My bridesmaids were going to order from Eshakti. I’ve been shopping with them for nearly a decade and LOVE the quality, unique styles, and most of all the inclusive custom fit. We want to find dresses that are floor-length and fit a medium, a 3x petite who always has bust tailoring needs, a pregnancy bump, and a young teenager. And on a budget, of course. Trying to stay under $100 per dress.

Eshakti seemed perfect but the first dress we ordered was delayed three months, never arrived, and they haven’t processed a return still. It sounds like their business, quality and customer service has really been suffering. It’s such a pity; it was gorgeous dupioni and embroidery with a hint of velvet on the waist, customizable so the teenager could get it without cleavage!

Azazie is the next best but all the styles are either standard bridesmaid chiffon or clingy silk that I know my larger bridesmaids feel uncomfortable in. Plus, dresses I’ve had from them when I was a bridesmaid have always needed hemming at minimum and that’s REALLY expensive; I’ve never been quoted less than $100 for hemming an Azazie dress. My last bridesmaid dress from them cost over $250 when all was said and done.

Any ideas? I’m heartbroken about the Eshakti news. Us plus-size girlies are missing out!

I recently bought this gorgeous Morilee dress in a sample sale and got it for a steal . The bridal studio told me that I need to get the dress dry cleaned first ( if I wanted to) and then take it for alterations as the dress might shrink in size so the alterations would be done accordingly.

I’m just wondering however- what if i wanted to get the dress re dry cleaned before the big day so it looks fresh- would it shrink again? Is that something i should not do?

The dress is lace with a stretch lining - I’m not too sure what the material is. Here is a link to the dress : https://www.morilee.com/wedding-dresses/carine-wedding-dress/

Would love to know some opinions.

Hi all! Hope someone has some sort of input on this. I am researching venues and I have started looking into community centers, while the price might be reasonable, they require that all vendors have liability insurance of 1mil…. Is this normal? And would this mean that I would absolutely need professional vendors?

I thrifted the dress for $28 and I am so excited about it. I plan to lose about three sizes (I’ve done so before with CICO) which hopefully is OK because the dress is a tad tight on me so I should only have to take it down two sizes. Any other changes? I think I’ll remove the straps, they don’t keep the dress up in anyway! I like the tea length but can’t tell if its an inch or too long, and is the flower too dated? I want a vintage vibe but to not look elderly lol! Will pair with a pearl accented veil, and white gloves!

I'm hoping to find some cream dress shirts for my groomsmen but really having a tough time. I don't want white. I don't want beige. I don't want ivory. I want cream.

Anyone have any suggestions of where to look?

Purchased the veil for $20 and then flowers were purchased online from Etsy for about $50 and cut and sewn on by hand!

A woman that recently befriended me last year around May after my engagement and she’s a married woman herself, and so I thought she was trying to help me and kinda put me under her wing.

It has been a year since I met this person and I am starting to see their true colors. They are quite bossy, and like to boss me around all the time but it try and be nice and respectful.

They are very persistent and always in my face in a weird way.

Recently, they told a friend of mine that they were helping me lose weight so I could conceive a baby, which is not true at all. It's weird because I didn't tell them that, but even if I did, it's not okay for them to spread my personal business like that.

I want to distance myself from this person for now, but I'm struggling to find the right words to tell them that I don't think it's a good time for our friendship. I have already invited them to invite my wedding in a few months, but I don't want to deal with any drama or negative energy they might bring. How can I respectfully tell them that I need some space without burning any bridges but also saying what needs to be said….

I know the lighting is drastically different, so the dress looks like a completely different color but it’s warm like the before photo. The one on the right is also bustled so it’s hanging weird in the after photo. But I’m just not happy with the changes to the bust and hem. The straps had to be shortened also so it changes the neckline. With my shapewear it had too much padding at the top so I had her take the cups out of the dress and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have done that. It was just way too much up top. I understand there are only so many ways to make a dress smaller, and I’ve lost probably 20 pounds, so maybe I had unrealistic expectations. Thoughts on changes or feel free to tell me I’m overreacting 😂

I’m struggling with the decision to have or not have bridesmaids / groomsmen. My S/O doesn’t care either way.

