wedding party and they didnt want to get the dress that she wanted them to have... so they went behind her back and all bought diff. dresses... and that was just the tip of the ice berg...

[KDD]

After you got engaged, how long did it take you to decide the date? I think we had picked it the same day or the next day.

How long was your engagement before you got married? 2 months

How did you decide the wedding location? We knew we wanted to go away. Destinations weddings weren't very popular then (not like they are now). We didn't have a lot of time or money either. We picked Victoria, BC because we both love it and the weather was bound to be pretty fair in October.

How did you decide who pays for the wedding? (Who paid?) Technically we paid for it, but both of our parents gave us money to spend towards whatever we needed (DH's parents had given a lot of money to his sister for her wedding a few years prior so they gave us the same amount as a wedding gift and my parents matched that). But we didn't have furniture or anything so we used the bulk of the money to buy the necessities.

Any advices you could give me? I always tell people that this is YOUR wedding. Do what you want that will make you happy. If people complain (and they will) kindly remind them that they can plan whatever they want for their wedding.

[BabyBird]

Originally Posted by Hoosier Kitty

I am sorry but not its any of your business but my divorce is being finalized VERY soon and of course my divorce will be legal and finalized waaaay before I marry my DF. Of course I'm not going to marry if my divorce wasn't finalized. Thanks anyway.

I just have to laugh at your comment as well. I never asked you to tell me when your divorce was final, I simply stated that you should know when it would be before you set a date. I remember a while back you said you had to be separated for a year before starting the process of divorce and I am pretty sure it hasn't been a year. However, I have never been divorced so I don't know the process. My bad...

You are the one who asked for "advices" so don't get defensive when someone offers it.

[Hoosier Kitty]

Originally Posted by BabyBird

I just have to laugh at your comment as well. I never asked you to tell me when your divorce was final, I simply stated that you should know when it would be before you set a date. I remember a while back you said you had to be separated for a year before starting the process of divorce and I am pretty sure it hasn't been a year. However, I have never been divorced so I don't know the process. My bad...

You are the one who asked for "advices" so don't get defensive when someone offers it.

yes you are correct the MD law states you have to be separated for a year. I'm an Indiana permanent resident and I lived in MD for college only. However, I moved to Indiana in August due to personal reasons. So Lucky for me, I filed in Indiana. and Indiana law do not require you to be separated for x amount of months. Thank God Indiana is not like Maryland.

I did not get defensive, I just thought it wasn't your business to tell me to get divorced first, kwim? I asked for wedding advice since this thread was about the wedding planning, not divorce. Sorry if you thought i was being defensive.