Manolo for the Brides

Weddings are usually expensive things. It’s true that you can get married for the price of a marriage license and the fee for the officiant, but most people want to have a party, too. Most of us want to have pretty dresses, flowers, good food, photographs, music, rings, and all the other trappings that go with getting married in modern society.

The thing is, trappings cost money. It can be amazing how much money these trappings cost once you start looking at price tags. You may be lucky enough to have plenty of cash to cover all your dreams. If so, fantastic! Enjoy! On the other hand, you may discover that getting everything you would like will leave you hugely in debt.

So what to do? Look for the most painless ways to cut costs possible.

See, the thing about weddings is that vendors all think their product is the single most important part of the experience, and most of us have so little experience with organizing weddings that we don’t know our priorities going in. We assume that bigger floral arrangements, bigger diamonds, designer labels, and more elaborate transportation will automatically make the day better or that people will think less of us if we don’t have all the trimmings.

The fact is, though, that most of the trimmings are just that: trimmings. They’re optional. They’re possibilities rather than marching orders. If you keep that in mind, it’s easier to figure out what is extraneous in your world.

Here are a few suggestions for things that can be drastically cut or entirely eradicated without dimming the excitement of the day or inconveniencing your guests.
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We don’t talk a great deal around here about what comes after the wedding. Heck, we don’t even discuss honeymoons very often! It’s not that we don’t care or don’t think about it. We’re just usually more focused on the actual wedding, what with being a wedding planning blog.

But the fact is that while it’s fun and easy to talk about flowers and dresses and menus and jewelry, there’s an entire marriage after the wedding, and we do think it’s important to consider that marriage.

If you’re old enough to even be thinking about getting married, chances are you’ve learned somewhere along the line that compromise is important. If you haven’t learned it by the time you start planning, chances are you’ll have a better understanding of the concept at the end of the process. No matter what your budget or how mellow all the players involved happen to be, a wedding will entail some compromises in some area.

But what about your happily ever after?

Marriage entails a lot of compromise on a daily basis. What to eat and who cooks it, which movie to see, whether to save first for his big priority or yours, who takes out the garbage vs who scrubs the bathroom…you’re going to wind up making deals about a lot of things.

Some of these choices are easy. I do the cooking, because Mr. Twistie only knows two settings on the burners: high and off. Also, I’m home when it’s time to start cooking far more consistently and I love to cook. I also do the dishes because I actually like that part. Call me freaky, but I do. Mr. Twistie may think that bit was a compromise, but really it was a matter of personal preference as much as self-preservation.

Some are harder. I moved to a new city. I’d lived in my hometown literally as long as I could remember. I’d lived in the same house since I was two years old, and I got married at thirty. Yeah, I tend to stay where I’m put. By contrast, Mr. Twistie had only lived in his hometown since he was nine, and could remember living in two other cities. So why was I the one to move?
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You all know that we here at Manolo for the Brides are big on the following things: individuality, DIY, and helping hands from the people you love. I know my wedding would never have come together the way it did – let alone at the bargain basement budget I had to work with! – without these three things.

Friends and family members came forward to help with food, decorations, the gown, transportation, and more. Nearly every bride I’ve ever known has had similar offers of help from various and sundry people in their life (often including me!).

Sometimes, though, someone offers to help out in a way that isn’t really going to help you out. It may be that someone wants to give you something you really don’t want to have, or it may be that they’re offering to do something they really aren’t capable of handling. Whichever case you’re dealing with, there are a few simple tips that can help you avoid unwanted ‘help’ without ruining relationships.
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For all the talk about how the wedding is the bride’s day to the exclusion of everyone else, the fact remains that a lot of different people have a big stake in the event. There are parents, siblings, friends, religious communities, vendors, and the list goes on. Most of all, there’s the person you’re marrying. He – or she – is kind of important.

Obviously, there are ways to minimize the amount of concern you absolutely have to pay to many of these people in planning your wedding. Don’t accept money from anyone you don’t want to have a say in how you spend it. Keep plans close to your chest when talking with disapproving sorts. Remind others that you’ve been supportive of their plans and expect them to show you the same courtesy.

In the longrun, though, you’re going to have to compromise with someone about something in the course of your plans, including your intended. How do you do it effectively? Read on for some tips.
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There’s no way around it other than keeping things unofficial… every state in the U.S. requires that couples obtain a marriage license before their wedding vows will mean anything in the government’s eyes. Frankly, applying for a marriage license is one of the more boring items on the wedding planning to-do list, but since it’s such a vital one I feel we must address it here for the sake of completeness. While I wish it were as engaging as sampling wedding cakes or shopping for a wedding dress, it just isn’t. On the the other hand, a quick trip to the county clerk’s office shouldn’t be stressful or too much of a pain in the butt if you go prepared.

