Wedding Terror

Seriously--your parents WILL get over it. That's what they do, "We disown you and the Blessed Mother is crying!" then they realize she's not and it's all good.

I seriously choked up when I heard that. Only in a perfect world would every marriage be like that...

If you sent me to a Meat Palace, I would cut a hole in the wall with a steak knife to escape, kill you with the steak knife and fuck your husband/my dad!

ok, Ned Levi-Strauss...

Actually, this is such a weird divide. My parents are v. easy going (I mean they have to be right? Chinese Man marries White Woman in miscegenation shockah!), so when/if I get married, we'll probably just defer to what the brides parents want in order to make life smooth and happy for everyone.

I mean, it can be tough when people are of very different backgrounds (though my folks just went to city hall and then had a party at their apartment), but I've seen several really wonderful weddings that really incorporated both families and the couple's wishes, that it's hard for me to understand the "f*ck you" contingent here.

Like Chris Rock says, "Big deal if you take care of your kids. You're SUPPOSED TO."

They're also to divvy up the property and get the dowry settled so the woman can stabilize the family line by always being pregnant. Apparently.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), July 11th, 2003.

You're confusing marriage (a legal/state concept) with weddings (a cultural/religious concept).

..well, if it starts threads like "Meat for Millar", then I guess it's all good for somethin'..

I mean, there's outside... and that sounds very nice, but wouldn't you be freaked out that it would rain or something?

'Zactly. Everyone wants to play til 6 in the morning!

I want Puerto Rican too. A lot of the folks at the wedding will be FROM nashville, so meat and 3 and bbq won't be a big deal.

ROAST PORK Y TOSTONES FOR EVERYONE!

That sounds really fun and a bit different than the usual wedding fare.

Peurto Rican & BBQ!

Great news. Watch out for twisting and convenient memory loss like above (sorry, great news but I just would be a bit cautious but that's only me and I worry about everything so just ignore me. YAY!).

Yeah, PR food sounds fun.

Also, the PR restaurant here is called, "Los Happy Bellys."

HOW CAN WE NOT HAVE THEM CATER?

With a name like that molly you're just going to have to!

kv, yeah. I set some ground rules before the conversation even started by saying, "If either of us gets too worked up, we need to just end the conversation."

Also, it seems to me (and the counselor I talked to yesterday), that it's very possible she gets worked up into a fugue, and forgets. It's more common than one would think, apparently.

Hooray! Happiness! :-)

HAPPY BELLIES INDEED

Isn't there a place called Los Happy Wallets? </obvious> ;-)

How much do kegs of beer cost?

Happy Wallets all around!

i want to know how mom changed her mind. did a friend talk her around? did she cave? what?

i think she talked to friends, and i'm really hoping my dad helped calm her down. better late than never, dad!

she also asked me to apologize to mr. pike for her behavior, so maybe her own sense of decency kicked in too.

So glad to hear it, molly. Sounds like it will be a kick ass wedding!

hallelujah and fingers crossed for you!

my mother is breathing down my neck and telling me we need to go register.

i do not know how to answer questions about what color linens i would like!

i do not know what kind of shower i would like (theme, kitchen, etc.)!

this is frightening. i am frightened.

also, i just found out you can legally marry your cousin in tennessee.

weird.

first cousin or further off?

first cousin!

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/51168542.jpg%3Fv%3D1%26c%3DViewImages%26k%3D2%26d%3D17A4AD9FDB9CF1939847EC77F5F8D1CEB99A942AACF7CC2CA40A659CEC4C8CB6

Oh dear.

I am so overwhelmed by the industrializing/commercializing of weddings. Not to mention grossed out. If you need stuff to make your lives better, tho, then I guess register for it! Like bedding, kitchen utensils, a set of dishes that didn't come from Target, etc. Otherwise I dunno...choose a charity and ask people to donate? An animal shelter or a literacy program or SOMEthing?

I mean I think it's considered "okay" manners to let people know that cash would be more useful than a gift...esp if the cash is going to something specific that you can cite, like your honeymoon or saving to buy a home or something. I was raised to find any mention of money kind of horrifying, though, so I'm not sure I could do it. Not to mention at least one of the mothers might keel over....?

My mom said letting people know we wanted cash was an absolute no. My wife's Israeli family is totally the opposite - apparently there you're more-or-less expected to bring money. Which makes at least equally as much sense as buying dishes from a registry and a LOT more sense than buying a decorative pitcher. (Thanks, parents' friends who I don't know! This is really helping us start out in life!)

