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sebster wrote:I asked last night, and while she stared at the ring, she asked 'really?' and then 'you didn't feel pressured into this?', which felt like the most incredibly long time before I asked 'but yes, right?'

Why do women do this? Mrs Albatross just went 'OMIGOD!OMIGOD!OMIGOD!' (I'm kind of a big deal... ) for what felt like ages, until I finally said 'so do you want to fething marry me or what?'

Kind of ruined the mood a bit...

Anyhow, congratulations mate! I recommend a beach wedding - I hear they're cheaper, plus you don't strike me as the religious type.


Also, I love that this thread has revealed that Ahtman has a 'pocketbook'. I bet he also has a change-purse, and rides a 'penny farthing'.

That's not a proper penny farthing! That chap has vulcanised rubber tyres!

filbert wrote:That's not a proper penny farthing! That chap has vulcanised rubber tyres!

Dude, it's 2011. Get with the times!

I love the dude's face in that pic.

Albatross wrote:

filbert wrote:That's not a proper penny farthing! That chap has vulcanised rubber tyres!

Dude, it's 2011. Get with the times!

I love the dude's face in that pic.

Piff and tosh. If it isn't cast iron, then it is incorrect Sir!

Andrew1975 wrote:Nice.

Here is what I learned from my wedding. It's her day, you are along for the ride. If she asks your opinion it is only to reassure her that you know nothing about weddings. Seriously. My wife made her decisions based on the opposite of what I liked.

Rent the tuxedo! Don't buy it. I had a tuxedo hand made for my wedding. Classic, black, James Bond style! I've worn it twice! Everybody here rents different tuxes for their weddings and they have to match! Next week I have to wear a pin striped tux to my brothers wedding. PIN STRIPPED!

Make Craig's list your friend! Photographer, DJ, etc. You can get these services done, just check references. $2500 is ridiculous for a wedding photographer, but not uncommon! Weddings are a racket! It's emotional and many people prey on that and charge 3-4 times what they normally would. Wedding planners are the worst, they get massive kickbacks from their vendors, and will try to quilt you into spending a kings ransom. They are masters of turning couples against each other. Do your homework and you can get the costs down.

Much of what a professional photog charges are for development and wedding album! Really? Do you need a 20lb book of photos that noone will ever look at. Go digital! Edit it yourself if you have some software and make some nice CD's. It's 2011, no body needs the giant white decorative book. They will tell you that you do. If you have children in the future, they will never even know what a paper photograph is.

Congratulations. Keeping it simple and doing a lot of it yourself can save money if that is an issue.
I lucked out in being permitted only to figure what I wanted for tuxes, where to have the reception hall, and having a family friend who went berserk doing the dress and much of the associated wedding flowers/junk I couldn't care about.

Andrew's statewments above are accurate. I'll add, your secondary job is not to stress the Bride. Stress the Bride and she'll stress YOU capeche?


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Ahtman wrote:Don't go into debt for one day's enjoyment. I know we've been trained by DeBeers and others that it is supposed to be the greatest day ever and that you should whip out your pocket book and just throw money at everything but your long term fiscal well being will keep you (and her) a lot happier in the long run. Congratulations, I didn't even know marriage was legal in Australia, i thought you still basically just dragged a chick to your cave and if you got all the way in she was yours.

Ahtman has the way of it. A nice wedding but save money for the house or household stuff.

The bride is number one but she wouldn't be there except for you. You deserve to have a good time as well.

Don't forget that, without careful guest list choices, a lot of the expensive drink and food you may pay for instead of your first six months' mortgage payments will be swilled down by some people you might rather see choke on it.

Weddings don't have to be expensive to be enjoyable and memorable.

My cousin didn't bother with a photographer. She just bought a crate of use once cameras on a buy-one-get-one-free offer, made sure every guest had one, and let them go to town.

Everyone had a great time and while the photos were not professional they had a great charm and appeal.

Congrats! And if she wants a super expensive wedding, just use your formidable debating skills to talk her out of it.

Congrats!

Kilkrazy wrote:The bride is number one but she wouldn't be there except for you. You deserve to have a good time as well.

Don't forget that, without careful guest list choices, a lot of the expensive drink and food you may pay for instead of your first six months' mortgage payments will be swilled down by some people you might rather see choke on it.

Weddings don't have to be expensive to be enjoyable and memorable.

My cousin didn't bother with a photographer. She just bought a crate of use once cameras on a buy-one-get-one-free offer, made sure every guest had one, and let them go to town.

Everyone had a great time and while the photos were not professional they had a great charm and appeal.

Very true very true.
We also had disposable cameras at each table and guests had fun taking pictures.

Congratulations! May you be joyous together in happy times, and be of comfort to one another in sad ones.

Lots of good advice from Andrew1975, Ahtman, Fraz, Kilkrazy.

$2400 is not necessary at all for wedding photography; you can do much better. The disposable cameras are a great idea too.

