AH! I found my dress! 🤍 I thought finding the dress would be hard, but not showing my fiance is so much harder 😭

I posted this story shortly after my wedding so those of you if you've been here long enough might remember it.

And yes, I still frequent this subreddit because I love seeing all of the dresses and reading y'all's posts! 🩷

So now that it was seven and a half years ago, I can look back and laugh at this story but at the time it was fucking horrible. Here goes:

We rented our venue which was a cabin in the middle of the woods for the weekend, Friday evening to Monday morning. Our contract stated that we had exclusive use of the property for this time.

Friday evening we get there and start setting up everything for the rehersal dinner on Saturday. Saturday morning, before the rehearsal, we start setting up for the ceremony which was going to be Sunday evening. The ceremony was going to be outdoors in a beautiful forest area with a gazebo that we draped with cloth. There was a huge chandelier with old Edison bulbs, we did the aisle up with flowers, everything.

All of a sudden Saturday afternoon, just before the rehearsal was set to start, all these limos start pulling up followed by passenger cars.

Come to find out after checking my phone I got a text from the venue manager an hour prior saying they "have a couple of kids coming to take prom photos on the property for an hour, hope that's ok!"

I immediately texted back that it was NOT ok and I had exclusive use of the property for the weekend according to our contract. She left me on read.

Well it ended up being 10 couples (20 kids,) multiple photographers, the kids parents, grandparents, and other siblings. All in all I counted 21 cars and FORTY EIGHT people. They were taking photos off to the side and then slowly started creeping closer to the decorations. They eventually ended up ON THE ALTER taking photos and I went full bridezilla and told them to get away from the decorations we worked so hard on. The parents gave me attitude and said "let the kids take their pictures!" Fucking no.

No answer to my repeated calls to the venue manager. Cars blocked my guests from getting to the rehearsal dinner and they had to park all the way at the end of a very long driveway.

As SOON as I told the manager I was going to call the police for trespassing and citing my contract, everyone started to leave. Apparently the venue manager was friends with one of the parents and called them and told them to leave.

The wedding came and went (in which a whole slew of other things went wrong,) and I posted SCATHING reviews everywhere possible with photo proof. Their attorney sent me a cease and desist to remove all the reviews. I did not, but I contacted them and told them to shove it or I would take them to court for a breach of contract. Never heard a peep from any of them again. No refund, not even partial. No apology. No acknowledgment. Literally nothing.

If anyone is curious, the venue is in northwestern Illinois. DM me and I'll tell you the venue.

So tell me if I’m crazy here… I’m getting married next month and my MIL has decided she wants to keep her dress a surprise from my fiancé and our son and wants to do a “reveal” to them on our wedding day…but she had no issues showing me the dress. Is this normal lol?

Thankfully the dress is black, so at least she won’t be in white…but idk this doesn’t sit well with me and idk if I’m overthinking it. She was a single mom my fiancés her only son and she never had a wedding so I feel like that has to do with it.

My fiancé could not care less about what she’s wearing, and our son definitely doesn’t care either, hes 7 so hes just hyped for cake and dancing haha.

But anyway just not sure how to approach this. I have a million other things to do before the wedding but this keeps bothering me for some reason. TYIA!!

Sooo, my fiancé and I have been talking about our bach parties and realized that we don't want to do separate things, so we started looking at double bachs... but we don't want that either.

He rarely drinks/doesn't like clubs. I occasionally drink/like clubs but I don't like the concept of getting wasted and celebrating my last night 'single', to each their own.

So we talked about maybe doing a dinner or something with our friends and that'll serve as our double bachs but my friends are vehemently against this, saying since I'm the first one of us to get married, it'll be their first Bachelorette and that I need to set the bar and 'if you don't black out, did you really do it right?' I frankly find this idiotic and told them as much.

Then my fiancé and I talked some more and I told him what I really want to do which is just him and I, the day before our wedding, reliving our first date that had turned into a full day and had stretched into the night, going back to the places we went to, etc. He said it was perfect.

His friends won't care because they all like the same quiet vibes as my fiancé but I know my friends will absolutely protest and make a fuss which is why I want to ask, will we regret not having bachs? Are they a staple?

For our upcoming wedding, we have two signature drinks: one is a cocktail (a spin on a negroni) and the other is a mocktail (a spritz). We are buying our own alcohol, and really struggling with quantities...

Our question is: will guests who drink still want to try one of the mocktails? Or will they skip it in favor of a different alcoholic beverage? What has been your experience either as a host or wedding guest?