Apparently, you can marry your cousin in NY too.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/cousins.htm

xpost Laurel, yeah. The themed shit makes me want to barf. But, I am in dire need of nice things (hello, stainless steel cookset!). I just don't know how to answer questions about color schemes and shit.

My cousin is getting married (NOT TO ME) and his fiancee has EVERTHING sorted already, and they're getting married in August. She has even told me the color details of her living room.

I think I'm bad at this!

Envelopes of cash can be classy, just pretend you're in Goodfellas.

I would not turn down whatever family and friends are kind enough to give us. Cash would be good. We'd like to buy a house eventually, but we'll probably wait until the housing market tanks entirely.

Blah. What color towels do I want? I have no idea!

I think cash is pretty acceptable. Wedding I went to last year there was no mention of gifts at all I mentioned it to my friend, the groom and he so that they didn't really want gifts for the sake of getting a whole load of homewares they already had but they had an amazon wish list with some art books they wanted for anyone who felt they had to give something. Which was nice.

I think the mention of registries is just going in the shower invitation. I think. Actual wedding invitation may not say anything. If people want to know where we're registered, they can ask, but I'm not going to say, "YOU MUST BUY ME THIS BRIGHT RED KITCHEN AID ELECTRIC MIXER."

If you don't know what colors you want, pick white or natural and point people to 100% cotton/linen. You can dye it later, or pair it with colorful stuff.

Get beige everything. It will most likely match with whatever you are moving into and, if you save the receipts, you can exchange them for an equivalent thing in a better color if you survey your new surroundings and say "oh no THIS WILL NOT DO".

The details about what you are registering for aren't nearly as important as getting a fuckload of things on there that you could conceivably return for store credit so you can shop at your leisure later.

I think we wound up putting out the registry word through the parents. We made it just big enough to avoid even more pointless ceramic gifts (and get a few things we'd probably never buy like all-clad pans), but small enough that some folks would still give us cash.

Jaq, that's a super idea! I even have dye!

Srsly, that is a really good idea. I was looking at the Macy's catalog online and became totally overwhelmed.

xpost - Yes, yes yes! This is the advice I needed. My mom is freaking out in the most excited way possible. She's calling me tonight, so I need to be mentally prepared and have answers to her questions.

On the plus side, wedding shower is going to be at a BREWERY (the same place we were originally going to have the wedding).

Your mother thinks you need to register for a complete kitchen re-make? Oh golly. Way, way too much. And you're right -- wouldn't you rather buy your OWN tea towels when you see ones you really like in a store at some random time?? If a few family members chipped in for the KitchenAid, maybe you could even afford some extra dishcloths down the road....

This is not Barb's wedding This is not Barb's wedding This is not Barb's wedding and so on

Actually, she's been pretty good about all of it. The thing is she gets SO EXCITED and it's hard to calm her down. Also, she talks about it ad nauseum.

She talks about it more than I do. That being said, I'm not as gung-ho in the planning process as she is. I'm not sure if that's a poor reflection of myself.

Kekeke

register for yarn and roving ;)

OMG YES.

or maybe a new spinning wheel!

"Wanted: butter churn"

YES PLZ

ned! butter churning would be A+. i also want to learn how to make cheese! (for realz)

MOLLY TELL THEM TO BUY YOU GOATS. Then see who would rather send a check.

Even if you don't want or need gifts, people will still be buying you stuff anyway. Have a wishlist/gift registry somewhere, seriously, or you will have 8 squillion vases and no things you'd actually (we never lived together before we were married and I had always been a tenant in flats with people who owned stuff so had pretty much nothing to start with in our first house and thought it was pretty great that friends wanted to buy us things like an ironing board).

We got some cash/cheques - just make sure you write a thank-you note telling them you spent it on something specific ("we used it to buy a casserole dish that we had been looking at") rather than telling then it went in a big fund of drinking/holidays/rent/whatever. Several people also got us vouchers for the shops we'd placed the registry with which was good too for the things we'd have liked but which no-one bought us.

ailsa, excellent advice. thank you!

we are going to do a registry at macy's and perhaps target. or linens'n'things. i'm not sure. i've heard tales of people who registered at target and got a bunch of junk, which wasn't on their list.

In my experience, some people will still give you random junk that wasn't on your list, but registering really does cut down on that. It feels weird, but it helps your guests a lot, and it saves you from having things that you dislike but feel compelled to keep so as to not hurt someone's feelings.

i just had a conversation with my neurologist (she's around my age) and she told me of the glory of returning things to get what you really want. and then we talked about migraines.

wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wrlEWQ9eIs

http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleid=8890821830833235&pid=3671975