Obviously every state will have its individual rules where applying for a marriage license is concerned, so I’m not going to try to cover every states’ particulars here. For that, you should call the clerk’s office since I’d say about 99% of the sources I’ve found for state-by-state marriage license info have been out of date or just plain incorrect. What follows here is a rough guideline for those who are just starting to think about applying for a marriage license.

Who, What, Where?
You and your spouse-to-be will proceed to the county clerk or clerk of the court office together, hopefully with all of the proper documentation. At the very least, you’ll need some form of ID, usually a driver’s license, birth certificate, military ID, or passport, though states’ requirements can vary. Non-citizens may have to present more than one form of ID. There’s going to be an application fee, and some county clerks still only accept cash and money orders or personal checks. Oh, and you’ll want to know three things: your social security number (which all adults really should have memorized), your wedding date, and where you’re planning to marry.

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It strikes me that it’s been a good long while since we’ve talked in more than the most general terms about thank you notes here at Manolo for the Brides.

Now stop all that groaning! It’s really not as bad as you might think. Even if you haven’t written a thank you note since your mother forced you to send a formal note of thanks to your grandmother for that nice check she sent for your high school graduation, you still have an idea of the basic form. Besides, chances are you really are grateful to a lot of people. Thank you notes are a great way to let them know that.

Still, there are some techniques to make the thank you writing process smoother, simpler, and more rewarding for everyone involved. Here are a few ways to make sure it doesn’t turn into the burden people tend to assume it will be.

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It strikes me that it’s been a while since we’ve really talked about stress relief/avoidance during the wedding process. Stress is sort of to be expected to a certain extent when planning something as big as a wedding. Even a simple one requires coordination of a number of elements most of us don’t deal with on a day-to-day basis. Add in the fact that this is in honor of a huge, life-changing event, and it’s the rare bride who doesn’t get a bit jittery about some aspect of the process.

The good news is that a great deal of stress can be just plain avoided by a little thought and honesty with yourself about how you will best deal with stressful situations.
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Planning a wedding can be a daunting task. It’s even more daunting if you’re not really sure what you want it to be like.

Pretty much everyone expects you to know what sort of wedding you’re planning as soon as you say yes. And if you don’t know what you want, there are plenty of people lining up to inform you of what you want.

If you’re not sure whether you want a casual garden wedding or one in a luxury hotel, one themed around your favorite flower or your favorite movie, a raucous party or a refined one, you may be confused about where to begin your efforts.

So where do you start to figure it all out? I’ve got a couple of ideas you may find helpful.
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Wedding mediation is apparently the new thing – at least according to the wedding mediators throwing up web sites and trying to attract the attention of brides and their grooms. For those who haven’t heard of wedding mediation, the wedding mediator is basically a counselor who helps the bride and groom communicate with family, friends, and wedding vendors while planning a wedding.

From Positively Wed: “A mediator can help a bride (or couple) discover what’s most important and how to be her own best advocate with vendors and family. How to listen and talk so she can have the wedding she wants without hurting loved ones or herself… Investing an hour learning to communicate better will definitely help you deal with family and friends more easily. And, the bonus is you’ll be prepared to handle hubby, too.”

Interesting, last-sentence sexism aside. A wedding mediator will charge anywhere from under $100 up to $500 for one or more in-person or telephone chats. At Positively Wed, the basic package costs $97 and includes one hour-long meeting via phone and seven days of unlimited email access. That’s not all that much in the grand scheme of things when weddings typically cost thousands and thousands of dollars. And yes, planning a wedding *can* be the most stressful thing a 20-something woman has ever done in her life. Are there people who simply can’t keep the peace while involved in planning a wedding? Yup. Are their brides and grooms who have trouble relating to their loved ones? Yup.

Is wedding mediation worth the money and the time? Perhaps for some, though I’d recommend that anyone who is having communication issue intense enough to warrant the introduction of a third party consult a licensed therapist.

This is probably going to sound absolutely terrible, but the first thought that popped into my head when I heard about wedding mediation was “Now we need counselors to help us plan parties? For real?” My opinion is that the appearance of dedicated wedding mediators has a lot to do with the super mega over-glorification of the wedding day, which less than surprisingly is one of the big factors in all the usual kinds of conflicts that arise when planning a wedding.

Society convinces brides-to-be (and MOBs and sisters of the bride and the groom-to-be and, yes, even guests) that the wedding will be the most important day of a couple’s life, which in turn causes everyone to have an opinion about how things ought to be, causing all kinds of hurt feelings and almost forcing people to look into services like wedding mediation. I think that if the “It’s myyyyyy dayyyyyyyy!” culture was less powerful, brides and grooms and their families could plan a wonderful ceremony and reception and guests could attend it without their being a need for a counselor to step in lest everyone start poking each other’s eyes out with the nearest sticks.