Pretty much everyone these days has a digital camera of some sort whether its a compact camera or mobile phone or what have you. Just ask people to bring their cameras (which they probably would anyway) and nab a copy of the shots afterwards.

At our wedding, pretty much everyone went nuts so there were plenty of photos taken. No need for a pro!

Congratulasions! I hope everything works out wonderfully for you and the future Mrs. Sebster. I`m sure you will have a wonderful time

If you're going to spend, spend on the honeymoon.

At least that way you can get an awesome holiday out of it!

Congratulations!
Make sure and have a good time at the afters.
Living in Australia, do you have to go somewhere gloomy and rainy for your honeymoon?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime party (or at least, it should be) that is all about celebrating your love for her (and how great she looks in a dress, because really, weddings are about the bride). If there's ever a reason for a big expensive party, celebrating love, marriage, and the bringing together of two once-strangers to form a new family is it.

This is exactly how the wedding planners will explain renting $200 center pieces that you could buy at Marshall's for $50! It's ridiculous, don't fall for it. Don't use wedding planners for anything you can do yourself! EBay, Craigs list and the internet are your best friends. I know someone who was charged a insane amount for church shaped bubble bottles. You can find them online for nothing.

The digital camera idea is great everyone has one and at least some of those people will have talent. Look at your pool of friends there are always people that are capable. At my wedding I had 3 professional photographers that were friends/family, the DJ was a buddy who I've known for years, the priest, the band..etc, etc. Use your talent pool, you have more capable friends than you think, you were probably going to invite them anyway, make it a party, don't expect them to work like professionals though they are still guests, but I was well pleased with the work my friends did, plus I got to invite some people that I probably wouldn't have.

Grats man

Andrew1975 wrote:This is exactly how the wedding planners will explain renting $200 center pieces that you could buy at Marshall's for $50! It's ridiculous, don't fall for it. Don't use wedding planners for anything you can do yourself! EBay, Craigs list and the internet are your best friends. I know someone who was charged a insane amount for church shaped bubble bottles. You can find them online for nothing.

This.

You're a wargamer. You should be used to doing your own arts and crafts. Make your own invitations, centerpieces, and what have you. You'll save lots of money. Think of it as if it were an army you have to get ready in time for a tournament. Except the tournament is your wedding day, and the painting judge is the love of your life.

Congrats.

Remember if its the happiest day of your life everything else is downhill!

Hey man congratz! Lots of luck to you both.

Luckily for me my wedding happened around me, I had only had to ask and show up (I did help a little). Fraz nailed it though, just keep the missus happy as she will be stressing the closer it gets.

Prenuptial agreement? woman... ITS A TRAP!

Congratz Seb.

But seriously, don't do it.

mild language ahoy !

Congrats!!

My proposal went like this:
I got down on one knee with the ring (a family heirloom)…

Me: Will you marry me?
Her: AAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHahahhahahaha!!
It took a bit to convince her I was serious, then she got all happy and tearful

sebster wrote:

Ketara wrote:Congratulations!

When should I expect the wedding invite?

When you've signed off on the gift registry over which present you're bringing. You'd best hurry, there's only the Audi and the Jag left.

Easy! I'll bring you this one!
http://www.comparestoreprices.co.uk/images/ho/hornby-scalextric-audi-tt-dark-red.jpg


So, is it some time in the next month or so? I'll need to make sure I'm available.

sebster wrote:In other news, did you guys know how much wedding photography cost? $2,400 is the cheap option!

My miserly heart nearly shat a brick, IMO it’s outrageous, I could feed myself for a year on twenty five hundred dollars.

I know it’s a once in a lifetime thing (hopefully) but still… Gadzooks man!

Yeah, all this wedding stuff is way too expensive.

The wife and I ran off to Las Vegas; the whole thing cost less than 1,000 USD and we haven't looked back since. We got really nice pictures and the whole thing was broadcast online so that all of our friends and family could watch it if they wanted. Take the insane amount of money you would spend on a wedding and buy a house or start a college fund for the kids (if that's part of the plan.)

Congrats though!

Andrew1975 wrote:Make Craig's list your friend! Photographer, DJ, etc. You can get these services done, just check references. $2500 is ridiculous for a wedding photographer, but not uncommon! Weddings are a racket! It's emotional and many people prey on that and charge 3-4 times what they normally would. Wedding planners are the worst, they get massive kickbacks from their vendors, and will try to quilt you into spending a kings ransom. They are masters of turning couples against each other. Do your homework and you can get the costs down.

Honestly, $2,500 is at the cheap end of the scale. Thing is that's Australian dollars, and despite the weirdness with the exchange rate lately you can't buy as much with a dollar in Australia as you can with a dollar in the US.

We don't really have wedding planners here, I think that's more an American thing.

I'm okay with getting the wedding books, to be honest. Jess's parents don't even have internet in the house, and I think my Mum'd like a book to show all her patchwork friends.

