Planning a wedding

[BTalley 0]

I could not figure out the best place for this discussion, but it's something I have been thinking about. And I know NOTHING about weddings and all the protocol.

With only a 3-month window to work with, and all the paperwork and adjustment that takes place once your fiancee arrives . . . how much planning can you do for a wedding?

Do most people here have pretty simple ceremonies (compared to the year-long planning that many brides-to-be) do in America? What if you need to travel out of state so that family members can attend? How do you plan a wedding in state where you don't even live? Is it better just to do a quick "I do" to get the pressure off, and then plan something more formal for later that doesn't have a deadline attached?

I really cannot see starting any serious planning until she gets here . . . but when she gets here it's going to be a whirlwind of activity.

I know the marriage is 1,000,000 times more important than the wedding. I just don't have any idea what to expect.

[~Laura and Nick~ 5]

I think many people do have very simple ceremonies...some just go to the court house and do a party afterwards like you said.

Remember that once the beneficiary has the visa, they have up to 6 months to enter...if you wanted an extensive wedding, some people use that time to plan then move.

Remember, a wedding is one day, marriage is a lifetime. Do what's best for the both of you.

[DakotaK1 1]

I could not figure out the best place for this discussion, but it's something I have been thinking about. And I know NOTHING about weddings and all the protocol.

With only a 3-month window to work with, and all the paperwork and adjustment that takes place once your fiancee arrives . . . how much planning can you do for a wedding?

Do most people here have pretty simple ceremonies (compared to the year-long planning that many brides-to-be) do in America? What if you need to travel out of state so that family members can attend? How do you plan a wedding in state where you don't even live? Is it better just to do a quick "I do" to get the pressure off, and then plan something more formal for later that doesn't have a deadline attached?

I really cannot see starting any serious planning until she gets here . . . but when she gets here it's going to be a whirlwind of activity.

I know the marriage is 1,000,000 times more important than the wedding. I just don't have any idea what to expect.

We got married like 22 days before the K1 Visa expired,so that left us more than enough time to plan our wedding.

And yes we had a pretty big wedding,got married in a church and had a big reception after.

We got everything we needed to get done from the smallest decorations to finding the recpetion hall done within that short time frame.

Whatever you do dont plan the wedding 100% before the foreign fiance arrives in the US.

Good luck to you guys.

[BexandAlan 0]

Hi

I have spent way too much time thinking about this. A lot of people going through this process have small courthouse ceremonies to fulfill the requirements for the visa and then plan larger wedding for friends and family to participate in at a later date. This makes sense because of the stress of moving and everything else etc but it doesn't mean that you can't have the big wedding right away.

For the courthouse wedding you will need to check with the requirements of the state you want to marry in but there is very little if any planning/booking required. You can make it a bit more formal by dressing that way and inviting some friends as witnesses or you can go in your jeans, you play it the way you want to. Its quick and cheap and does everything you need for the visa

As for having a big wedding with friends and family there is plenty you can achieve in 3 months, it will be quite frantic though. I'm looking forward to it as it will give me something to focus on. You could get some help from wedding planners, especially if you are planning in marrying in a state that is not where you live. There are some really reasonable planners out there and you can often choose different packages depending on how involved you want them to be/ how much you can afford/ what you want etc ....

As Alan wants to do the big wedding he has been getting involved in going to see venues. Because we are dependent on the visa its hard to know whether to book but you can always negotiate with venues to get a contract that allows you to move the date without additional charge. OR you can wait until the visa is in hand to book and risk your first choices no longer being free on the dates you want.

Lots of venues do packages for everything you need so really there is little stress there ... all depends on your budget. If you have a wedding planner they will make sure everything is in hand anyway. If you don't have a planner or a co-operative venue you will need to think about A LOT more (catering, entertainment, decoration...) and thats where your stress is going to come from. Your fiancee may want to start thinking about getting her dress in her home country. Its something she can do so that she actually feels like she is participating in some of the process.

You don't need to do much physical planning right now if you don't want to but you should talk about what you both want - things that can and cannot be compromised on. I'm sure she will have more of these than you will. If you choose to do the bigger wedding there is lots of stuff you can do to make it easier to plan when she get there. Just desktop stuff - Google is your friend!!

