This is ayala88's Purple Wedding!

We are having a Jewish ceremony (traditionally done on Sundays) in summer 2013, and are trying to pick a date. Right now, our top 2 contenders are:

July 7 (the Sunday after Fourth of July, which is on a Thursday that year)
July 14 (the following Sunday, no holidays)

July 7th pros: People would have more time to travel, since it is the end of Fourth of July weekend. Cons= maybe people have other plans?
July 14th pros: No holiday to possibly conflict with. Cons: less time for traveling/shorter visit for out-of-towners.

Our wedding will be fairly small (we think around 30-50 people, haven't decided for sure yet), with about half the guests traveling at least a couple hours to get here. Which date would YOU choose to be most convenient for your guests?

[EDIT] My fiance is a major online stalker, so I decided to remove the dress pics JUST IN CASE he happens to find my blog here :) [/EDIT]

1. Disregard my previous Panic Post. My fiance and I talked it over, and decided that we will now take care of the wedding completely on our own to avoid family drama (with the exception of the dress/cake that my parents are insisting on paying for), and I think it is going to work out all right. We have changed the wedding back to the original season and location (summer 2013, fiance's hometown in Illinois), and are meeting with the rabbi tomorrow to figure out the exact date and discuss what needs to be done. FH's grandma is elderly and would not be able to travel across the country to see the wedding, so we are hoping to compromise by paying her a special visit before and/or after the wedding to spend time with her. She does not like noise and excitement to begin with and is a quiet person, so we think this idea would be more meaningful for her anyway :)

2. THE DRESS! I took a road trip up north to the Chicago area with my best friend to visit my parents and check out some bridal shops in the area. To kill time while another friend was running late, we checked out House of Brides, which I was wary of due to overwhelmingly negative reviews online. To my surprise, the store itself was nice, and they allowed you to select dresses yourself (which some people may not like, but I appreciated). As it turns out, the SECOND dress I tried on was the one! It was $250ish off suggested retail value, and we bargained it down an additional $60. With taxes, shipping and handling included, it was less than half my original dress budget :D
After visiting bridal shops 6 times prior to this with no luck, this dress is exactly what I wanted! It is the right fabric and color, has ruching (a must for me), no bling (my best friend- who is Indian- is planning to give me Kundan jewelry to go with the dress), has a corset back, and fits PERFECT in my size. NO alterations will be needed at all, including hemming (and I am almost 6' tall, so that is very lucky for me).

The chain does have a bad reputation for messing up orders/coming in late. But since our wedding will be summer 2013, I verified the style # with my consultant and got everything in writing, we got photos AND it was paid with American Express, I think it will be okay :)

Note: the dress sample was a bit wrinkled so it didn't photograph the greatest, but it is GORGEOUS in real life, and looks like it costs twice what we paid! :)

Long story semi-short: My parents from the start have not wanted to play much of a role in wedding planning, and have only agreed to pay for a dress and cake. FH's family always wanted more family involvement, and expected my family to take some initiative and start the planning for our wedding in summer 2013. I'm a completely broke grad student, and was just waiting for someone to bring up budgeting etc, since I was unwilling to ask for money from anyone (I figured, it was 2 years away and would be a small wedding, no rush). But now, A) FH's grandma's health has started to go downhill and B) Some family drama has necessitated that our wedding plans will be TOTALLY changed.

1) Instead of the original 15-17 months from now, our wedding will now be THIS August. As in, 7 months and I have barely begun to plan and will be a full-time grad student.
2) Instead of our hometown in Illinois, the wedding will be located all the way across the country in California, where FH's relatives live.
3) They want it to be a VERY small and intimate family-only affair, with perhaps 20 people.

I was originally toying with the idea of having the wedding in LA because FH has family there, as well as his aging grandma. But the idea was shot down because it would be expensive. But in light of recent events, that is what they now want, and we'll probably have to go with it. I don't have a problem with the wedding being small or so far away, but I'm nervous planning so much in so little time from a distance. And the family drama this has caused is so stressful :( Having my dad insist on inviting his sisters who I have not spoken to in 8 years (with good reason, another loong story) is not helping either..

