It’s your wedding right?  You want to pick a date that is important or significant to you and your sweetie.  However, you want the right weather for your wedding location, so you have to pick a good month or season which may or may not match up with a significant date.  However, you want to rent the perfect church or hall or garden for your wedding, so you have to choose a date when the facility is available which may or may not be a significant date or a good weather season.  However, you want your respective parents to attend, so you have to plan around their schedules on top of these other criteria.  And the madness begins.

 

PROBLEM #1:  Everyone’s schedule was flexible, except for my mother’s.  Therefore I had 2 blessed weekends to choose from in the entire year of 2006.  Turns out the first date I picked (and reserved with the facility) was EASTER weekend.  The facility was available, but all the surrounding accommodations were booked solid.  I had to change the wedding date.  This wasn’t quite so bad, except now my mother and father wouldn’t be able to stay with us the week before the wedding.  This means, they wouldn’t get to meet or greet the “in-laws” until the night of the rehearsal dinner.  I certainly hope they like each other.  Of course they will, or they will pretend to right?

The Guest List – according to the etiquette I know, the guest list is determined by the budget and by who’s paying for the wedding & reception.  If ya ain’t got the money, ya can’t invite everybody!  There are only a set number of people you will be able to afford to invite.  This means if the Bride & Groom are paying for their own wedding, then they get to decide who to invite.  If the parents pay for the wedding, they get to help decide who is invited – in conjunction with the Bride & Groom.  If both the Bride & Groom’s parents help pay for the wedding, then the guest list is split 3-ways for each party to pick their choices.  Supposedly.

In the world of “VSGAL”, my fiancé and I were paying for our own wedding & reception, therefore, we should get to decide who to invite and how many people to invite. At least that is what I thought.