I'm stressed out to the max! I have SO much going on. I'm a full time student and this semester is loaded up with some of my hardest classes!
I got engaged on Christmas day, and the wedding day is August 6, 2011. My mom hired a planner (Mom's boss' best friend) because neither of us really knew everything we needed to know. My fiance is totally out of all the plans because he really doesn't care. He just wants to be informed of the major decisions when we make them.
Anyway, the first thing we did was buy the dress. That wasn't very hard. Out of 4, I picked out 3 and decided on the third one. It's already bought along with the veil. That was no big deal.
Then we skip to the cake. The cake lady is a a friend of the planner's who works at Publix and does her own cakes on the side. When we arrive, she starts off by asking what we were supposed to be doing that day because she didn't remember... Not very professional in my opinion but whatever. She starts asking me all these questions about what kind of cake I want and the frosting, and what I want it to look like... That's all fine and well except that I would really like to taste the cakes before I decided for sure... By the end of the appointment, I didn't even care.. I was practically in tears but my mom went ahead and put down the deposit. Even though I have already had to choose what I wanted, the cake lady is supposed to send me some samples... This is completely insane to me.. Why are you asking me to tell you every detail of what I want when you have nothing for me to taste, you aren't offering any advice or help even when I ask, AND you don't even have any pics of anything to show me except on your phone!!! Granted, we did get an AWESOME deal on the 2 cakes. Brides cake is a 5 tier cake with butter cream and groom's cake is a 2 tier chocolate explosion cake.. The cakes will feed approximately 200.. Together they cost $475!!
Then we come to the ordeal with the ushers and hostesses along with my wonderful fiance and mother. Our planner told us we needed at least 4 ushers and 4 hostesses to do various jobs throughout the evening. The problem with that is a)The in-laws are paying for the rehearsal dinner and are already having a hard time finding a place we can afford that will accommodate everybody b)fiance thinks it is dumb that we would ask somebody because that will make the person feel like they aren't important enough to be in the wedding but they are important enough for us to need them to work and c) neither of us really know of 4 extra people that we could ask. I tried talking to my mom and telling her that we really could only come up with one of each and she flipped out and started saying that I needed to get it together, because this is what the planner asked blah blah blah. So basically, I am stuck in the middle. I don't completely agree with fiance or my mom.
The thing that is driving me nuts the most is the fact that my mom and the planner are manipulating me and trying to steer me in a certain direction. My mom is paying and I am beyond grateful.... If she wasn't, then things would be a lot different. But she keeps telling the planner all these things and it isn't what I want. For example, I told her and the planner that the most important things to me were food, photography and flowers... Well, my mom is trying to get me to use a friend of hers at work... I've seen his web site and I wasn't the least bit impressed. Everything is really traditional and cookie cutter, and that isn't what we are going for. She keeps saying, "I wish you could see So-and-So's stuff, it is so good!". I've tried to explain to her that I'm not comfortable making the decisions about my weddings based on everybody else's opinions and what they have seen! But she just doesn't get it. I'm being the more budget conscious one and she acts like I'm crazy. I've asked her what the photography budget is and all she says is, we can't afford any of it, so we will find something we like... This obviously doesn't help at all!
The way I see it, if she is gonna spend a ton of money that she doens't have, shouldn't it at least be on the things that I like?? Yeah she has final say so since it is her money, but at least try and work with me and show me things that I like that we can afford... Not tell me that I should go with a friend who's website I hate,, but tell me that he is really good. She and the planner are even telling me not to worry about looking at the poses because every photographer can recreate the poses.. FMIL is a photographer herself and she said that that is most definitely not true and that I need to go with someone that we both like and can agree on..
I am SO sorry for the long vent/rant.. I was right in the middle of working on school stuff and my mom called and got me side tracked, then I got so mad that I couldn't even concentrate... I took out all the frustration on my poor keyboard!
Thank you to all you wonderful ladies that will actually read this and respond. I'm sure it's extremely tedious!!