Our current plan is to have a private, immediate family only ceremony followed by a very large public gathering / party. The most important thing to us is to spend quality time with our immediate family and honor them. I almost thought of having the family stand as sort of a “wedding party” by wearing a dress code for nice pictures?

However, it almost feels wrong to leave out our closest friends? At first I was opposed to having a wedding party as I want the day to be more about us and family than anyone else. I’m not sure now. My S/O doesn’t seem to think it matters to have the close friends at / in the ceremony or as any part of that part even though he is the one with the closest couple of friends.

EDIT: Replying back to some other comments - Would it be weird or rude to have friends be in a wedding party but not invited to the ceremony?? It would be kind of nice to ask my girlfriends to set some things up and manage the public space and reception and do speeches, but I don’t want to be rude.

I am looking for instrumental dark romantic Halloween music to walk down to. The music doesn’t necessarily need to be romantic just not thriller or monster mash. Just sounds beautiful to walk down to on my Halloween wedding! Thank you :)

I’m trying to save costs and use rose petals from my backyard for the flower girls. Anyone have tips on how to take the petals out and save it for a day or two until the wedding day? Any info is helpful!

My fiancé and have taken a while to come to an agreement on our wedding. We first got engaged in November of ‘22 and it’s been a lot of back and forth, and lots of researching to get where we are now. We’ve always known that we wanted to keep our wedding fairly small and intimate and budget friendly so we decided to get married at San Francisco city hall and then celebrate with a party for all our family and friends afterwards. The thing is we can only have 6 people witness us get married including our photographer. To make it fair, it’s his parents, my mom & grandmother & our son. Unfortunately our siblings and our close family and friends are not able to join. I also lost my dad in September of ‘22 so I haven’t had the desire to have a big traditional wedding. We had the thought to record the moment we say I do & we’ll take family pictures with our siblings afterwards, but I’ve gotten so many opinions from my close friends/aunts and cousins saying how disappointing and upsetting it is that no more than 6 are allowed to watch us be officiated. They all say you only get married once & you don’t want to have regrets. We’re also both Catholic but we’re not getting married in the church due to timing and wanting to just finalize it already. We’ve been together almost 9 years and we have a child together so it already feels like we’re married anyway, we’re just making it official. Has anyone experienced a similar format for their wedding and do you have any regrets? I feel bad that we can’t include more people & I wonder if I’m making the right decision by doing it so small and non traditional. Any advice is welcome on this.

I found the caterer of my literal dreams. She is so willing to work within my budget and even offer things at cost just for the opportunity to bring it together. I am so excited!

I'm currently perusing two buffet-style dinner options, both include a charcuterie layout during cocktail hour:

• Option 1: traditional: prime rib option, bbq chicken option, rice pilaf, roasted seasonal veggies, salad, and dinner roll deal
• Option 2: woodfired pizza oven, cheese pizza plus 4 other pizza options, 2 salad options

I hadn't strongly considered pizza before, but I found out this option would save me $800 on catering, which would be huge. Would love to put that money elsewhere. My only minor hold-up is that my sister (and I think maybe 2-3 other plus ones) are gluten-free. It feels lame to go to a wedding only to eat salad and bits from the charcuterie spread, but I also don't know if I should bank $800 on just a couple of people. I have, however, inquired about sourcing a few frozen gluten-free pizzas that could be prepared for those people.

I wanted to gauge how people generally thought about pizza at a wedding. Wood fired/ made on-site feels fun to me but I know people are picky about wedding food, so I wanted to poll a larger, un-biased group. I'm still interested in the traditional option since there is more variety in the offering, but of course saving money is a big perk.

Any advice here encouraged!

I am going to figure out the ceremony after I find an affordable spot for the reception. I’m going to be getting married in the summer and do not want the reception to be outdoors for fear of my guests and myself being too hot to dance.

The ceremony will be outdoors but I can figure that out later. So basically I need to find somewhere that is an affordable indoor venue with pretty trees near by. And I’m hoping to spend about 1k on the venue. I’m willing to spend more depending on what’s included but 2k is probably our cut off for venue budget and is seriously pushing it.

