People keep telling me it will be boring.

climbingsingle · July 2018

knottiee7cb65b5d04be4f1 said:

well, my future mother-in-law is really gracious and hasn't told us what to do with the money, they're just paying for all of the vendors directly. So I don't want to hand her a bill for something that may not be necessary because of my sister or a friend's opinion.

It's crazy because my sister was married already and she had a very expensive wedding, and it was really fancy and the food was good and I could go on and on and on, but she was so stressed about planning and worried about every little detail, I'm not sure exactly how much she got to enjoy her wedding. She was so concerned with every detail, and I never heard anybody complaining about that wedding, but I want to learn from her mistakes and I don't want to stress so much that I end up not enjoying my own wedding.

There is a HUGE difference between stressing over every detail, and being a good host.

You are not being a good host.

Did I stress about certain details of my wedding? Sure. But I certainly enjoyed the hell out of my wedding day. I planned everything well in advance. I had a backup plan for our outdoor ceremony. I spent our money on things I knew people would enjoy, and things to enhance their experience, meaning I served a ton of great food in a timely manner, and had an open bar. I didn't spend money on floral arrangements.

flantastic · July 2018

Bathrooms and food are not "details." They are mission critical. Details are what type of pool floats to get and what string lights to hang up. You are free not to stress about those.

thisismynickname2 · July 2018

If you make good decisions now, you won't be stressed on your wedding day.

If you make bad decisions now, you will be stressed on your wedding day, because people will be coming up to you with a million questions about extra bathrooms and shade and food and you won't have any solutions that'll make them happy.

Look, to me, being a laid back bride means, say, wanting white flowers and taking any flowers that are available in white that are in budget. A non-laid-back bride would want very specific white flowers that are out of season and out of budget but gets upset because not having those flowers would zomg ruin the vision of the day she's dreamed of her entire life.

Laid back does not mean not planning properly and considering guests' comfort. And laid back does not mean zero stress, sorry.

maine7mob · July 2018

Oh, honey, you front load all the stress! Did no one tell you that? Right now is the time to freak out, make plans, nail down annoying details, and then, on the big day, you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The key to a chill day is to work really hard leading up to it.

ShesSoCold · July 2018

knottiee7cb65b5d04be4f1 said:

well, my future mother-in-law is really gracious and hasn't told us what to do with the money, they're just paying for all of the vendors directly. So I don't want to hand her a bill for something that may not be necessary because of my sister or a friend's opinion.

It's crazy because my sister was married already and she had a very expensive wedding, and it was really fancy and the food was good and I could go on and on and on, but she was so stressed about planning and worried about every little detail, I'm not sure exactly how much she got to enjoy her wedding. She was so concerned with every detail, and I never heard anybody complaining about that wedding, but I want to learn from her mistakes and I don't want to stress so much that I end up not enjoying my own wedding.

See, you're looking at this all wrong. You're seeing that expensive = stressful. Your sister's wedding was expensive and she stressed so therefore expensive weddings are stressful. That's like me saying that I got into my boss' Jaguar last week and it was hot inside so therefore expensive cars get hotter in the summer.

I had an extremely low stress wedding. We literally planned it in less than two weeks and it was dinner at a restaurant after a quick ceremony that we wrote the day before and my brother was the officiant. It was low stress because we had all the important stuff covered. We paid for parking, we made sure plenty of chairs would stay in the room after the ceremony, we paid for ample food and drink. Boom. Done. Apparently the venue had little flowers at the tables - I have no idea what they looked like. My MIL made little bags of Jordan almonds and little candles with our date for favors. I couldn't have cared less. The music was whatever the restaurant was playing. Those are the details that don't really matter all that much. Toilets matter.

There's ways to have a low stress wedding, but honestly, inviting 150 people to someone's backyard without having proper vendors is not the way to do it. You might not be stressing now, but you will on the day of because of all the things you intentionally ignored.

And like PPs said, another important part of a low stress wedding day is to stress and plan and get everything done ahead of time. Not just hope the shitters don't explode.

ahoywedding · July 2018

I was a low-stress bride too, but it was because we covered the basics of hosting (food, bathrooms, chairs), and deferred to the opinions of professionals. When the caterers told us how much food we'd need, I said okay yes I believe you & paid them. (I DID increase the beer counts several times, but you know). When our venue staff told us xyz was necessary, I believed them, since they have thrown many more weddings than I have.

What was laid back is that I didn't care about the things that were true details: what kind of flowers we had (picked them up at TJs the day before), what dress the BMs wore, what color the chairs for the reception area were, etc etc. Food/bathrooms/guest comfort are not details. I knew we had the crucial parts taken care of, and anything else was just gravy. THAT is how you do things without stressing.

banana468 · July 2018

I just went to a backyard wedding event that was A LOT like what you want to do OP except that it was a celebration of a wedding that took place over a month ago. What they did:

-Pool was open. There was only ONE adult who used it with his kids and it was clogged with other kids between the ages of about 4 and 16. No other grown ups went in.

-Food and beverages were out. They had at least two kegs plus a lot of wine.

-Appetizers were out when DH and I got there.

-LOTS of food was served a couple hours in. Only one glitch was running out of chicken nuggets for kiddo and I put the kibosh on the Chiquita tantrum telling her she gets the food that is available and not to make her family feel like they have to jump through hoops (she got her nuggets about a half hour later).

-Most adults like myself didn't sit. It wasn't because there was no seating but when you have to chase kids you don't sit down. Anyone with a newborn or a youngest over 5 had it a little easier for relaxing.

-THERE WERE PORTA POTTIES! The understood rule was women got interior bathroom priority and a #2 was best left in the traditional plumbing. Other than that, go for the two porta potties outside.

We had a GREAT time because all those things were thought of in advance. The guest list was about the same size as the OP's.

Also, due to the # of kids in the pool a pool float would have actually not been welcome. The kids were running and splashing and moving around in there and a float would have just clogged the available real estate.

People keep telling me it will be boring.

Re: People keep telling me it will be boring.

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