Good luck

Bex xxx

[Krissy! 0]

This is also something that has been on my mind.... I don't want to marry at a courthouse, or at the city hall, but am looking into spots -- perhaps at a beach/shoreline/cliff, or even my parents' home. Can find a wedding officiant, or ask a friend to do a "one day officiant" certificate to marry you. Depends on the state you're located in.

I may do some pre-planning, ie getting my wedding dress (I definitely want to be dolled up, but at a reasonable price), and I think I rather have artificial flowers as a bouquet (silk flowers), so that could also be a project in itself before things get settled (if he can't come here for whatever reason, I can just bring the flowers with me to marry in his country!)

There are loads of "package deals" that could be doable. Depends on what the both of you want.

I'm just excited about the marriage part -- the wedding part, I can do without, but for now let me dream a little bit. I don't plan to have a full-blown out wedding deal. Definitely have my close family and friends there. And maybe have a BBQ/Potluck type of reception afterwards.

[msu17 0]

My husband and I didn't want to do the courthouse thing and then have the wedding later. We managed to plan it once he got his interview date. That was about 3 months from when we got the interview date to the wedding. I bought my wedding dress, got my bridesmaids dresses etc. before then and talked with each different vendor beforehand, so I knew where I wanted to book once we got his interview date. This is a risky way to go about it in case something happens with the interview. We made sure we could move the wedding date within one year without losing our deposits, but even that was a risk. Its up to you how much stress and how much risk you can accept. Good luck!

[mikimoto 0]

This is also something that has been on my mind.... I don't want to marry at a courthouse, or at the city hall, but am looking into spots -- perhaps at a beach/shoreline/cliff, or even my parents' home. Can find a wedding officiant, or ask a friend to do a "one day officiant" certificate to marry you. Depends on the state you're located in.

I may do some pre-planning, ie getting my wedding dress (I definitely want to be dolled up, but at a reasonable price), and I think I rather have artificial flowers as a bouquet (silk flowers), so that could also be a project in itself before things get settled (if he can't come here for whatever reason, I can just bring the flowers with me to marry in his country!)

There are loads of "package deals" that could be doable. Depends on what the both of you want.

I'm just excited about the marriage part -- the wedding part, I can do without, but for now let me dream a little bit. I don't plan to have a full-blown out wedding deal. Definitely have my close family and friends there. And maybe have a BBQ/Potluck type of reception afterwards.

I want to have my wedding very unique, something very unusual because the more that i will make it really different it will always be remembered as one big history of my life. Its the thought that to be married to the man i love is the most important and wonderfulthing in this world for me and its regardless of the dress ill wear and party after the wedding.Im all after of the wedding vows because its more than just a promise, its a covenant between God and the both of us.

[Cassie 8]

One of the big ways I occupied myself during the waiting of the K-1 approval process was planning and preparing my wedding.

Once we knew the date, we had everything ready to go, waiting to be activated.

It also helped to negotiate with the vendors ahead of time and let them know what kind of process we were dealing with. They were very helpful and willing to work with us.

We had the full on religious ceremony that we wanted -- it was smaller than I had originally imagined, but it turned out perfectly.

[melusine 5]

here i am a strong belieer on keeping it more than simple.

Our situation is that we are both divorced so neither of us feel the need of a big wedding bu still wanted something out from the courthouse (kinda grey feeling)

so we decied we would go in vegas in the drive through (wich also is like 60 $ total) just both of us, dressing normally, going there with our car, spending the week end and coming back.

It's easy in terms of date and all.

I know my sweet would like to do another simple something for next september for family and friends and we will definetly do a nicer thing in a couple of years.

[jle930sl 0]

I think everyone on here has given a pretty good overview of the options that people take for the wedding planning part. My fiance and I have started to pre-plan our wedding, including a tentative date and save-the-date cards.... even a church.