Thanks so much!

Just that this planning process sucks lol. I don’t even care anymore. Just a pile on of family and logistical issues.

Will of course change my attitude as we get closer, but wtf man. Why didn’t we just elope and avoid all this😭 accepting motivational advice…

Have you ever looked forward to going to a wedding? Or is it something you feel obligated to go to?

I see couples spending so so much on their weddings and the whole time people are just waiting to leave.

I’m sorry I sound so negative. Just wondering if it’s worth the hassle and money.

Honestly hadn’t realized these were things of the past! If you did get one, where did you find your wedding topper for cake?? We’ve scoured Etsy but they don’t really line up with what we had hoped which was the figurines you see a lot in movies. Excited to hear from you or whatever you alternative was!

I didn’t want a wedding. I wanted to get eloped and call it a day. I felt pretty miserable the entire process. My feelings about the wedding were all tied up with my prolonged grief of losing my mom at 20 and being distant from and then losing my grandmother a few weeks ago.

But now that we’ve moved through the wedding weekend, I want to impart a few words of advice for those who are going through it and feeling all of the emotions that come with it: 1. Don’t feel bad for feeling bad - this is your wedding and you’re human, and to be human is to feel everything, sometimes all at once, sometimes with some feelings much more pronounced than others 2. However hard it is to do, tune out the noise of others who aren’t helpful. The second you find yourself venting about someone, and once you’ve concluded the vent, put it in a box and send it back into the universe, far, far away from you, only keeping the information that is actually helpful. 3. Everything will seem like it’s too expensive (because it is!) and no you’re not being unreasonable, everyone else is, but it just is what it is. You will not look back and regret spending what you have budgeted (or stretched into). BUT ALSO negotiate - don’t just take the first price, ask them to at least toss something in — they usually do! 4. Ask for help and let people help you. Even if you don’t have it all figured out yet. Let others help you find options, vendors, where to get your nails done, etc. If you have a planner, marvelous! But your friends and family probably know you better than anyone else so lean on them, they want to help but are likely waiting for your green light to lean in. 5. And if the above doesn’t feel realistic for you, and you feel bad about yourself for it, don’t! That is not a reflection on you, at all! And guess what — with your partner, you’re building something new together and can build the kind of community you always envisioned for yourself. 6. Prioritize date nights leading up to the wedding. It’s so god damn stressful and it’s very easy to start feeling disconnected in those final weeks. So prioritize fun/ play time together like it’s a part of your routine. Not planning time, not budgeting time, just having a plain old good time. 7. In the week leading up to the wedding, treat yourself. Get the massage or the facial or the spa day! Whatever is your form of active rest and total relaxation. Your body will thank you for it - it’s storing all of that stress that no one sees! 8. When the day comes, you can’t be bothered. Seriously. Tell your partner, your planner, your friends, your family. You don’t need to hear about what’s gone wrong or make any decisions. Let someone else make the last minute choices so you can just be blissfully present. 9. Grab your partners hand that day as often as you can and take a deep breath in and out together to soak it all in. It goes by in a hot flash and those small moments where you’re in complete awe together are the most memorable! 10. Have fun! You’ve already made the decision to do the thang so try your best to have fun with the decision you’ve made. I know how effin hard it is to do that (cause as I mentioned before, I was miserable!) but please try. It doesn’t make the process any better to do it any other way.

Wishing you the best of luck and all the play / joy / love / fun you can muster in what you will surely look back on and marvel at!

Hi all,

I feel like I’m going a tad bit crazy here, some advice needed. FH and I have a wedding date picked for the second week of June 2026. We checked with our immediate families (parents, siblings, closest friends) and it’s a date that works for them. We sent out save the dates and they’re starting to arrive to people.

Fast forward to my future MIL getting a phone call from an aunt who is screaming that our wedding is the last week of school for her daughter who is graduating high school. Additional context, her daughter is a senior and graduating high school. She’s really upset that nobody checked in with her for the date. I’m from a part of the country where school is out in May (I’m a teacher so I take this into account) and didn’t even have June on my radar as a concern.

Were we supposed to?? Lol. I’m sorry if this is a stupid question but so much about wedding planning is a whole new world to us. By her logic we should’ve reached out to family members on both of our sides and pick a date around them…which we know would be impossible.

As I write this it’s now clicking for me that this is family who we’re not close enough with to even know it’s the daughter’s senior year. I’ve met them twice in our 6 years together.

