r/wedding

Hi all!

Just had my wedding last Friday. It was magical. I hired a makeup artist who did an epic job on my hair.

I don’t wear much face makeup - just my concealer, blush, my own way since I’ve been wearing makeup.

I had my trial and my makeup was okay, but hired her anyway because of my amazing hair. I knew I could switch my makeup myself and said that was my backup. Her team did a great job on my bridesmaid and mom.

My mua said she was doing my makeup for photography. And I didn’t care about photos really - bc I knew I’d look good with my own makeup anyway and wanted more to look good in person.

After doing my makeup, I looked in the mirror and just felt wrong. My fam and friends told me it looked good, and maybe it did kind of, but I knew it should look better. My family and friends are also very honest but still didn’t sway me to change it until I did!

Luckily my mau left at noon and I walked at 3:30 for my ceremony. At the last second in my bridal suite I knew if I didn’t wipe it off, I’d be uncomfortable all day.

So that’s what I did. Game-time decision, wipe off all the face makeup. Put my concealer and blush on. Felt a trillion times better. And looked stunning in my own face makeup. Photography still looks incredible (even better honestly).

So my tips to my brides who don’t wear much face makeup: have mua do your eyes and lips, and do your own face makeup. OR have the mua do it all, but have buffer time with the mua not there to change it if you are not feeling it. Or just do your makeup yourself.

Another tip was get a lash lift and tint! Get one months ahead by an artist to test her out and make sure you react well to the lift chemicals. Then get one my the same person a few days before. My eyes looked excellent and no mascara needed or false lashes. And I don’t have a ton of lashes either :).

Hope this helps all the brides who have that pit in their stomach when they see their makeup on wedding day and feel uncomfortable! You have permission to change it! I’m so glad I did!!!!!

can I get the wisdom of the crowd? Is $2,050.00 total too much for a MUA (not including hair) for my bridal party of 9 (8 bridesmaids + myself) the day of the wedding? It’s $300 for me, and $150 for bridesmaids + a $550 travel fee (it’s a little over 3 hour drive). I found more affordable options ($75/bridesmaid ; $85/bride). I am willing to splurge on myself but I don’t know if this is asking too much of my bridesmaids to pay (for hair it will be $100.00 per person I already have that booked). I know the quality will be better with the more expensive option, I just want to get your opinions if you wish you had spent less or splurged more on makeup on your wedding day because you weren’t happy with the result. Thank you!

Okay, I have possibly a silly question here but I need to ask it. At every wedding I have attended and stood at, the bridal party are paired together (MOH/Best Man, Bridesmaid/groomsmen, so on), and walk down the aisle with arms linked. They also exit the wedding the same way.

However, in a lot of things I have seen online, I see the bridesmaids walking alone down the aisle?? Also the parents of the bride and groom walking down the aisle, aside from the brides dad walking her down the aisle? I had never seen that before. I first saw it when those viral Tiktoks were going around of the bridesmaids walking (running?) the aisle to "Ordinary", but now I am seeing it a lot more now that I am planning my wedding. I was wondering if that was a typical thing, or maybe its a regional thing? I live in a very rural area not in the USA for reference.

Generally I guess I'm curious about your wedding processions and who walked down the aisle and how they did! All perspectives welcome :)

Okay, I’m going to do my best to be unbiased here. Our wedding was late June of this year. We got sneak peaks back a couple days after (about 10 pictures) that THEY posted to their facebook group, they didn’t send us any of them directly. We haven’t heard any updates regarding the album delivery date, barring one update that my husband had to reach out for. She has since been posting some of our wedding photos we haven’t even seen yet in an editing style we didn’t agree to on her Tiktok and Instagram. Our contract says up to 12 weeks return time, but she told us she would have it to us early during the wedding because it was the one she was “looking forward to most.” That could be something she says to all clients, but I have no idea. I’m honestly not so much irritated at waiting the full 12 weeks with no update, but her posting our unseen photos on public social media that my family has access to, when we haven’t posted ANY photos of our wedding so far. Not even the sneak peaks she posted to facebook because I would’ve had to download them directly from the post, messing with the quality. Am I being irrational? I do understand they technically own the images, but I figured it was common decency to not post the bride and groom before they do? I don’t know. I need some outside opinions!!

