I honestly don't know if I'm overreacting anymore or if my gut is trying to tell me something. I dated a guy for about six months but we broke up four years ago and I thought that would be the end of it but no ofc It wasn't.

For the first year he'd continue to text me, asking to get back together or saying he just wanted to see me again. When I stopped responding, he'd somehow end up in places I was. Every single time he'd act surprised and say it was just a coincidence or that running into me must be a sign. Maybe once or twice I could believe but after a while it became impossible to ignore.

Three years ago I met my fiance and he's been incredible through all of this and has helped me set boundaries, block numbers and document everything then after some time things finally seemed to calm down.

Our wedding is next month

We've only told close family and friends the details because I didn't want any drama but a few days ago our venue called and said they've been getting strange phone calls from people saying that something bad is going to happen on our wedding day. They couldn't tell if it was a prank but my mind immediately went to my ex.

My fiance has been handling most of the talking with the venue now communicating with Kibu and also looked into changing venues completely but we'd lose a huge deposit if we cancelled this late.

We've reported everything to the police and they basically said there isn't much they can do because at this point it's just anonymous phone calls unless something more concrete happens.

Has anyone dealt with something like this or am I overreacting and if you did deal with it how did you handle it?

I’ve noticed there are a few pieces of wedding advice that get repeated everywhere, like “no one notices the small details” or “something will definitely go wrong.”
For people who’ve already gotten married, was there any advice that everyone swore by that just… wasn’t true for your wedding?
I’d love to hear the opposite side too—what advice ended up being surprisingly accurate?

There isn’t a private wedding ceremony location connected to our venue except for the ballroom. The hotel is brand new very modern and located across the road from the beach.. I never envisioned a beach ceremony so we have opted for a ceremony in ballroom. Weather and space for everyone to sit is a huge pro but every photo I love is always shot outside, we will go and get photos across at the beach and different locations around hotel after. Just still have moments of what if??? 10 weeks away from date

Prettu straight forward question, but what do grooms do while the bride is getting ready?

My fiancée has her hair and makeup people coming to our hotel room at around 9am to get ready to head to the venue by 2pm. I obviously can’t be in the room during that time, so was planning on getting ready in my dad’s hotel room - but even if exaggerating, it’ll take me like 1 hour max to get ready, so how else should/could I be filling up those 5 hours? Are there logistics I should be handling? Or even just advice on how to keep myself occupied so I’m not just a ball of stress leading up to the ceremony.

I’m planning on getting my own “hair and makeup” with a haircut, trim, and shave, but was planning on doing this the day before so I don’t need to worry about loose hair I usually get the day I get a haircut. I guess I could do this the day of, but ya, a bit worried about loose hairs on my white shirt.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Hello! I’m marrying a Danish guy with an ø in his name. (We’ll use Sørensen as an example) I’m an American but also Swedish.

I really want to take his last name, but I’m also worried about the bureaucracy of changing my name. I would have to change passports, driver licenses, student loans, credit card info, etc for Sweden and the US. Plus the country we’re living in.

We also had a difficult time with immigration when he visited the USA as they couldn’t comprehend his name had an ø, and were even more confused when we wrote it oe like the ESTA guidelines say for that type of letter 🥴 It was a whole mess.

So if I took his name in Denmark/Sweden I’d be Jane Doe Sørensen but on US documents I’d be Jane Doe Soerensen. Which I’m not a fan of.

I’m really worried about the headaches this could cause so I’m considering keeping my last name. But at the same time, I do want to use his name, maybe even hyphenate but then THAT doesn’t work in Denmark 😭

Ideally our kids would be Smith Sørensen (or Soerensen for US documents) Which isn’t as big of a problem because they’d be starting from scratch.

I’m considering using his last name socially, but I’m wondering if that’s caused any problems or if anyone could share their experience of socially taking a name but not legally.

TLDR: Want fiancés last name but worried about paperwork and issues with immigration.