Soo-- does anyone have some words of advice about planning a simple, elegant, affordable and very small wedding? Or how to deal with this stress in general? Realizing that I barely have 7 months is putting me into panic mode, where do I start planning??

The bridal shop back home (which I visited once before, they are wonderful) is having a Black Friday sale! So I set an appointment to go with my best friend, and hopefully find The Dress!

I was originally interested in Alma by Pronovias (a fit-n-flare with ruching), but it is honestly outside my price range. The shop just added a new designer (Allure), and I discovered that a lot of their dresses are VERY similar to the Pronovias, or better! Since they are new, they may not be on sale though :( But Pronovias is an expensive designer, so hopefully I'll still end up getting a deal!

Of course, I have not tried these dresses on yet, what are your opinions of them?

My favorites are 1 and 5 :)

BTW, the strap on the third dress (an Essence of Australia) is actually a removable scarf apparently

I have only been to a couple weddings before, and am curious as to what most people do for their first dance. Just slow dancing to their "our song"? Waltz or other ballroom dance? A surprised choreographed piece? I've seen all the above mentioned and am wondering what the average couple chooses to do.

We had a song informally picked out a couple years ago that we both love. I'm not sure how dance-able it is, especially considering the fact that neither of us can dance! However, I figure if we actually make an effort to learn it won't be so bad. I was thinking about adding a surprise choreographed piece after that song. Advanced tango is very difficult, but beginner/intermediate is pretty much just based on walking. I bet even we could manage! :D My grandparents met at a milonga (tango club) in Buenos Aires when they were young in Argentina, and grew to be as good as professional dancers. I've always wanted to learn.

FH and I unfortunately never took advantages of the tango classes offered in town where we attend school. I'm going to be 3 hours away at grad school for the next 2 years, but REALLY want to take lessons now and see if we could maybe do a surprise tango piece after the slow song. FH knows one of the men who teaches tango here. The classes are set weekly during weeknights so there is no way I'd be able to attend them while in grad school. But maybe... see if we can pay him for private lessons and take crash courses during my breaks? Or if the wedding is in late summer/early fall (we are still working on a date), we could take lessons for a couple months after I graduate.

Opinions? Does this sound too crazy or like a good idea?

In the beginning, I was all pumped about a big(ish) evening wedding with a sit-down dinner and the works. But after looking at the average wedding price today ($20k? That's going to be practically my college debt!) and preliminary guest list (tiny!), I'm starting to change my mind.

My fiance and I are anything but social butterflies. We each tend to have fewer, but closer friends. We met right after starting our programs in college (I undergrad, he PhD) and since we hit it off right away and didn't hang out with too many other people, we only have a handful of good friends from the past 4 years. Most of my potential guests are from high school, and his from his high school/Master's program. I've got only 3 family members who would attend. To make it short, the wedding will probably be tiny! I'm hoping to make it to 50 people haha.

We are also a bit shy by nature and not partiers. I love the outdoors, he loves the color green and sunflowers. So I've been thinking a small morning, noon or afternoon ceremony + reception would be really nice. That will also save a lot of money I think. I hear that Panera caters food-to-go. So my brainstorming lead to these ideas for lunch instead of a $$$ dinner:

* Panera sandwiches (ordered in advance from a choice provided in invitations)
* Panera soup (can order in bulk I believe)
* those DELICIOUS Panera salads (sell by the 10-serving container)
* Pastries/breads
--------
And I could make/buy myself:
* Hummus + other cold dips
* Veggie/Fruit/cheese platters
* My antipasto bean salad
* Appetizers in bulk from Sam's?
-------
* Wedding cake, hopefully baked by me!! I am a pretty good baker and have taken cake decorating classes in the past.
* Punch, lemonade, champagne, white sangria/mojito (matches the colors)?


