Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Yeah, I'm leaning towards no photographer. When Jay's sister eloped and we were invited along for the ride (and to be witnesses), we just used their Canon rebel and spent about half an hour hiking in the forest/on the beach and taking photos. And their photos are amazing! (here is one of me photo-bombing them. Ha! ps...the other photos are better)


The ppk is already involved! myzoetrope is hopefully going to be making us save-the-date cards. A bit of a splurge since they're not entirely necessary, but since Jay is in the thick of designing a children's book he won't have time to do the invitations until closer to xmas. Plus, I <3 myzoetrope.

i would be more of a bisque about it, aelle. i totally get people not wanting to give a seat to a random date. i was pretty clear about it at my wedding, for example, because we had such a tight guest list, but if someone was seriously dating someone else, i didn't feel it was fair to say no! there was an awkward moment when a long time friend of mr. bird's wanted to bring a date and we were about to say no, and then realized that he'd actually been with this girl for nearly a year... he and mr. bird were just not that good at staying in touch, apparently.

anyway, i'd lay it out. you're coming in from out of town, you and your SO have been together for x amount of years, he's not just some random guy you've asked to come along, and you've already booked non-refundable tickets. i think it's pretty shitty of them to say no, and i'd be tempted to say you aren't able to attend at all.

maybe you could elope the day before and then just bring him!

Yes! I think I'd probably insist it's both of us or neither of us in that situation.

Yeah, if you were a same-gender couple and your partner was excluded because you weren't "really" married, it would be totally appropriate for you to be like "screw you, it's both of us or neither", and I don't see it as any different just because you happen to be different genders.

well, I don't know how long the link will work - but I think this is the dress I'm going to wear. I found it on ebay for pretty cheap - and it looks nice on me and is super comfy:

http://www.polyvore.com/flirtatious_dre ... d=24046303

Pretty! I'm tempted to order one for myself, for no real reason.

Sorry for cutting off our names (as if you jerks don't know me anyway :) but here is our save the date postcard designed by PPKer myzoetrope! <3

So cute!

SO cute! Love!

Seriously adorbs!!! <3 <3 <3

Thanks guys! <3

We're kind of pouring the most amount of time/money into the invitations because Jay is an artist. Our wedding is under a grand including food. Well...I'm sure it might end up being more than that but we can deal. I'm working off a lot of the costs! Alternately, I just spent $1200 in flight fees and $200 on a dress to be my friend's bridesmaid this fall. :/

I just read the most recent VegNews weddings article and I'm SHOCKED at the expenses of those events. Small is the way to go!

Aelle, 5 years is a huge commitment and you're family. I would have been so much less diplomatic.

New standards of etiquette aside, don't invite single people or people in relationships you seem "insignificant" without a plus one... My friend of 20 years just did this to me, even though I have a live in partner, because we've been together less than 3 years. I'm probably not going, even though we have a ton of mutual friends (many of whose partners were invited) because I hate going to weddings alone, it's a holiday weekend, and if I'm going to pay for 3 nights in a hotel and a plane ticket, I want to be with my guy. I honestly would have preferred no invite than one without a plus one.... And I live weddings and am a huge sap, captain of team love for life, and super happy for her. But being a single person without even a friend date to dance and joke with while everyone is being all lovey.

Congrats to all who are tying the knot. Your ceremonies sound excellent and this thread us adding lots of positive vibes to my day :)

I love these so much! I would want to frame it or something if I got one.

I KNOW. craziness! viva small!

I LOVE your STDs so much! (snarf snarf). Here's the STD I made:

That is absolutely adorable, Amey. Cutest STD ever. :)

our wedding was super small, only 35 people! but it still ended up costing about $8000! it's nuts.

your guys save the dates are so good!

Our wedding was small too, about 20 people and our cost was about $2k. It was simple and what we wanted though so it was good :)

Aelle, maybe it is something that is culturally different but I personally wouldn't invite anyone without accounting that they would be bringing a guest with them. And if that isn't the case, it is something that should be put on the RSVP. I come from a large Mexican-American family and we invite everyone. Which generally means large weddings. I had a cousin get married when I was younger who specified no children and the wedding was still 300 people.