I feel like I’ve been a pretty chill bride. The girls voted on what shade of green dress to wear and they got to pick out their styles, then I bought all their dresses for them. Everyone has a rough idea of the hairstyle they want, I have no complaints about them

Then a bridesmaid comes up to me and asks if it’s okay to dye her hair blue. Uhh what? I feel like I shouldn’t get an opinion in what color your hair should be, but yes you get my permission!

But then it happened again. A week later another bridesmaid just asked if it was okay to CUT HER HAIR to shoulder length. WHY WOULD I CARE??

Do bridesmaids just feel like they aren’t allowed to control their appearances anymore once they get declared as bridesmaids?

Exactly how it sounds I think I looked at the details too much and I hate everything. I’m concerned I did too much with the attire and the colors and the decor. I know it’s just in my head. Anybody experience the same thing?

About a year before my wedding I posted in this sub because I felt so incredibly ugly in photos in my wedding dress. While trying it on I felt amazing, but seeing the pics after made me so insecure.

I got a lot of good advice that I worked on implementing up until the wedding. Some pieces of advice were about changing the way I talked to and about myself, reminding myself that the pictures will be cherished in 20 years and accepting that not every picture will be a good one. Others were practical things to make me feel better in my body (I was not interested in intensive weight loss just for one day, f that), such as intentionally moving my body more often in the last few months before the wedding and cutting down on casual alcohol consumption.

When the day came I felt so beautiful. While we’ve been waiting for the pictures I’ve continued to work on my mindset and self image. The pictures finally came and I love every single one. I look so happy and so satisfied. Sure, not every picture is of my best angle, but I truly feel okay about that.

I genuinely believe that the advice I got from this sub saved my experience with pictures, so THANK YOU ❤️

I am so over everything. My life feels like it has been chaos for at least the last year and a half, and now I need to plan a wedding. I'm over it. I've never really dreamed about a wedding. My fiance and I have been together since 16 and 17, and we are now 23 and 24. We recently moved in together, and I am excited to live the rest of my life with him. However, I feel slightly disillusioned about the sexism behind weddings and marriage-- especially since it is not necessarily something that I feel excited or passionate about. Idk, I think that this is a whole giant combination of all of my problems and I probably need to go back to therapy.

Anyways. I have a small family. The guest list that my mom came up with is 60 people, and that is including some family friends and the vendors that we would need to feed (DJ, photographer, pastor). There's probably like 15 people on my side that will not attend for various reasons. My fiancé is Italian, and the original list my mother in law gave us was 164. That's the count of people who she thought would come, not just who she wants to invite. We have 9 friends (with plus ones) to invite.

Now, I am very blessed, and both of our families are willing to contribute to the wedding. My parents are taking the more "traditional" approach of assuming that they will pay for everything other than the alcohol and the rehearsal dinner. My parents have said many times that 150 is basically the limit for our wedding. I think that is a decent size, and probably also about the limit that I think is reasonable to spend on a wedding.

I recently looked at two venues that I have been looking at online. One of them I absolutely love. It is beautiful inside, and they will take care of everything. It seems like the perfect choice to me, especially since a big goal of mine is to have to do the least amount of work possible. I want to minimize the amount of work my family and friends need to do. This place seems perfect, but they have a limit of 150, and the employee said its more comfortable with like 110-130. The other venue is an Italian place that my fiance's family has had many events at, and its actually where his parents got married. Those facts alone make me not want to choose this venue, but they have okay prices so I figured I'd at least go see it. I was unimpressed. I hate the way it looks on the outside, it is just a regular banquet hall on the inside, the pictures I've seen of the decor is like the opposite of my style, they were inhospitable during our tour, and frankly some very mixed reviews of the service.

My fiance is wondering if we should invite more of his family than there is space for within the 150 guest limit. I'm honestly feeling so defeated. Seeing the smaller venue is the first time I felt actually excited about any aspects of wedding planning or my wedding in general. And I spent so long online narrowing my choices down to these two venues and the fact that the larger venue is absolutely not a choice has me now feeling quite defeated.

We also are looking at a Sunday, so a smaller, more low-key wedding makes sense I feel like. I am just so frustrated because honestly I don't want any of this in the first place, and my fiance has no idea what he actually wants either, and everything that he leans towards is mostly just because of guilt from his family.