Any feedback/opinions on this idea? We haven't decided for sure, but I think this is what we'd like to do. My best friend/fashion consultant is adamant that I should have an evening, 20k maroon-themed wedding. Maroon can be pretty (see 2nd inspiration board for comparison), but I think I prefer the more casual sunflower summery one. It suits us better I think :)

My username for WeddingByColor is one that I use pretty often in various places online, as well as one of my email accounts. My fiance (and I for that matter) loves to stalk people online, so there is a chance that he may come across my profile on this site if he looked up my username!

Normally not a problem, except for the fact that in my last post I put up pictures of a dress I fell in love with and may end up buying. He's not allowed to see it until the wedding! As far as I know, there is no way to change your username on this website, so I will have to avoid posting any pictures of dresses and deleted the post with dress pictures :(

We have literally *just* started planning. Although we both currently live in Illinois, we are thinking of having the wedding in California, as I mentioned before. Along with the weather/his grandmother there and not able to safely fly, it's also because he has more friends/relatives out there.

Due to various reasons (religious intolerance from one side, personal reasons on the other), I am not in contact with any of my extended relatives. I also tend to have fewer, but closer friends. So the only guests I anticipate having from my side would be my parents + sister, and perhaps a dozen or so good friends from high school. Then some more friends my fiance and I share from college. He, on the other hand, has a large extended family + a lot of friends from California.

I personally don't care about us having a mismatched # of guests. The only thing I would insist on is NOT having separate "bride" and "groom" sides at the ceremony, since it would look sad that I don't have anyone in comparison!

What are your thoughts on this? Did/are any of you focusing on matching or approximating the number of guests you'll both invite? Or are you like me and don't really care either way?

At the risk of sounding planning-obsessed (I swear, I'm not, even though I've only been engaged 6 days!), I decided to start thinking of general things I'd like to have in our wedding. HG (fiance) left for a summer internship all the way in California this morning, so I'm alone in a ghost campus town and feeling a little lonely. This helped cheer me up a bit, so that's my excuse ;)

General ideas so far:
* Thinking of holding it in California, for a few reasons: 1) He has more family than me (I only have my 3 immediate family members) and friends, many of whom live in California. 2) We really want his grandma to come, and she's too old to safely fly out to Illinois where we live 3) I always wanted an outdoor wedding, and California scenery is lovely and the weather is so beautiful and predictable! 4) My closest friends have been talking about doing a route 66 road trip since high school, this would be a perfect opportunity! His family is in the LA/Orange county area, so I was thinking of the latter for venues. Orange County looks like it has some really beautiful parks!

* He's Iranian and I'm a Sepharadi mutt, so we'd want it to include customs/food/music from both our cultures

* Jewish ceremony-- nothing super religious since we are only marginally observant (i.e. Reform, Conservative or Reconstructionist). But I would like it to be fairly traditional.

* He's a bit better off than me, but I'm going to be flat out broke after grad school, so any DIY and money-saving/budgeting tips would be appreciated!

* Colors-- blues, greens, white?? purple, silver?? So many to choose from, but I'm personally leaning towards blue/green/white or silver

After over 3 1/2 years of dating, we are finally engaged! HG and I met shortly after I began undergrad and after he returned here for his PhD. It was at a fusion concert featuring a Persian tar (stringed instrument) and western piano. He approached me during the intermission and we began to chat, soon learning that we shared similar backgrounds: we went to magnet schools (and were, therefore, a bit "nerdy"), grew up in small towns, and were of Sephardic/Mizrachi Jewish heritage. We began spending more time together, and grew more and more close over the following years.

After my last final examination before graduation, he proposed outside of the building where we met nearly 4 years ago :) The part I will remember most is how we nearly crashed another couple's surprise proposal that was going on right where he had planned to take me! The ring is gorgeous (he had it custom-made by a friend-of-a-family friend jeweler), and I cannot possibly imagine having a better person to spend the rest of my life with :)

Now that I'm engaged... where do I begin?