Christ, now I'm here defending all the money that's gonna be spent.

filbert wrote:Congrats. I take it you are planning on wedding soon? Myself and the now wife waited a couple of years after engagement before we took the plunge.

In the end, we decided on a low budget, no frills wedding at a registry office. Neither of us could really justify some of the outrageous costs that some people spend on weddings, especially as we were buying our house at the time.

We're hoping for one year exactly. We're lucky in that our wedding anniversary falls on a Saturday next year. And this way I only have to remember one date

We're both lucky in that we'd both bought houses and done a lot of the hard work paying them off, so this wedding won't be putting us into debt. Still a whole lot of money that coudl be spent on stuff that'd going to last more than one day, though.

biccat wrote:This is a once-in-a-lifetime party (or at least, it should be) that is all about celebrating your love for her (and how great she looks in a dress, because really, weddings are about the bride). If there's ever a reason for a big expensive party, celebrating love, marriage, and the bringing together of two once-strangers to form a new family is it.

That's kind of how I'm looking at it.

Don't go in debt, but have fun with it. And lean heavily on the family to help out.

It's going to be a case of fighting them off. I'm the younger sibling in my family, and I'm 31. My Mum has been chomping at the bit for this. The amount she offered to provide was embarassing.

It's the best decision you'll ever make, at least until you have kids.

Here's hoping.

Killkrazy wrote:My cousin didn't bother with a photographer. She just bought a crate of use once cameras on a buy-one-get-one-free offer, made sure every guest had one, and let them go to town.

Everyone had a great time and while the photos were not professional they had a great charm and appeal.

We might do this as well, if budget allows.

rubiksnoob wrote:Congrats! And if she wants a super expensive wedding, just use your formidable debating skills to talk her out of it.

The thing that made me really fall for her is how quickly she can make my arguments come apart. Seriously, it's crazy good. I think I'd still get her on politics but she doesn't care about politics.

If you're going to spend, spend on the honeymoon.

At least that way you can get an awesome holiday out of it!

Trying to get her to agree to Croatia and Russia. If not that then the US as my fallback.

Andrew1975 wrote:This is exactly how the wedding planners will explain renting $200 center pieces that you could buy at Marshall's for $50! It's ridiculous, don't fall for it. Don't use wedding planners for anything you can do yourself! EBay, Craigs list and the internet are your best friends. I know someone who was charged a insane amount for church shaped bubble bottles. You can find them online for nothing.

Yeah, we* want a rose suspended in water in glass tubes. They rent for like $70 from our venue, I'm pretty sure I can get glass tubes from Thingz for about $5 a pop, and roses for not much.


*Not really 'we', but I'm getting used to pretending this is 'our' day

sebster wrote:Yeah, we* want a rose suspended in water in glass tubes. They rent for like $70 from our venue, I'm pretty sure I can get glass tubes from Thingz for about $5 a pop, and roses for not much.

Ah, but how much do they charge for the water? That's where they get you.

sebster wrote:*Not really 'we', but I'm getting used to pretending this is 'our' day

Get used to it. If you're lucky, you can pick out your own tuxes (well, not the colors, or the style, or the shirt, but otherwise you get to pick them out) and the cake (flavor, not design, and not the top piece, because that has to be such-and-such flavor...).

Graveyman wrote:Congrats!!

My proposal went like this:
I got down on one knee with the ring (a family heirloom)…

Me: Will you marry me?
Her: AAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHahahhahahaha!!
It took a bit to convince her I was serious, then she got all happy and tearful

SWMBO proposed to me actually, while wearing a belly dancing outfit. Fiendish woman!

biccat wrote:

sebster wrote:Yeah, we* want a rose suspended in water in glass tubes. They rent for like $70 from our venue, I'm pretty sure I can get glass tubes from Thingz for about $5 a pop, and roses for not much.

Ah, but how much do they charge for the water? That's where they get you.

sebster wrote:*Not really 'we', but I'm getting used to pretending this is 'our' day

Get used to it. If you're lucky, you can pick out your own tuxes (well, not the colors, or the style, or the shirt, but otherwise you get to pick them out) and the cake (flavor, not design, and not the top piece, because that has to be such-and-such flavor...).

Oh god, I forgot about the f'ing flowers! Flowers for weddings are soooooo expensive! You could really save a lot of money there is you know someone. The scam there is they charged us for the decorative vases and such. We couldn't rent them! We ended up just giving them away to some friends. F'ing fortune! That sounds like maybe another Marshall's run.

Invitations are very expensive also. I found a place online though that printed ours and then we assembled them for about a third of the cost. We got lots of compliments on them, they were very fancy. I swore if I had to wrap another bow in my life I was gonna kill someone.

I'm not suggesting being a miser, we had a nice budget, I just maximized! Before my war on the budget we didn't have a live band and the bar was open for beer and cash for Liq. After, we had a nice band, a DJ, and a fully stocked open bar! We ended up with nicer food too.