My parents have the attitude that this is our wedding, so we should do what we want. but my fiance's parents have more of an attitude that weddings are family reunions. We don't even know what we want, but I know that even if my in-laws pay for it I can't justify spending sooooo much money on having a giant wedding. I also definitely don't want to be the center of attention for such a big event.

Sorry this is so disorganized, but I'm so disorganized so at least it matches lmao......

My fiancee and I are 21, been together for over 4 years and engaged for 2 months. Our lease ends and feb, and long story short I do not want to renew because my neighbor is dealing drugs out of his unit and is noisy every night, it's driving me insane and she sleeps through it.

I have a little over 80k in savings and am wanting to buy a house in February when the lease ends given the market is crazy and id be paying the same in rent.

She originally proposed the wedding in September and got mad when I told people thats what we were planning because it wasnt "set". To compromise I told her Sep-December

Both of our families come from poor backgrounds and I need to pay for the entire wedding in cash. I am proposing I set the budget to ~10k for ~40 people as that is what I can afford and with buying the house (30-40k including closing costs) I will STILL have a large emergency fund and investments in the event of an emergency or job loss

I just need some advice on how to handle this

*TLDR:* Bowen takes wonderful photos, however is irresponsible, uncommunicative, unprofessional, and untrustworthy. Bowen makes up many excuses for failure to follow contractual timeline, and perceived ghosting. Bowen is also suspected to have failed to deliver all requested photos when pressed about the matter Bowen took weeks to respond and eventually post said photos.
(Also for more information. We only messaged twice in a month and a half and she didn’t answer so we messaged in different manners. Also suing her for the deposit or a refund isn’t a luxury we could afford)

Bowen, made my wedding experience so much worse than it needed to be. When you hire a photographer, you hope that they will work with you, make your life easier, and deliver beautiful photos. Instead, my husband and I received an uncommunicative, distracted, and frankly destructive photographer. 

My husband and I knew early on or at least had suspicions that our photographer would not be fit for the role. Not because she takes poor photos, in fact she takes beautiful photos. However, our photographer was a wedding nightmare-- leading up to, during the wedding, and after. 
Following booking our photographer she all but disappeared. We sent multiple emails, texts, facebook messages, and instagram dm’s regarding our engagement shoot location, as well as general questions about wedding timeline and the like, only to be ghosted for months. We even sent follow up emails and eventually received an email a few months later that her aunt was sick and could not answer. This began the long string of excuses that appeared at every turn whenever we tried to contact her and didn’t receive a response. She would claim to have at least two medical emergencies, to have been locked out of her client portal, and to have lost power and all phone/internet service. With no clause allowing us to terminate our contract without losing our entire deposit, we hoped things would just get better as we got closer to the wedding. 

Nothing got better. Honestly at times during and since the wedding night I feel it would have been better if we had no photographer at all. When it came to our engagement shoot she did not answer until a few days before stating that she could not make it for our session we’d scheduled months prior. She offered to find another photographer to cover but we wanted to have photos with HER. We hired her because of her photos. Following the engagement shoot outlined in our contract she was supposed to get us the photos back within a month however that was not the case in fact it took almost twice that time.
Following the engagement shoot debacle Brandi again disappeared and when we finally got a hold of her she did not help create a wedding day timeline as stated in the contract and said for us to do it. She showed up the day of the wedding in a colorful ensemble and immediately seemed disorganized.