I’m honestly not sure how doable it is but was hoping I could get some good suggestions. As for location, closer to central Montana is good but the majority of the people coming to the wedding are out of state so I’m not restricting myself from having to drive a bit away from where I live.

Thank you in advance for reading this and (hopefully) giving me some ideas!

I’m a wedding planner in Portland, Oregon, who had a wedding in 2019. At that point, I’d been planning weddings professionally for three years. I used that experience to help plan ours.

A few important details about the wedding budget breakdown below:

• My partner and I had 19 people (including the two of us) at our wedding. We opted to do this because a lower guest count is typically the most effective way to save a lot of money quickly. If “only” having 19 people at your wedding simply isn’t possible, don’t wander away just yet. Much of the below can be scaled to whatever your headcount is.
• It was important to my partner and I to also host an event related to our marriage where our friends could celebrate with us. We opted to host a “friend reception” a month after our wedding. I’ve included pricing for that below in an “optional” section alongside a few other items. If you include these items, are wedding cost above $10,000.
• We got married in November. This is considered the start of the slower season for many wedding vendors in my part of the world (Pacific Northwest), which helped lead to lower prices and better availability.
• This pricing is from 2019 and yes, prices are higher post-COVID. I’ve seen this change most in the pricing for the house where we got married (more below).

What my wedding cost

Venue: $3,057.32

This was for the ENTIRE HOLIDAY WEEKEND of our wedding (Thursday evening to Monday morning). We got married at a private home on the Oregon Coast.

The ceremony was hosted in the living room of the house. After the ceremony, the caterer “flipped” the room into the reception space by setting up dinner tables and moving the ceremony chairs. After we ate, the caterer removed the tables and chairs and the living area became our dance floor area.

Before we hired the caterer, I made sure to ask if they would order, pick-up, set-up, and clean-up all rentals as it was important to me that this labor be done by someone who wasn’t a guest. (Though guests did end up helping straighten up the house before and after the wedding.)The venue is where I’ve seen the biggest raise in prices post-pandemic. It’s now closer to $4,500 for the same length of time over the same holiday.

Catering (including rentals and 20 percent tip): $3,314.64

This was our biggest line item because it was also our most important (we wanted really tasty food!). The catering order included:

• a salad, roasted veggies, dinner rolls, roasted chicken, and a charcuterie and cheese display ($1,452)
• a keg of caterer-made apple cider ($79)
• plates, spoons, forks, glasses, gold Chivari chairs, wine glasses, white tablecloths, three folding tables, and gold napkins ($391.20)
• three staff members (a chef, a lead server, and a server; $840)

We also elected to do a tasting with six people including us as a thank-you to those people for their support of our wedding. We paid for this separately; I can’t find the cost but know it was under $200. I didn’t include the tasting cost in the total below as it was pretty optional.

Dessert: $119.50

We ordered 10 ice cream pints from our favorite ice cream shop and had one of our guests pick this up on their way to the wedding.

Decor: $51.95

For us, this meant a box of gold votives ($31.98, Amazon) and thank-you notes ($19.97, Amazon). A couple of guests also created a “light curtain” (i.e. a step-and-repeat frame with tulle and fairy lights) to hide the TV that was mounted on the wall in the room where we got married. I don’t have pricing for that but estimate it cost $25 to $35 to make; I didn’t include this number in the total.

Dress: $1,050

This includes the (very minimal) alterations I needed.

Dress accessories: $106.19

This was mainly cute hair stuff and four pairs of shoes for me (two I didn’t use and two I did).

Favors: $64

For favors, we bought individual jars of locally made honey for people to use at dinner. The favors also served as place cards. Each jar had the name of a specific guest, as designed by the business where we bought the honey.

Flowers: $385

We bought our flowers “à la carte,” which is an option many florists offer where you “just” buy the flowers you need. This works best if you don’t need extensive decor flowers and “only” want flowers you wear or carry.For us, that meant:

• a bouquet for me ($140)
• a boutonnière for my partner ($10)
• three bouquets for our wedding party ($150)
• some lengths of eucalyptus and long-stem flowers to use as ceremony decor ($85)

The four bouquets became the centerpieces on our long banquet-style dinner table, using the vases that we bought from the florist.