I just need to vent. I have always been average bodied, or slightly above average. I’d call myself midsize. My wedding is next month, and I am feeling so insecure about my body that I am worried I genuinely will hate every photo of me and look back at my wedding and just cry. There has never been a time in my life I’ve been genuinely happy with my body, and it’s so exhausting. I have always been active, which is also defeating. I feel I’m the kind of person they’re talking about when they say you can be fit and fat. I made a lot more lifestyle changes in the last year and have been told by numerous people they can tell I’ve lost a lot of weight (not sure if that helps or hurts, haha) and I know I have too, based on my measurements. But I still have so many areas of insecurity, specifically my arms. I feel my arms are going to look so large in my wedding gown and will be visible in every photo, and I’ll just hate them. I feel like I didn’t do enough to get myself to a place where I’d be happy with my appearance, even though I didn’t want to lose weight in an unsustainable way. I rarely see photos or videos of midsize brides on social media, and it’s so hard not to compare myself. I truly just don’t want to feel ugly and fat on a day that I am supposed to feel my most beautiful.
I of course realize the day is about my love, and the wonderful man that I am marrying as well, but unless you’ve experienced major body image issues I think it’s hard to fully grasp how upset and insecure I am feeling and borderline dreading the day and the photos to follow. I don’t want to feel this way, and yet I do.
TIA for reading.

I am officially 2.5 weeks out from our wedding and I still cannot decide on a walking down the aisle song! These are the four options I’m deciding between! They all feel right!

1. That’s Just the Way it is babe - John Vincent
2. Losing You (live version) - John Butler Trio
3. Our House - Crosby Stills, Nash & Young
4. Grow Old with You - Adam Sandler (wedding singer)

Backstory - we are high school sweethearts of 12 years now and are having an intimate and fun 70s themed backyard wedding with only 38 guests. Our relationship has history listening to John butler and our house. However, we both LOVE the Adam Sandler song and John Vincent song.

I have been with my fiancé for almost 7 years, engaged about 6 months. I’ve always wanted to get married and have a lovely wedding and celebration with my friends and family, but I became disabled in 2020 and with the state of the country, we cannot afford to get married as I would lose my disability. I’m crushed to say the least, but I’ve had a few friends bring up a commitment ceremony as an option and would love to hear other people’s experiences/opinions on it?
I want to celebrate love and the life commitment of me and my partner but don’t want everyone to think it’s a waste or not as legitimate… idk. Please help 🥲

OK so like the title says I’m on SSRIs, which are very much known to make you more sensitive to heat/sweat excessively… I unfortunately seem to have obtained these side effects. I apologize in advance for grossness.

Ive tried on my dress three times now - the day I said yes, when it first arrived at the shop, and now my first alterations appointment. All three times I had the dress on for far less than 30 min and I could feel sweat dripping down my legs/on my back and sides. I’m in the depths of a pretty radical weight loss journey and am down officially 100lbs from a year and a half ago. I still have like 20 to go to get to goal weight, but I only say this because I feel like women are always told to lose weight as the first response to any body issue and I’m not looking for that here.

I have found degree 72hr works well for me in terms of any odor, but my clothing still gets sweaty and gross - just not smelly. I do have a pair of “cooling” shorts from thigh society I was planning on wearing day of since they help but the bodice is causing me as much concern as the weight of the skirt. Are there any products anyone knows of for hyperhydrosis / excessive sweating that genuinely works and won’t give me chemical burns since I do have sensitive skin. I can go down the rabbit hole of buying every product out there but I would ideally like some direction to start.

TL:DR bride terrified of melting at wedding seeking suggestions for full body anti perspirants with anti odor qualities.

Yesterday, I suggested something to a parent of a bride-to-be that might sound strange:

Don't spend ₹30–40 lakh on a lavish wedding. Buy your daughter a home instead.

Not because you expect the marriage to fail.

Because a home in her own name gives her something a big wedding can't,... financial confidence and the freedom to walk away if life ever takes a bad turn.

And if the marriage is wonderful? She still has an asset she'll cherish for decades.

We spend so much money making one wedding day unforgettable. Maybe we should spend a little more making our daughters' lives secure.

Would you choose the wedding or the house?

Our wedding is October 17th, and while we know what we're doing for the grooms cake, we're having trouble deciding on what cake flavors we should go with, even for testing - help please! I'm allergic to blueberries, but anything else is open game - what are y'all doing? All ideas appreciated!!