During the wedding Bowen’s professionalism and behavior left much to be desired. She exhibited little to no organizational skills and spent roughly all of the getting ready time taking photos of a set of details such as photos, mementos, etc. She spent, what felt like, over an hour doing this. She completely ignored family members who were shuffling in and out asking when she would be done so pictures could be taken of myself with my bridesmaids or any of the pictures I was really looking forward too. When she wasn’t photographing the details she would disappear for long chunks of time. So much so that my venue coordinator told me I could not wait for her to come take a photo of my mom zipping my dress due to us running now almost an hour + behind. This is an iconic photo I told Brandi I wanted. All in all this left me with only a handful of severely posed photos with my bridesmaids. The rest of the night was then spent taking photos that SHE wanted, not photos we requested. At one point she was said to be speaking to our coordinator about adjusting the time line, during which it was suggested that she was doing so on our behalf though we never asked such a thing of her. In fact multiple times we had fought with her to get her to stay on the schedule our coordinator had created. We missed the majority of our reception due to her strong arming us into “one more shot” and “one more minute” as we sat and waited outside with her while she figured out how to work her silhouette lamp rather than dancing with our friends and family. We spent most of our wedding outside with her. At one point, it all became too much and I broke down crying and my brother in law told her to give me space. She then spent the next 10-15 minutes talking to my family members asking what she did wrong. Everyone in my party and my family was so fed up with her. 

Our last saving grace was that she takes great photos. However, we did not receive our photos until the end of January. They were promised back to us by November 24th at the latest for our wedding at the end of October. She later reached out on November 30 via the client portal she had previously claimed she did not have access to anymore and told us our full gallery would be sent over on December 13. We reached out numerous times. She was completely unresponsive. Then, when she finally did respond and sent us a “preview” amount of photos, she asked us to not post anything on social media because she was submitting our photos to a competition. We sent her messages about us not feeling comfortable with the competition because we began feeling like she was purposefully not sending us our photos given how long it was taking to get them. Then, she dropped off the face of the planet again. 
We didn’t even get our photos from Brandi. She apparently was unable to because of another medical emergency and a friend sent over the remaining photos on January 24th. 

After reviewing, we saw that there were no photos of my parents, myself, or immediate family shots of us. We reached out and she did not respond. We also have questions about her editing choices due to a handful of photos in which my husband and my face are blended into one blob. This has led us to the suspicion of use of AI however this is unverified due to difficulties in communication.

Finally, my lawyer and sister in law had to step in on our behalf and she had the audacity to say that we never raised any concerns about missing photos and the time frame to receive our photographs. We sent her all of the evidence of multiple messages. Bowen eventually responded to the emails sent April 7th on May 26th with some photos she suggests it took weeks to find.

I would never recommend Bowen to anyone. In fact, I don’t think she should be a photographer for any special events. She lacked communication and professionalism that made it clear to me, my husband, and my family that interacted with her that she is not up for the task of being a wedding photographer. 

Don’t use her and don’t trust her.

Okay, so before I get into what I need advice for, here’s a little backstory.

My step mom has been a constant mother figure in my life since I don’t have a relationship with my biological mom, I consider her my mom and call her mom. She will be flying in to come wedding dress shopping with me, but her mom will also be joining her as she needs to handle business for an unrelated reason.

My mom texted me earlier letting me know her flight details and where she’s staying etc. Along with that text she asked me if it would be okay if her mom joined us in dress shopping. I was a little thrown off by her asking as I don’t have a relationship with her mom other than the fact that she’s my step grandmother. I genuinely don’t know how to respond to her without her getting upset that I don’t want her mom there.

The thing about my mom is that she literally cannot go a day without seeing her mom. Shes very dependent on her mom and it’s quite sad. I should also add that I didn’t even think that my mom would be able to come down so I already had the people I wanted to go picked out which is the total number of people the boutique allowed (the bride plus 4 guests) so I already had to call and add her. How should I tell her that her mom can’t go without her getting upset/offended? What would you say?

Hello! Hoping to connect with other brides with sensitive skin, or perhaps some makeup artists who have experience with this issue.

I have sensitivities to eye makeup and when I react to something, my eyes puff up and get quite swollen. I have not been able to narrow down the exact ingredients that cause this. I do have some products that I know are safe, but I doubt they would be ones carried by a professional makeup artist.

Any advice on what I should do? I know I could skip eye makeup altogether, but it makes such a difference in how I look and I would love to be able to have it on my wedding day.

I am considering potentially asking the makeup artist what products they use so I can test them in advance, or perhaps having them do my face and I can do my own eyes after? I'm kind of lost here and would love any and all input.