We traveled to our venue the Wednesday before our wedding and picked up our flowers on our way out of town (the wedding was on Saturday). To keep the flowers fresh, I:

• told our florist the length of time between pick-up and the wedding so the florist could prioritize using flowers that have a longer shelf life, and
• we kept our flowers in a cool area (the garage of the rental home; could also have been a fridge if the weather had been warmer).

I don’t know if the guest who paid for this vendor tipped them, which is why I didn’t include that information above.

Hair and/or makeup: est. $150

I can’t find the actual cost but I did a one-hour tutorial with a makeup stylist and then did my own hair and makeup on the wedding day as did all of our wedding VIPs who use makeup and/or wanted to style their hair a certain way. I was very happy with the results!

The number above also includes my rough guess for how much I spent on new makeup I bought especially for the wedding (but also used after the wedding, too).

Photographer: $375

We hired a photographer for their “elopement” package even though we weren’t technically eloping. (You can 100 percent do this as long as you’re honest with your vendors about your guest count, i.e. the main metric they use to decide if your event qualifies for any elopement pricing they offer.)

This choice meant we had the photographer for two hours (vs. the more standard six to 12 hours people hire photographers for on a wedding day).

To make this work, we prioritized having the photographer on-site starting 30 minutes before for the ceremony and leaving once post-ceremony photos were done. This meant skipping a first look and instead seeing each other for the first time in our wedding clothes at the start of the ceremony.

The photographer was also not on-site for any photos of us getting ready or for any reception programming. Instead, if anybody wanted photos of us getting dressed, having dinner, doing toasts, dancing, and/or eating dessert, they took them with their phones. This worked very well for us! We don’t feel that we missed any moments.

I don’t know if the guest who paid for this vendor tipped them, which is why I didn’t include that information above.

Suit: $150

My partner bought a suit at H&M and had it tailored. This price includes those alterations.

Wedding rings: $899

We elected to make our own wedding bands with a local metalsmith who offers this option. This price included the half-day workshop where we made our rings as well as all materials. We had very simple designs and used the most affordable gold with no stones or engraving. This price does not include my engagement ring.

Wedding license: $61.20

I’m fairly sure this includes us electing to buy three certified copies of the license for our own records.

Vow writing workshop: $77.54

This was a fun wedding thing I knew about through my job that we did with a professional officiant.

Total: $9,861.34

Additional add-ons

Premarital counseling: $1,000

It was challenging to find a secular option for premarital counseling but find it we did! This was three to five visits (can’t remember the exact number) with a coach who helped us articulate what we loved about our relationship and wanted to carry into our marriage.

Honeymoon: $288.44

Our honeymoon was two days at a hotel in the town where we got married. This was the cost of the hotel.

Friend reception: $250

We rented the backroom of a local pizza place for four hours at $250. This included pizza, salad, and non-alcoholic drinks (which we paid for) and bartender service (our guests bought their own alcoholic drinks at a bar that was in the same room).

Total including these three items: $11,399.78

Common wedding vendor services that I did NOT hire:

Alcohol

Two of our guests gifted us wine for the wedding as their gift to us (very generous, I know). We didn’t serve beer or hard liquor. The caterer provided apple cider (our non-alcoholic option in addition to water and whatever soft drinks we had from the rest of the weekend).

Ceremony and/or reception music and A/V

For the ceremony, we downloaded our processional and recessional songs onto a phone and had a guest play it through a Bluetooth speaker. For the reception, we downloaded a wedding dance playlist and played it off our phone to the speaker. We didn’t use a mic for the officiant or for toasts (a benefit of having a small group, all indoors).

Invites and other paper goods

We combined a save-the-date and invite into one Paperless Post Flyer. We used a free option so this cost $0. We didn’t have any programs and our caterer printed menus for us as part of their fee.

