Is it normal to be this stressed so early on?

Littleblondehen

Hi all,

We have just this week booked our wedding and already I'm stressing :eek:

First of all we were going to do a legger abroad, just myself and himself, then we decided we would have it at home, but we don't want a formal wedding.

So we booked a wedding solminiser and a local club for a friday evening next march. Grand.

We are living in London, so we are trying to plan from here.

Now I'm starting to panic, we thought we could get a hot buffet in that wouldn't cost a fortune, we were wrong!! and we also thought we could decorate the room for a reasonable price, seems we were also wrong.

Now we are stressing that it's actually going to end up costing us more than we had planned (about 5000 all in) and I'm going into hysterics and declaring quite loudly " that it will be a complete disaster and that we should cancel it and just run away and get married but we can't because me and my big fat mouth told everyone the date and why is it everything I try to plan fails and it's supposed to be about me and you not a chicken fecking curry and fairy lights *sob sob sob* "

I do realise that I am being slightly dramatic!! but please tell me I'm not mad and that everyone has a bit of panic??

Yours in Histrionics
Littleblondehen!

celticcrash

It would have been cheaper to fly to Vegas and have big fat sweaty Elvis up at the alter. You will be lucky to get away with 5000 euro. Does that include honeymoon?

Littleblondehen

celticcrash wrote: »

It would have been cheaper to fly to Vegas and have big fat sweaty Elvis up at the alter. You will be lucky to get away with 5000 euro. Does that include honeymoon?

I know!! We allowed ourselves to be talked into it, well it was my fault really, I went home for a weekend without him and being the spineless feck that I am, I got swayed with visions of romantic ceremony and a big mad session afterwards.

His dad has very kindly offered to pay for our honeymoon. Ah no, Our families are fantastic and I know they will help organise things for us, but I'm just panicking thinking that maybe it's not as ideal as we thought it would be.

Cailleachdubh

I've been having similar thoughts (about running away, it all seems impossible etc etc), but a few recently married friends confided in me on the q.t. that as long as you keep it under 10g it should pretty much pay for itself...

One friend said they got four-fifths of the cost back in gifts, another said the gifts ended up covering the lot (not sure if that includes honeymoon though!)!! So they said don't let the cost put you off - as long as you stick to a tight budget it can be done.

Although I never thought guests should be obliged to fork out a set sum of cash as a gift (regardless of their personal circumstances etc), the reality seems to be that most people will tend to do that anyway.

I'm hoping this is true - otherwise it's Gretna Green or Vegas for me!!

Oh, also - I like the idea of the buffet and the self-decorating too, but it seems to work out nearly more expensive than the traditional hotel option... Which is annoying to say the least. Don't like the idea of a formal sit-down meal where everyone has to stay firmly put until they've eaten their last spoonful of meringue.

Shellygoose

I found it very overwhelming at the beginning stages of the planning - there just seems to be sooo much to do. I've found that I am now a HUGE fan of checklists.

I did up a Wedding Tracker on excel which I find really useful, have everything listed off (a tab for the full invite list, tab for evening list, accounts tab, saving tab) and have it autosumed so we can keep track of how much everything is costing etc. If you want me to send it on, PM me your email address as I'm not sure if an excel file will attach on boards.

My mam got married last year and they had a civil ceramony with the reception (hot buffet) in the local GAA hall. Lucky they hired AMAZING caters that did alot of the background prep work in ordering in the tables/chairs/cutlery etc, but there was a lot of work in getting the hall ready, and it had to be done the night before so it wasnt exactly very relaxing.

Dont leave things stress you out - start a checklist - they are truely great haha

Littleblondehen

Cailleachdubh yea it does seem to be working out more expensive! We want to pay for everything ourselves and avoid costing other people money, a family wedding recently cost us a small fortune! Himself has taken charge of the food now, he is really good at sniffing out good deals (which is why he's the money man and I'm the entertainment person in our pub!)

Shelleygoose, that would be wonderful thanks! I'll pm you with my email. I currently have scraps of paper here, there and everywhere as I don't want to write in my shiny new wedding planner

Claim The Frame

I got married tin 2009 and myself and my husband wanted to go away and get married but like that we were talked into having it here and it turned into a massive wedding which we didn't want.

My advice to anybody is if you truely want to go away and get married, do it and don't let yourselves be talked into something that you don't want. I found that other people were putting pressure on us which made things worse. You will see people's true colours in times like this.

Saying all that I had a fantastic day and all that mattered at the end of it was marrying my husband but if I could go back I would definitely have gone away with just family. Don't let others push you into things you don't want to do! Hope that helps!;)

katemurphy85

Some people get stressed about it. I'm usually a very big stress head but we breezed through all the big stuff.
All I'll say is, once you have the big things (venue, band, dress etc) organised screw the rest of it.

If you don't know what exactly you want, you will stress.

Hope everything comes together for you! Good luck!!!!!

aod113

I found that at the beginning of our planning phase myself and the fiancé were arguing alot over the smallest details. We ended up having a big sit down chat over what it was all about and why we were putting ourselves through the stress and now we are loving every minute of the planning- we celebrate the smallest decision with champagne!

Gatica

Littleblondehen, are you stressing because it's working out more expensive or because you're overwhelmed by the amount of things you need to get done?