As the title states, I think I found my dress. My mother and I are going to see it in person tomorrow as she wasn’t with me when I found it. I’m so excited and just wanted to share it with you guys as this sub is so helpful!

OMG! I jumped into purchasing a pair of Angie 50 satin pump from Alexandre Birman, and paid $880ish for this only to receive a bad one!! The quality is insane given how expensive these are! One of the shoes’ ribbon was off and it seems like it was just attached onto the shoe with some kind of glue! The tip point of the shoe is looking really terrible too!! Just beware!!

I am currently planning my wedding and I am considering going with a Publix wedding cake. Has anyone used Publix for their wedding cake? If so, do you have pictures of the cake you got? What was your experience?

Thanks in advance for your help. My maximum budget for a wedding cake is 600$, but most bakers I’ve talked to have quoted triple that!

did anyone use one of the many QR-code type programs that allow guests to take photos & upload them for you to have?

i’d love to have candid photos from the night, but i’ve heard these programs might not be worth the $ because people don’t use them — they just text the photos to you afterwards.

We have hired a live singer - they are amazing, we can’t decide whether to have the sing during the meal (after mains) to get the party going or for the first hour or so at the evening. Daytime is sorted.

already had wedding, special designee didn’t file with the state so now we need to find a justice of peace to just make it legit. any recommendations for someone who is cheap and no frills? not looking for a ceremony or anything just the legal piece

Hi all,

Advice is really needed.
Fiancé and I are in the process of planning an exciting wedding. We got engaged a few months ago and our proposed wedding by date is next year. We got the perfect date and the perfect venue, and we paid for the venue.

We had it all planned and it would be under $10,000 in total.
That might sound like a budget wedding to most people- and we get that it is! But 10k is still a LOT. We don’t have the highest paying jobs (although we love what we do) and we don’t have “help” (we don’t come from money). We were totally fine to spend the 10k we have saved for our wedding, but we got to talking last night.

Due to medical reasons, I have to adopt. Adopting is very, very expensive. We want to adopt within the next 2-3 years, anticipating a promotion by then. Anyway, we need to get to saving. We need to not only be financially stable, but we also need to appear that way from an inspectors eyes. We live a great life. We don’t struggle with our bills, we go out when we want, we live in a decent apartment in a decent neighborhood. We can definitely support a child. But the 50k-100k we would need to even be eligible to adopt, we need to start saving ASAP.

So.. I guess what I need advice on is.. should we have a wedding, or should we elope?

We love each other and want to celebrate our love and formalize it, but we don’t need anything big and shiny. It was originally gonna be a barn wedding, a photographer, a good playlist and great vibes.

But 10k can really help us. If we invest it immediately and continue to save, we could reach our goal within 3 years.

We want to start a family more than anything in this world. It’s both of our goals and our dreams. I’m quite a bit older than him too, so I want to do this while I have the strength and the energy to chase a toddler around.

We could still have our wedding and come up with a new savings plan/hope for the best. We don’t want to regret not having a big celebration.

We’re just at a loss because BOTH situations have their pros and cons.

Option A - Have our beautiful barn wedding as planned. Have it be the happiest day of our lives, have lots of memories, and be able to walk down the aisle in a gorgeous gown and announce our vows and just have the experience I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have, and we’ll be out $10,000.
Option B - Elope. Have a courthouse marriage. Tell each other our vows. Have all of our loved ones meet us at a bar after (while I’m still in my dress) to celebrate, have drinks, and party. We’ll order food, have cake, take shots, put on a great playlist. We’ll be married, we’ll still have the photographer we already paid for, we’ll be celebrating our love, and we’ll save about $8,000. (The bar, food and dress would cost us about 2k at most)

What do you think we should do?
Enjoy our wedding and create a savings plan for after our wedding to adopt a child?

Or elope and start saving up now?

Some notes :
There won’t be open bar at the bar. It’ll just be everyone buying their own drinks etc. We’ll provide pizza and cake just for the fun of it. It’ll be an elopement party, not a wedding by any means.