Like others, we're preparing things now (and in the next months), to make the planning easier when we know for sure he has his visa. Our church has agreed to our tentative date and letting us change it whenever necessary. Our reception will be held at a restaurant, which can merely be called as soon as we know the visa is in hand, to reserve seating for our 30 guests. We've decided on a date about 2 months before our tentative wedding date, to use as a cut off to push the wedding back. In other words, if we don't know at least when my fiance's interview will be by January 15th, our tentative March 27th 2009 wedding will be rescheduled for a later time.

As far as other details go, we have and will spend a lot of time discussing them. By time it comes around to making definite plans for the wedding (when he has his visa in hand), we'll already have decided on majority of the details, so that it'll be easier to book everything. By that time I will also already have my wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses.

Planning a wedding out of state is more difficult than planning one around the block from where you live, but doable. I live in Ohio and we will marry in Minnesota. My mom is ecstatic to help us with all the planning up there, which helps. A lot of what she'll be doing is getting ideas on locations for us for the reception and other info about vendors, etc... and eventually booking things for us. I'll probably take a trip in the fall/early 2009 to make some plans as well.

There you go! There's what we're doing. I highly agree with everyone else, don't make any definite plans. For us, the number 1 criterion for wedding plans is flexibility. If a vendor/location isn't willing to be flexible with us for a wedding date, then we won't book them. If all else fails, we have the ceremony site - the rest of the wedding is just details.

Mindy

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Do most people here have pretty simple ceremonies (compared to the year-long planning that many brides-to-be) do in America?

That is a waste of time. If it really takes that long to plan a wedding for detail's sake, you have most certainly been brainwashed by the marketing geniuses behind the massive wedding industry. The grandeur and perfection of a wedding has zero to do with the success of a marriage.

[Melrose Plant 1]

I booked the small chapel at our church before I left for Vietnam, and then it wouldn't be a big deal to make a phone call to cancel/postpone in case something went wrong at the interview. We got "married" last year in Vietnam at a huge ceremony, so this ceremony will be small, and on a weekday.

We will probably have a reception later so more people can attend and we can plan at our leisure.

[stardusted 0]

I think it's the courthouse for us--just him, me and a judge. Pretty sure we'll both be wearing jeans. I'm Indian so there's a big wedding in our future, but not for a while yet. We never had a "proposal;" our decision to get married was more logical than anything. We knew we would be married one day, we no longer wanted to be apart, this is what we decided. I still expect to be asked one of these days, and I still want a ring on my finger. For now, though, we're just doing what needs to be done. I know that doesn't sound romantic, but what could be more romantic than two people loving each other and doing everything they can to be together?

[Steve'sGirl 0]

We want to have a bigger wedding so we've been talking about how to plan things under these special circumstances.

So since booking a wedding venue is pretty much impossible without knowing when the visa is coming through, we have finalized everything that can be decided on without having a set date, such as picking out music, invitations (obviously, without ordering them), favors, wedding registries (you can always change the dates as time goes by), I ordered my wedding dress in February and we have made a shortlist of wedding venues we are considering, hoping that at least one of them will be available once we can set the date.

It is stressful planning a wedding during that 90-day window, but not impossible. In our case, my fiance's mom used to be a wedding planner, so she knows vendors, etc. I believe having a wedding planner is extremely helpful in this situation.

At the end of the day the wedding will be perfect, whether big or small, because you marry the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. That's all that really matters.

[Aubrey 10]

I am divorced myself, and my first wedding was one of the "package" deals that some people here have mentioned. If you're not against a destination wedding, there are some great choices out there for all in one things that don't involve Vegas or a courthouse. I spent ages pouring over destination and package weddings, and I highly recommend http://enchantingelopements.com (out of Napa, California). Pretty much everything is included & handled by Reverend Ellsworth, who was willing to do a non-religious ceremony for us. Everything was perfect... (except the man I married ). Gorgeous grounds on an old winery with flowers everywhere, outstanding photography, hilarious minister, scrumptious cake... and after the fallout and seeing the prices of what was supposed to be my "traditional" wedding, I can definitely say this is an amazing bargain.

Well, anyways I hope maybe this helps one of you out there! If you do, I'd love to see pictures!