My fiancé and I aren’t getting married for another year and some change, so there’s definitely still time to think about this, but my mom has started talking about planning a bridal shower for me. She would really like to invite some of her close friends who want to celebrate with me, but they won’t be invited to the actual wedding.

Our wedding is going to be pretty small, around 50 guests. That already includes our immediate families, aunts and uncles, and about two friends each. We aren’t even inviting cousins because we both have large families and our guest list could very easily get into the hundreds if we started expanding beyond that…I brought up my concern to my mom because I know the general etiquette is that you shouldn’t invite someone to a bridal shower if they aren’t invited to the wedding. I especially don’t want anyone to feel like they’re being invited just to give me a gift or that a wedding invitation is coming later. I also want to make it clear that I absolutely do not expect gifts from anyone who attends. For me, this would genuinely just be about having people there who want to celebrate with us.

My mom completely understands my concern and said she would make it very clear beforehand that the wedding itself is small and they shouldn’t expect an invitation. She still really wants to include some of her friends because a lot of them have known me since I was a kid, and according to her, they already understand the situation and genuinely don’t mind. They just want an opportunity to celebrate me in some way.

There’s also a little more context that makes this meaningful to me. My brother passed away a few years ago, so I’m the only child my mom will get to have this experience with. Some of her friends have been around our family for years, and I think part of their excitement is also wanting to celebrate with and uplift my mom. That honestly makes me really happy because, while the wedding is obviously about my fiancé and me, I know this is also a really special milestone for both of our parents.

I’m not trying to justify bad etiquette, though, which is why I’m curious what other people think. If the guests are told upfront that the wedding is very small, know they aren’t invited to it, aren’t expected to bring a gift, and still genuinely want to attend the shower and celebrate with us, would you still consider it rude or gift grabby to invite them?

Some extra context: My mom is an older latina lady who barely knows English. I think in general she just wants to have a little party at her house like a luncheon or bbq. It doesn’t explicitly need to be called a shower, but I fear that it may not matter what kind of party it is or what it’s called😅 From all these responses, it seems like it’ll feel gift grabby either way but i’m happy to hear more perspectives if the name of the party makes a difference or not!

Update: I spoke with my mom and we all had a nice chuckle from all the responses, mostly because she was so unaware of the traditions here and was taken aback by how strict some of the rules are. It’s not that we don’t understand because we do get why some of these rules exist, however, my mom and her friends love hosting and no one has an issue with throwing a party. We decided that we simply won’t be calling it a bridal shower and make everyone aware that gifts are not necessary. I think regardless of what we decide to call it some people will bring gifts though because that’s just how they are🤷‍♀️I know some people will still think this is bad etiquette, but my mom, her friends, and the people they want to invite don’t mind and want to celebrate me and my mother.

TW for disordered eating ///

Has anyone else found wedding prep has caused an old ED to resurface?

I had anorexia as a child from about 14-16, but have been doing really well as an adult and would have considered myself “recovered”, or as recovered as I think one can be.

I had maintained a healthy weight, but several months ago I started trying to lose some weight and “tone up” to feel good in my dress (wedding is in ~2 months). What started out relatively innocently with more exercise and mindful eating has turned into a full blown relapse. I’m restricting, fasting, over-exercising and generally obsessed with my weight and intake. My original goal weight has passed and I can’t stop, don’t feel like I can or should stop.

It has helped with other ongoing stresses with family etc. to have something else to focus on, but it’s obviously causing it’s own host of issues, in particular arguments with my partner over food etc.

It’s sucking the joy out of me and everything I should be enjoying right now like cake and menu tasting, my hen do etc. but I don’t know how to stop. I tell myself after the wedding I can stop but I know that I’m lying to myself. I’m still in the healthy BMI range too, so I despite my partner and work having expressed concerns I feel I can’t really admit and seek help either.

Has anyone else struggled with this, and if so, have any advice for reentering recovery this close to a wedding?

Is this a common thing brides experience with so much pressure put on them to look a certain way?

yup… it happened to us. I know it’s in every photography contract that “specific shots aren’t guaranteed” but I can’t get over the disappointment of this. We splurged on our photographer and even got a package with a second shooter. I can’t comprehend how between the two of them there’s no first kiss photo, or even a photo of just the two of us at the altar during one of the many moments our officiant stepped aside (ring exchanges, vows, kiss) or one of just the two of us signing before our witnesses came up. I don’t want to hurt my photographers business by leaving a bad review but really think people would love to know this before booking. What should I do? Has this happened to anyone else and how did you get over it? I’m so upset.