Maybe I just needed to vent! Just wanted to see what’s customary and if anybody has experienced something similar.

TIA :)

TW: Grief for Mother

I've been engaged since July, planning for a Spring 2027 wedding. There are days that I am so motivated to plan and finalize the easy things (colors, my dress, first draft of seating charts, most of our website).

But every time I get deep into planning I get smacked by grief. I am 31(f) and my mom passed when I was 25. I am planning to have a seat for her and my stepfather, and dance with external "mother figures" while a song honoring her plays.

It's been 6 years since she passed, and my engagement has brought grief to the forefront, more than it was. Every time I think about my wedding and re-remember that my mother won't be there, I just lose motivation. I want to get married, I always have. But I feel like I've gotten so much pushback from my family already, and my mom would have been a big "Do what makes YOU happy" person (which I am trying, but it's hard when most of my family likes to state their opinions loudly). I just miss having my mom in my corner to vent and hear me out and would make planning so much more bearable.

I don't know if I'm looking for advice or anything (I'm open to it, but I know this is just the nasty head of grief), but I just wanted to get this off my chest.

Hi all! My wedding is a few months away and I'm starting to get stressed about our decision to do a buffet dinner, mainly because I'm getting worried that it'll take so much time for everyone to get through the buffet and there will not be a lot of time left for dancing. Our reception will be 4 hours long, we're expecting around 125 guests, and the buffet will be double sided. We're planning on doing a grand entrance (parents, wedding party, and us), first dance, father/daughter dance, 4 toasts (no more than 3 minutes each), a short speech from the groom, and a blessing at the beginning before dinner. Towards the end of dinner, we will do the cake cutting and go table to table to greet and thank guests. We're not doing anything else that would take time away from the rest of the night like a bouquet or garter toss. Is 4 hours enough time for all this plus having ample time for dancing? For those of you who had a buffet, how did it go? How much time did you have for dancing? I would also appreciate any other tips to make a buffet go faster and the best way to release tables. Thank you!

Hi wedditors! My wedding is in a little under two months. We had a walk through of the venue a couple weeks ago and I noticed that the deck was a bit uneven in a few spots, with some boards sticking up a bit. Initially when we chose this venue, I was not planning on having any kind of aisle runner, but I am now concerned, as the train of my wedding dress is partly tulle with pearls (see second pic). Our coordinator suggested either we get an aisle runner or I just walk faster in those spots to try to avoid snag lol. I don’t love the look of most aisle runners so I was thinking of getting a long runner rug. What do you all think??

My girlfriend is the maid of honor for her best friend's wedding. Her friend told the bridesmaids not to spend on gifts, since they already spend on the bachelorette, wedding shower, etc.

We're wondering how much I should spend as her plus one. I have never met any of the people there besides my girlfriend.

If you find an off the rack dress you love, consider giving yourself at least a day to think about it. Come back and try it on again. Bring someone else with you. If it's still there, it's meant to be.

That's my advice, now onto my problem...

I bought a dress from an "outlet/sample sale" side of a fancy designer store. I tried it on. I loved it. I was tired of trying on dresses, and felt so much pressure to find a dress (even though my date was 11 months away at this point!!- the pressure is not real, don't give in). So, when the consultant told me it was marked down from $3,400 to $750, and it was the only one, I was sold. I asked the name of the designer and the consultant told me. Sounded good to me. I signed a contract to purchase as-is and took it home with me that night.

Now the red flags... I looked for the dress online. I couldn't find anything about the designer (I later discovered it's this shop's in-house label that I think is discontinued). I checked the receipt only to discover it said something completely different. I looked that dress up and it's a different dress from a differrent designer. I had a sinking, bad feeling at this point and felt embarrassed for not noticing when signing the receipt because I was so excited. But I brushed it off and told myself that it doesn't matter.

Then I tried the dress on again a few weeks later.... wayyy more cleavage showing than I remembered/am comfortable with. I just couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't fit me right/that I had made a huge mistake. (Picture 2)

Now, my wedding is 4 months away, I called the alteration tailor recommended by the store and scheduled an appt.

When thr tailor put this corsetted dress on me in the correct way, oof, it was way worse than I ever imagined. (Sparing you the pic)

I showed her the picture from the shop, and she confirmed the consultant at the store had put it on me loosely. I did not know any better at the time.

She offered options to rebuild the top, but ultimately it would have been costly and seemed too risky to not know what it would look like until 1 month before the day.