Officiant

One of our guests was our officiant. We didn’t pay him.

Transportation

We got to the venue using personal vehicles and didn’t travel anywhere outside of the house for the wedding so we didn’t need to pay for transportation on the wedding day.

Videographer

We thought about it but ultimately decided this wasn’t for us.

Wedding coordinator or planner

Perhaps ironically given what I do for a living, I didn’t hire a coordinator or planner. Do I regret this? A little. It would have been nice to have someone who wasn’t a guest help the caterer with set-up and clean-up as well as manage things like the ceremony and photos.

What height is best for a sand ceramony table? Does a typical sofa end table work? If you have any specific recommendations for a table, please share!

We are having a small wedding (40 people) and we aren’t sure what the etiquette is for inviting significant others or plus ones.

We are only planning to invite our absolute closest friends. 11 friends. This count includes already invited SO’s.

We have made it clear that some SO’s are invited - they received their own Save The Date. These are close friends who’s SO’s we’ve known for years (and have in turn become our close friends). Married couples of course are invited as a couple.

Here’s our dilemma: We have 2 friends traveling in that have newer relationships with people we have not met. One is a 4 hour drive and the other is a 5 hour flight. The relationships only just started around when we got engaged last fall. Is it rude for us to not extend the plus one to these friends? We don’t know their SO’s at all, but part of me feels like since they’re traveling it might be the right thing to do. Trouble is, we really shouldn’t add any more people as it’s a backyard wedding and the house only has 2 guest bathrooms, and of course our budget is tight. We had made a rule about not inviting anyone that either of us would meet for the first time at the wedding.

This also opens up a dilemma for our other single friends who are traveling in. I don’t want them to feel they were shafted.

So - what do you all think? Extend the plus ones, or would our guests be understanding of the intimacy of the wedding?

Me and my fiance are getting married soon. Please suggest hashtag for the names - Foram and Parth. I thought of #ThePaRamWedding. Please suggest more alternatives!!

Hey!

My fiance and I are headed down to Vegas for our elopement end of June. I remember reading a post on here about a Vegas potographer, I think his name was like Andi or Rick? There were a bunch of commenters recommending him saying the experience with him was really fun. He picked them up in his car, I think someone said it was like a rav-4 and drove them around to some Vegas sites for a couple hours. Does this sound familiar? Do you happen to know the name or contact info of this photographer?

I’m about 5 months out and starting to get anxious about everything. Our wedding is about 30 people at a barn style Peerspace venue with a beautiful outdoor space. I’m planning it 95% on my own, which I enjoy doing. However, we are on a budget and we’ve hired some helpers like a day of coordinator and a bartender. I’m starting to worry about who the hell is going to set up the tables, chairs, bar, buffet, and how will that stuff get cleaned up? Our DOC is basically only there to help execute the day and he’s not required to do any heavy lifting. Im most likely just overreacting and I’m fairly certain some of our family members can help with tables and chairs, but there’s just so much anxiety surrounding something so simple. I used to be a banquet server and events manager for a country club so I’m used to pretty formal events. And I want my wedding to have that sort of formal but backyard cozy feel. My fiance is telling me to relax but like… I can’t relax, because if I relax, stuff won’t happen lol.

Our venue rental is also starting at 1pm and ends at 11:30 and I’m pretty sure the owner won’t let us in sooner to setup because he charges by the hour. I’m ready for this to be over 😅

My fiancé and I have been struggling with the stresses of finding a venue we can afford. We’re mostly debating between a civil wedding and going all in for the reception or, go for a whole package deal for the ceremony and reception at the same place.

We don’t want much. Our preferred vision is a rustic, exposed wood type of venue and or a lot of green. We don’t want much but some decent food and a cash bar. We don’t care much for the fancy linens and things like that. Just a table runner is fine with us. A DJ would be great but we could miss it as well. All other decor we can make ourselves and make it ours.

What I’m asking for from the fine people of Reddit are venue suggestions. That would be great. Or even restaurants with the same barn/exposed wood vibe is fine with us as well. I know we’re the one that has to inquire but if you know about a place I’d like to hear about it!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read or respond.