Upcoming Wedding - advice needed

[fishdrivel]

This is Texas, so a Corona wedding means you are serving Mexican beer.

Daughter is insisting everyone be vaxxed to attend. Her wedding, her rules. I advised her that she may turn off some friends, but ahe should do her own thing.

The church holds something like 5000 people, so the 100-200 will be able to distance as needed.

My wife just came back from a memorial service for one of her best friends. 100 attended.
She brought back a gift - covid. 2 weeks later and I'm fine.....

 

[ultrarunner]

When growing up the groom's family handled the rehearsal dinner, the bride's family paid for everything else. Not so much today as traditions and costs have changed, many weddings don't have a rehearsal or a dinner.

Rehearsal Dinner…

About 20 years ago I gave my cousin away at her wedding in a small farm community… I think I was the only one attending from California…

I met with the very old priest and asked about Rehearsal Dinner and before I could finish the priest said California… this isn’t a Hollywood theater but a holy sacrament in Gods house…

I said so the first time families meet is at the wedding?

Let’s just say I kept him on his toes and probably the only time being from California has been used against me…

Local customs and traditions vary and this priest had been a priest 65 years in the small farming community…

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Not me, my older daughter, the nurse. Wedding is in late May.

This is the first of our kids to get hitched. We are not really up on the expectations and protocols as the parents. In general, we figure they are adults and can do things however they want. Just tell us our role and we will do our part.

How is the interaction between the sets of in-laws typically handled? (us and the guy's parents). The 'kids' met as adults and his family is about 20 miles north of us (30-45 minutes in traffic).

Good luck... our only daughter cost us 35K when she got married...

 

[PILOON]

My son lives on the US west coast and we are on the east.
His bride's family are all Mormons and she was divorced.
Nice girl otherwise.
Big show but cold reception as we 'weren't in the click'. (hey we are not Mormon)
Making it worst they'd actually wed B4 a JP (for insurance and tax reasons) so the actual event was but for show.
OK, they are a happy couple regardless of the obstacles.

Now as to my daughter, well what a great match, nice helpful SIL and beautiful loving grand daughters, one of which is soon to be wed.

 

[MossRoad]

When we got married back in '85 it was customary for this:

Bride's parents pay for:
Wedding dress
Wedding reception
Hall rental ( I paid for the gym at a local grade school of the church my parents belonged to)
Priest and tip the alter boys
Wedding cake
Photographer
Organist
Soloist

Groom's parents pay for:
Rehearsal dinner
Bar tab at the reception
Flowers
Entertainment (I paid for the polka band)

No one in our bridal party was from out of town, but if they were, bride's parents would have paid for their hotels.


Not much changed when one of our daughters got married last May.

Except we had 365 people at our wedding and she had 14 (due to COVID restrictions) We're going to give her a larger party if/when things get back to more normal.

It you think about it, a small wedding is darn near as expensive as a large wedding except for the food, bar tab, and size of hall needed depending on the number of people you invite.

Big or small wedding, some things cost the same regardless of wedding size:
Wedding dress
Flowers
Photographer
Priest/minister/JP
Organist
Soloist
Church
Hotels for bridal party and their spouses/dates
Rental cars if needed

 

[ultrarunner]

The small home patio weddings of late can be done on a shoe string... not as inexpensive as city hall but almost.

My youngest brother's wedding was the first in my family in a very long time... my sister in law is the only daughter and a sweetheart always thoughtful and there for family.

Her parents didn't have a budget and said they had been saving for the day for a very long time and relatives on her side arrived from all over the Midwest and east coast... some first time to CA because before they never had a reason... Midwest farm talk.

Mom insisted on rehearsal dinner tab... which was graciously accepted...

I would say it's a blend of custom and tradition along with desire and means...

 

[oosik]

The wife and I got married in 1965. Simple ceremony at the local church. Only the immediate family were in attendance. Reception at local Elks Lodge. Everybody met everyone else - either at the wedding or at the reception.

No grand spectacle - everything went off very well.

 

[MossRoad]

We invited 500 people to our wedding in '85. 365 RSVP'd for dinner. At the start of the reception, there were only 5-6 empty seats. By the time the band started playing, another 40-50 people showed up. Only about 1/4 of the total were our personal friends. The rest were our close relatives and friends and neighbors of both of our parents that we'd met at various functions over the years. We'd already been to many of their weddings and/or their children's weddings and special occasions. If you invited a good childhood friend, chances are you were going to invite his/her parents as well because they were a big influence on your life as a kid. It was a very different time. Everybody knew everybody.

Our daughter said she'd like a huge wedding like that. We asked her if she knew that many people, or if we and her husbands's parents had that many friends? We could come up with about 100 people total, between them and the two families.

As I said, it was a very different time.

 

[fiddlearound]

Convince the happy couple to do as we did...ELOPE!
Going on 53 years later, we are still showing them wrong when they said "it will never last ".
Gave the lady JP a twenty dollar tip and moved into our new apartment.

Father-in-law bought himself a new car with the money he saved!

 

[PILOON]

I already had taken my allotted vacation and we planned to wed thanksgiving W/E.
I asked the boss for a few days for a brief honeymoon and he gave me 3 days but when he discovered it was a long W/E we got that whole week.
Clever eh!
Well we did not realize that it was 'coming home week' in the US (we are Canucks) so we ended up in just about the worst nightmare motel (rental by the hour type) as everything decent was fully booked.

Later we were driving south on a horrible 2 lane highway (?) that suddenly opened up to a major expressway.
The urge to 'speed it up' found us a LEO hidden behind a well placed old stationary huge rig.
Then the JP demanded a rather health sum* as a 'bond' to assure our return 5-6 weeks later, that or jail time, for a trial.
Naturally we opted to forego a return, clever tactic but costly and well rehearsed.
Naturally not a cash grab and all declared income.

*enough to pay for an major appliance, I recall.