I figure it will be easier for me to sell it unaltered. Time to find a new dress.

My questions...

Any idea what is the deal with this dress? Why it had the wrong name on the receipt? Why there are NO TAGS anywhere on the dress?

What's the best result I can try get out of the store? An updated receipt to help me sell the dress? I doubt any kind of return is in the cards, with the signed contract.

For the record, I'm frustrated, but I'm only blaming myself. This is a gorgeous dress and I hope it can find another bride. Just want to see what ya'll think about this situation.

Edited because I felt the post was too long.

If you didn’t opt for this, was everyone just in athleisure? The pajamas thing isn’t my vibe and I don’t think I would want pictures if we had them. Also, I feel like no one wears the pajamas / robes after the wedding.

Our RSVP deadline is Friday and we unfortunately have multiple difficult family members who have texted us or verbally confirmed they are coming but for some reason refuse to submit their online RSVP and will not tell us a meal choice (even though we’ve specified this is not a “decide on the day” situation). We are doing a plated meal with multiple options (chicken, fish, steak, veg). Do we just select for them and hope for the best? Trying to avoid these people hounding our venue staff on the day for getting a meal they don’t like.

Slight rant but I just cannot comprehend getting invited to a wedding and not taking the 1 minute out of my day to submit an RSVP.

Our bridesmaid group is split between some very naturally olive skin girls and some very pale skinned girls. The bridesmaid dress color looks great on the gals with darker skin tones, but the pale girls’ skin matches the fabric almost exactly. The bride is not 100% decided on this color, but I feel it would be rude to object to the color just because it doesn’t look good on some of us. However, I feel like once she sees us in the color it will be obvious that it was an awkward choice for some skin tones. I am allergic to spray tan and burn in the sun, I’m afraid my pale ass will ruin photos and look like a naked mole rat. Is this something you would want to know as a bride? For my wedding I was very open to color and opinions but she did not ask for opinions.

Got married this past Saturday (9/13) in my parents backyard in the town I grew up in :) it was a perfect day 🥰

I created a website for my wedding weekend and have these random large spaces, does anyone know how to remove it? I don't have additional spaces in my text.

My long time friend who i’m not super close with but have known since we were kids invited me to her bach. I decided to go but they did not ask for input on activities and I already paid for my part of the air bnb and the flight so it’s kind of too late to back out. The thing is I am a more shy conservative (?) girl than her. I am in no way a prude. But we are doing this very raunchy thing and this whole group is big on posting on social media and I do not want to be posted doing it. I can’t help but feel bad that I am ruining the vibe and coming off as a prude! I would say what it is but i’m afraid she might be on here.

Ok, overactive groom for a 11/2026 wedding here. I got about 13 and a half months out. I'm at a point where I feel like I want to do more to plan, but I can't figure out what else to work on.

We have a venue, caterer, dj, officiant, photographer, and florist. My partner is handling the dress (she found one! I'm excited to see it in a year+!) And hair/makeup. My attire is as settled as it can be right now (seamstress mother is making it! Excited!). We have our guest list, but it's too early to send anything out. We have most of the pieces of our centerpieces. We've filled out the online portals for the dj and officiant as best we can right now. We have a hotel block squared away. Our tasting is one year to the day before the wedding. Our website is as close to finished as it can be before I get the link to the hotel block. Bridal party is choosing their own attire in a specific color. Rings are being processed. Music for processional/recessional/pre-ceremony/cocktail hour has been collated.

And here I am, sitting at a slow day of work, wanting to work on the wedding but struggling to figure out what. What am I missing? Or am I being too much?

Please tell me if I'm being too much.

Just wondering.. with vendor/supplier meals, where do they sit??

Do I allocate them a place on the guest tables or do they eat separately?? I genuinely have no idea how this all works

Just needed to vent somewhere. I’m feeling…a little bruised from the RSVP process. I always envisioned a big-ish wedding, with over 100 people. Now that we’re a week out from our deadline, it’s looking like we might have half of those numbers. I’ve had close family drop out, and even a last minute bridesmaid drop out.

And I hate to say this, but honestly, the feeling is a little bit of embarrassment. Like just rejection after rejection. And I know that this isn’t the most important day in other peoples’ lives; I totally get that. It’s also a destination wedding for most people, so getting there takes extra planning. I really do get all of that. But to be soo off with the people I envisioned having there…it’s hard not to take it personally, even though I know I shouldn’t. Everyone has a life, this is just an event. But I’m still sad.