This will probably be a long one so please bear with me. English isn’t my primary language, so if there are mistakes I’m sorry.

To give the outlines: my husband and I got married in a civil ceremony in July 2026 and we will have another wedding celebration with vows and a free ceremony in spring of 2027. 

Both of those celebrations have been planned to be very small and intimate with less than 30 people each. My Husband has a rough relationship with his family so we opted to have them at the civil ceremony but leave them out of our wedding weekend next year, that’s why we had two celebrations. This post is about the second celebration.

We love to host so we tried to plan in a way that everyone feels as comfortable and at home as possible. We rented an estate for the entire weekend and it has enough space for everyone to sleep there, the cost is covered by us. Everyone has their own space, bedroom, their own bathroom and access to amenities like a whirlpool and a gym. Food, beverage and entertainment will be provided for the entire weekend and the only thing that guests have to do on their own is get there (the longest travel is going to be a 4 hour car ride). We also helped with organizing carpools for everyone that wanted that. Our dress code is formal for the day of the wedding celebration and we feel like we are providing an experience that fits that dress code (five course plated meal with wine pairing, live band, seafood bar, passed appetizers, open bar with a mixologist who makes custom drinks and more). We indicated seven colors on the dress code (dark green, green, purple, blush pink, orange, blue and dark blue). When we got asked if it had to be the exact color we told everyone that we’d love for the guests to be colorful while my husband and I are in black and white so if they preferred another color we’d be totally okay with that as well. Pretty much everyone has been thrilled about everything we’ve revealed so far and some even said that it feels like a planned vacation and that it’s a highlight they’re looking forward to.

Now onto the issue: A good friend of mine has made me feel incredibly insecure about all our plans on multiple occasions and now I’m playing with the idea of uninviting her, but I’m unsure how to approach that and if its the way to go.

I’ll give some context about our relationship and then I’ll rehash what’s happened with the wedding. 

My friend and I are both still in university and that’s where we met. We’ve known each other for about five years now and have become so close that I even considered asking her to be my maid of honor. Our partners both work full-time, our lives are generally speaking pretty similar. We’re both on the path to get quite challenging degrees and that’s something we bonded over. We can talk about pretty much everything and I appreciate her a lot. Sometimes she can be quite hard with her judgement and very sure that was she consideres right is ultimately right.

The wedding issues started pretty much at the beginning. The first time I told her about our wedding plans and that it might be a destination wedding she reacted quite harshly and asked me how we could even consider that and if I thought about the environmental effects of the travel. Our loved ones are quite scattered so people would have to travel either way. The longest guest travel would’ve actually been longer getting married at home. After I explained that to her she kinda understood but still seemed like she didn’t like the Idea. 

The second time we had a bigger discussion was around the menu. She has some dietary restrictions so I went over the menu with her before signing it off with our amazing chef. She’s not a vegetarian but her partner and several of our guests are so we opted to have one vegetarian menu and one with fish and meat. We don’t have any vegan guests but if we had any we would’ve had a third menu. Several guests have allergies and restrictions and all of that will be taken into account and everyone gets a menu catered to their needs (rough menu is the same but some aspects get switched for certain guests). After I told her the menu she wanted to switch to the vegetarian one and of course we made it possible. A couple days after her partner contacted me and asked how we could serve the omnivore option for so many people with a good conscience. Our chef works with local organic products and we carefully selected the menus so that everything is high quality and the vegetarian menu is as good as the omnivore one (so not just a plate of boiled veggies, tofu and cheese). No one has to eat meat if they don’t want to. I later spoke to her about it to ask why she didn't say anything to me directly. She said that she didn’t think I’d serve meat if so many people are present (15 PAX omnivore) and that she had to tell someone but asked her partner not to say anything, which obviously still happened. I let it go and didn’t ask further to not ruin ist for me but now every time I think about our menu I feel weird.