One reason I had a wedding away from my family is so that it would be easier to not invite people. I invited all my first cousins and aunts/uncles. My husband on the other hand doesn't know his aunts/uncles or cousins, so they weren't invited. We invited our friends but we didn't invite coworkers. That was probably the harder decisions because I knew all of my husband's coworkers and had worked with them. But then it becomes arbitrary on who do you invite?

Now I did have some family drama that wasn't expected. My sister-in-law had been dating her boyfriend for under a year and we had never met him at that point. He ended up saying some 'not so nice things' to my future in-laws. So then my husband's father said he wasn't coming if the boyfriend was coming. My husband's sister said she wasn't coming if her boyfriend couldn't come. So we had to make a decision and honestly I wanted both of them to come. It would've crushed me not to have my husband's father come so we told his sister that her boyfriend couldn't come unfortunately. My husband's sister as a result said some 'not so nice things' to my husband but she didn't hold a grudge afterwards. All in all, I hated the drama in that.

Coworkers are a hard one. I just started my job in April but I've already become really close with a handful of coworkers, and anticipate being even closer when next year rolls around. And I'm inviting a former coworker from my last non-freelance job (she's coming from California), so....should I invite the current coworkers? I dunno. I've not invited friends who were an important part of my life, but with whom I'm not non-Facebook still in touch with.

Ick, linalil. That drama sounds very frustrating.

In other news, I was named a default bridesmaid by my friend for a wedding this fall, when she apparently had a spat with her maid of honour. (?!?!?) Which is fine, because I love said friend, but it's so funny to be the second choice, and involved in unnecessary drama. Yesterday she emailed me about the dress I bought and said I should wear my hair in a side braid with it freshly dyed red. Lolz. Please shoot me dead if I ever say stuff like that to my guests (fortunately, we are not having a bridal party!).

Oh yeah, I didn't have a bridal party either.

With coworkers, it definitely depends. What happens if you invite one coworker versus another? If you invite all coworkers (I went to a wedding like this of a coworker), then there isn't a problem. Of course if you are trying to keep it small and have lots of coworkers, that becomes difficult. Or if you have a few coworkers that you could do without :)

Yes the inviting thing is the hardest part of all. In the end I didn't invite any yoga friends, art friends, vegan friends, or old friends from the place where Musty and I met. I basically invited my family (which is big) and one group of very old friends from elementary school that I am still close to. Still, the wedding is bigger than I thought it would be, and there are so many people I love so much who I haven't invited. I can easily see how weddings end up being 200 people - especially if you invite partners and spouses and kids. I really hope we don't cause any hurt feelings with our small invite list, I wish everyone could be there AND it would only be 50 people!

Congratulations everyone, and happy planning!


This caught my eye! Do you mean you'd expect X to bring someone along who wasn't included even as a +1 on the invite?

As a guest, I'm now six-for-six weddings that I attended happily on my own, because I was always single. It helped that the hosts in all cases knew me well and would have known of any partner, and by name at that. But I told a friend I'd only ever been invited alone, and she couldn't have looked more shocked. People have such different experiences even starting in childhood, you can only do what works for you and make your wording as clear as humanly possible. I think of friends who married back when we were all in our 20s; if they'd given a +1 to every one of us singlies, they could quickly have added $500 to their costs. Depends, of course, on how you're catering.

So last night we went to the airport to head to Inconsiderate Cousin's wedding, and this happened: http://www.welt.de/regionales/muenchen/ ... toert.html (basically, major system failure at Munich airport and briefly at Frankfurt airport, huge delays and flight cancellations all over central Europe). After waiting around for 5 hours, we went home. So... I guess that solves our protocol problem!

I ran the situation by a few French friends, and everyone agrees that Inconsiderate Cousin is rude and his expectations are out of place. So, not a cultural thing. I learned since accepting the invitation that there is more drama expected at this wedding. The bride's father is coming with his new wife, and there is some bad blood between her and the bride's mother. Since they are all Indian and don't speak French my cousin was counting on the English speaking guests to act as a buffer between the 3 and prevent fights from breaking out. Lovely. So glad I am skipping that train wreck in the end!