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When you chose your wedding date...
Did you consider the needs of your closest friends?
The BM from our wedding and his now fiancee got engaged over Christmas. They're having a DW in the Dominican for the last weekend in April, 2012. I'm obviously not going to ask them to change their wedding date, but I'm really bothered.
1) It's nowhere NEAR a school vacation. Easter and Passover are the first weekend in April for 2012. They have other friends who are teachers too, and since we don't get non-scheduled vacation, it makes it difficult. Yes, I can use a personal day, and probably will, but still, it irks me.
2) This is more of a problem for me and this is not them being inconsiderate, but I don't event think I'm going to be able to go, and I'm worried. This year, our spring concerts are the first two weeks in May, as in, the first two Mondays. If this is the same next year, then I wouldn't be in school the Friday before the concert. NOT a good idea. But what else would I do? I'm bothered. Granted, I don't have a specific date yet ( for the wedding OR the concert), so all of this could be a non-issue, but ti definitely doesn't sit right with me.
I also think it's bothering me because while I don't mind helping her, she's being asking me for help with EVERYTHING. How did you set a budget. How did you choose a venue. How and when do you throw an engagement party (don't even get me STARTED on that one!). How much does X Y Z cost. It just doesn't sit right that she's asking for all this help (and how would I say no, when she's marrying my husband's best friends and she and I are friendly), and now, there's a real possibility that I can't even attend.
More of a vent, and yes, I am aware that right now, the cart is sitting before the horse, but who did you guys consider when choosing your date?
RIP Dr. Irving Fishman - 10/1/19-7/25/10 - thank you for holding on for me.
You made my wedding day complete.
Re: When you chose your wedding date...
Honestly, I chose my date based on the availability of the church, venue and my schedule. Did I factor in family schedules? Yes. I didn't factor in whether it was busy for my friends. It was MY wedding date. Not theirs.
That being said, I'd be flattered if a friend asked for help planning their wedding. I'm sure she is asking you because you just got married. And maybe she really enjoyed/liked what you planned for your wedding and wants to create the same feeling for hers.
If you don't think that you can help a friend, then maybe you can say "I know what prices were for around here, but I have no clue about what they'd be in the Dominican Republic." Is there a coordinator at the venue who will help her out?
I chose my wedding date based on a number of factors. But I guess when you think about it, we chose based on a lot of other people's schedules. The biggest factor was that I was a student and therefore had to get married during the summer. I also had to factor in my work schedule (I work over the summers) and made sure to put it at the end so I wasn't leaving in the middle.
Additionally, my H's family had already booked their summer vacation. This included us on the yearly trip to Hawaii. A lot of my friends were taking the bar that year, so it basically only left one weekend between them finishing the bar, having a week of honeymoon before vacation, and starting back to school.
We wanted summer because my parents are teachers, I'm in grad school, and so are a bunch of our friends. Aside from that, we picked our date based on availability of our venue. We did call one couple because we picked their anniversary and we wanted to make sure they wouldn't feel like we were stealing their thunder.
Honestly, they probably only had a few options, working around hurricane season and rainy season and everything else. I think that getting approval from all of their guests would be impossible.
We just needed summer because of school scheduling, but pretty much just worried about the dates the church was available.
I'm having this same kind of problem you are with DH's brother. Two weeks before our wedding they started bugging me about when my spring break was going to be because they were planning a destination wedding in Mexico. At this point, though, I didn't know what school I would be working in, so I had no idea. It really annoyed me because either they or their parents would call every other day to ask! I was thinking, "I'm sorry, but I have other things to worry about right now!" Three days after the wedding I found out when my spring break would be and dutifully told them. They scheduled their wedding for a month and a half later. At the end of April. So now, I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe going to Playa del Carmen on Friday night and leaving Sunday morning.
my read shelf:
Yea, picking a wedding date honestly didn't have a whole lot to do with other people's schedules. I graduated, so it had to be after May but before the end of August, as DH was going back to school. My work schedule started getting really intense when the company picked up a new business opportunity. DH practically had to call in sick for his own wedding because the scheduling was so tight at his job. Our wedding and reception venue was booked every single Saturday until Thanksgiving, so we picked a Friday that was available.
Maybe the date they have wasn't even what she wanted to begin with, there are plenty of things that can make choosing the perfect date difficult. And think of it as flattering that she thought enough of your wedding to ask you for help. She must have been impressed. I agree with PP, though, that if you don't really want to answer all the questions, suggest that she try speaking with someone at her venue. GL.
I o
It basically came down to just us. I wanted to make sure it was a weekend I was already scheduled off and it couldn't be a holiday weekend. It had to be summer because vacation time is harder to get in the winter. We wanted it to be close to out original anniversary date. We then just picked the day.
No we didn't take other friends and family members into consideration. If they can't make it, then they can't make it. We understood.
We basically chose a date based almost entirely only on us.
We are both teachers, so we knew we wanted either July or August (that's when we are off). We didn't want a long weekend, so that cut out the first weeken in July and the last weekend of July. We also knew that we wanted to take a long honeymoon, so we didn't want to get too far into August, or else we would be rushed to finish to get back to school. So, we were looking at 3 weekends in July basically.
1 of the weekends was MIL & FIL's anniversary and FIL's birthday, so we wanted to stay away from that. So, of the two weekends, we chose one. It worked for us, our parents all work schedules where any weekend wouldn't have been a problem, and our siblings were all local working M-F jobs, so it wasn't really an issue. We didn't consult any of our friends.
Two Wonderful Years. 7.10.2010
RIP Dr. Irving Fishman - 10/1/19-7/25/10 - thank you for holding on for me.
You made my wedding day complete.
Pretty much ditto everything Mel said. DH is a teacher so we knew it would be easiest to get married in the summer (plus I wanted warm weather!). We knew it had to be in July because football practice starts in August so we had a small window - from there is was based on venue availability. We didn't consider schedules of really anyone but ourselves and immediate family.
Is your DH in the wedding? If he is, I could see your friend's possibly asking if the date works for you guys (since it's a DW and all - it makes a little more of a time comittment) but otherwise, I don't see why they would need to check with their guests to make sure the date works for all of them. That just seems like a bit much.
As for the bride asking for your help - I'd be excited about it!! But I guess it depends on if you enjoyed planning for your own wedding. If you didn't, then ya, I'd be irritated too. But I loved wedding planning and love giving advice or help. if you really don't want help her out, I like pp's suggestion about telling her to get in touch with the wedding coordinator at her DW venue.
RIP Dr. Irving Fishman - 10/1/19-7/25/10 - thank you for holding on for me.
You made my wedding day complete.
You Grew in My Heart instead of My Tummy
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