We can decorate the space and do whatever we want, too. So any ideas to make it feel more special than just a regular bar hang is appreciated.

Please be kind.
Thank you. ❤️

Hi, Reddit! Not using a throwaway because my husband knows my account and is completely on board with me. I'm mostly looking for advice on how to handle this kindly.

My (33F) husband (34M) and I eloped in California (where we live) in December 2025. We'd already been together for eight years, I was starting a new job, he unexpectedly lost his health insurance, and it just made sense to sign the paperwork. We always planned to celebrate later with a ketubah signing (we're Jewish) and some sort of wedding celebration.

Backtrack a bit . . . we got engaged in September 2025. My husband and I have a great relationship btw, we just realized we'd been having a somewhat funny miscommunication for EIGHT YEARS lol. I'd always said I didn't want a "big wedding" and my husband agreed that he didn't want a "big wedding" either. I had no idea that our definitions of "big wedding" were different!

Me: Big wedding = a lot of people

Husband: Big wedding = formal event

So once we realized that, we compromised. My dream was an intimate, experience-based wedding with our closest people—think a villa in Italy with cooking classes, breakfast together, a ketubah signing, and maybe 20 guests. His dream was celebrating with everyone. Our compromise became: a small Italy wedding, plus maybe a larger New Jersey celebration afterward so his extended family could celebrate too (since they mostly live there), and we mentioned that to his parents. This isn't as easy for my family, who lives all over the States and Central America. We were clear it was a possibility only, and we'd let them know.

(Also worth adding: Our budget is $20k. I wanted to be flexible on more people, but we can't afford that. Nor can we afford many more people in the states, either...)

Unfortunately, after 6 months of research (and communication with our families the whole time), the Italy celebration is no longer possible as we're too nervous with the current climate and international travel, and two of our best friends have announced pregnancies so wouldn't be able to travel.

I'll admit I've been grieving that decision more than I expected. I'm very happy to be married, but I never got to shop for a wedding dress or have any of the bridal experiences I'd imagined, and I'm realizing I really was looking forward to those.

My husband has been wonderful through all of this, and we're completely on the same page that there's no rush for when we eventually will do something--maybe a five year vow renewal when the world climate is different, we've saved up more money, etc. But it's on pause for now.

Unfortunately, my MIL seems to have treated the New Jersey celebration as a certainty because that's what she wants.

She wants to host a "celebration" for us at the clubhouse in the neighborhood where she and my FIL recently moved to. Apparently it's only $150 to rent, which I don't believe, but my husband's family doesn't have thousands to give us, and so that's what they can contribute, Which I am not knocking at all! But my mom gave us $10k with no rules . . . we added an additional $10k . . . and it's not fair that she thinks she can stronghold us into doing something because she's "paying for it."

(And FWIW, I detest this clubhouse. I find it rather ugly, and I don't particularly care for their new town . . . but obviously don't want to say that as I don't want to be mean.)

She wants to invite extended family, neighbors, and her entire book club. Every time I say I don't want a large party, she starts listing people who "aren't that many," like, "oh it's just X. And her husband Y. And then Z and her husband. And three more people."

If it were a big wedding, that's fine! But I've said for 8 years that is not for me!

We're visiting New Jersey in October because my husband has several music shows he's playing there, and I'll already be on the East Coast running a work event in Pennsylvania (which is a four-day long, high stress, overnight workshop event that I'm completely planning/running). We have exactly one collective free day on this trip, and that's the day she wants to hold this celebration.

I found out because yesterday, my mom texted my MIL to wish her a happy birthday. During that conversation, my MIL asked my mom to help "make me" agree to the party.

My mom read the conversation out loud to me. The words "make [OP agree]" were verbatim there. My mom replied that she can't make me do anything. I'm 33!

MIL can be extremely direct and sometimes phrases things poorly, so I'm trying not to assume bad intentions. I genuinely believe she loves me and is excited to celebrate us. We have a good relationship, and I don't think she's trying to be malicious. But asking my mom to convince me after I'd already said no felt manipulative, even if that wasn't her intent.

For additional context, I don't enjoy being the center of attention. I'm in therapy for anxiety, have been for 6 years, and I've known my entire life that large celebrations centered on me are something I tolerate rather than enjoy. That's why I've always been so clear that a "big wedding" isn't for me, but I still want to do SOMETHING. An experience-based wedding would be my ideal: the idea of our immediate families being together for cooking classes and breakfast is what I wanted vs. an organized event. I love hosting, I love celebrating other people, but being the guest of honor at a big event is very different for me. My husband agrees, he just doesn't want to exclude anybody--and budget is an issue. If we could have 100 people at a villa, even a winery in CA, we would, no questions asked. For $20k. Lol.

My husband feels stuck in the middle because he loves his parents but also completely supports me. His actual ideal at this point is "let's all just go to the beach and figure it out," which honestly sounds more appealing to both of us than a clubhouse reception, albeit too loose for me.

I do want to celebrate our marriage someday. But it must be our celebration, the way we want it, not anyone else's.

Having a clubhouse party in New Jersey—planned by someone else, with a guest list I don't want, during a stressful work trip—feels like I'd be doing only the "compromise" half of the original plan while giving up the part I was actually excited about, while simultaneously mourning said original plan, while simultaneously needing to pop a Xanax or something to even go.

Am I being unreasonable for saying no? And if you've navigated something similar with family, how did you hold your boundary without damaging the relationship? I obviously know I need to talk to her directly, I just don't want to hurt her feelings.

Sending out my invites tomorrow and stressing over the details of the wedding website. Our wedding will be outdoors in October in Texas (so very possibly hot, but the weather could go either way) on a ranch, with a pretty casual vibe. We will be serving buffet style BBQ. We ourselves will be dressed somewhat casually for a bride and groom - I'm wearing a tea length A-line dress and flats and he's wearing nice sneakers, slacks or khakis, and an embroidered western-style button up shirt. I'm fine with the sneakers, as long as they're new, clean & match his outfit. I want us both to be comfortable.

Right now, I have the dress code set to semi-formal. But I'm wondering if that's too formal. I don't want people to wear jeans or t-shirts. But I also don't want them to overdress and show up to find us more casually dressed than they are.

I originally thought of doing "dressy casual," but am worried about people being too casual or not knowing what that means. I think I'll probably add a dress code description to the Q and A page, but I was wondering, if your wedding has already passed, what dress code did you use and were you satisfied with how people showed up?

Hello all,

TLDR: SIL want a role at our wedding and has hinted at wanting to be a bridesmaid fiancee does not want her as a bridesmaid is there a role to give her or just tell her to enjoy as a guest only.

I (26M) am getting married next year to my fiancée (26F). We are planning a small, intimate wedding of about 50 people. For our wedding party, I am just having my two brothers as groomsmen, and my fiancée is having her sister and one close friend as bridesmaids.

For some further context my brother got married last year to my SIL and she is incredibly excited about our upcoming wedding. She constantly offers to help and clearly wants to be involved. While my brother, SIL, fiancée, and I all get together often with family and have a good relationship, my fiancée and my SIL have never truly "clicked" as they just have differing personalities. They are perfectly cordial, but they aren't close friends. My fiancée and I are totally fine with this dynamic and don't feel they need to force a closer bond.

However, whenever our wedding comes up at family gatherings, my SIL always finds a way to corner my fiancée to offer help with any and everything. While she hasn't explicitly said it, we get the vibe that she was expecting to be a bridesmaid.

My SIL is a bit Type-A and has an intense need to be helpful. She has repeatedly offered to manage vendors and handle logistics, but we are keeping things simple and don't actually need the help. We really just want to handle the planning ourselves.

Since this is my side of the family, I want to handle this so my fiancée doesn't have to navigate a weird dynamic.

My ask for advice really comes down to:

Is there a wedding role we could offer my SIL that makes her feel included but isn't just something for my fiancee, she is friendly and outgoing so she can fit in and do most things.

Or, should just put my foot down, tell her we have everything handled, and ask her to just enjoy the day as a guest?