Third time was the most recent one. I had just been dress shopping with my mother and she had complained that she couldn’t choose anything creme colored. I told my friend about it because my mothers comment made me quite sad since anything white should really be the brides color to which she said that our dress code is putting an incredible amount of pressure on all our guests. I was really taken aback by her statement since I know she has a dark green formal gown that she wears at weddings normally that would match the dress code perfectly. Apparently that doesn’t fit her anymore and now she wants to sew herself a new gown (she’s an incredible hobby seamstress). She said that our color palette is too restrictive for that and that she normally only wears black and now we’re forcing her and all the guests to get outfits in the right colors. She knows dress codes that indicate formality levels but the giving a color scheme is outrageous and pressuring and she doesn’t think that’s normal. She finished the whole thing off by telling me it’s probably because we „grew up in different classes“ which really isn’t true. I grew up a little all over Europe because of my Dads job so I saw more of that part of the world but bottom line we both grew up upper middle class, she just didn’t move as much. I told her that were not gonna stand there with color cards and a bodyguard to control what people wear and that I can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to nor do I want to do that. Now she wants to wear black or midnight blue. 

Those were the three bigger issues. There were a lot more small jabs here and there but that’s the most important ones. I know just reading that paints a picture that isn’t very beautiful so I want to point out that we both still really appreciate each other. Her wedding present to me was making my wedding dress for the civil ceremony (I of course paid for the materials) in which I felt stunning and am incredibly thankful for. I made and remade her engagement ring (she didn’t like the first design she came up with when it was on her finger) and also made their wedding bands (they aren’t engaged or married yet but the rings are there when the time is right for them:)). So we both love each other in a way that we don’t mind spending hours of our time to make something special and beautiful for the other. We spend a lot of time together in general and I’d consider her one of my closets friends but every time I think about sharing details of the wedding I just feel a little sick because I don’t want her to ruin another aspect of it for me. I know that sounds horrible but I was so excited about the wedding before all of this happened and now I just think about all the details she’ll think are too much or too extravagant. It’s a small wedding, we’re foodies so the majority of the budget went into food and beverages which we really loved at our tasting and I put a lot of time into details (personalized fonts, hand embroidered guest towels etc.) and I love that. It's not a huge event with a wedding planner or fireworks. Everyone else is looking forward to it but I feel like she resents it for some reason. She isn’t in a financially unstable situation where she can’t afford a dress and there are no other costs included also no vacation time either since it’s a weekend and the Monday is a public holiday (and technically she could wear the green dress she owns).

We tried to include every dietary restriction she has, we organized them a free ride there and if they didn’t want to attend they could’ve RSVPd no. My maid of honor suggested that she doesn’t want to come but can’t say it and now wants me to uninvited her. I feel so torn about everything. 

What would you do? Any insight on what could’ve went wrong? She makes me feel like an overdramatic complicated person and an inconsiderate host which I don’t think I actually am and I’m at a loss on how to move forward. 

To everyone who made it this far, thank you for reading and all the best for whatever wedding planning or marriage stage you’re in :) Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

EDIT: Thank you for all the input regarding the dress code: I'll defenetly readjust my definition of standard when its comes to that. And understand that it is in fact not the standard.

In my experience every wedding I've been to so far has had a dressscode that includes colors. Also we've known all our guests for so long and have been to formal events with them that we know that everyone has at least one outfit that would fit the dress code. If someone buys a new outfit it's because they want to and not because they have to. We keep that in mind when choosing the colors and didn't get any other negative feedback on it :)

My husband and I just got married Saturday! It was everything and I wanted to share some things that were a hit for us in case you were looking for some.

-Kid sized bounce house. This wasn’t something we had originally planned but a contractor my husband works with offered us a free rental. His wife owns an inflatable company and rents them out. He offered an adult one but I declined after talking to my mom. She didn’t trust the 20-something boys in our family to behave on it and I had to agree. Either way it was a hit for the actual children and their parents. We only had about 7 kids between 2-9 and most of them are related to each other so they got along fine. I wanted to include this in case someone was on the fence about it.

-Cereal bar. This was a hit from toddlers to senior citizens. We had individual cups of cereal(Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Fruity Pebbles), a variety of milk, and toppings.

-Cookie bar. We opted for this and the cereal bar in lieu of wedding cake. We had about 5-6 variety of cookies.

-Wedding song roulette. We asked every married couple what their wedding song and wedding year was. We had the DJ take about 20 minutes and play a 30-45 snippet of each song and give a wedding anniversary shout out to the couple. A lot of long married couples expressed how much they loved that because they hadn’t heard the song in years.

-Providing slippers for all of the women. Self explanatory.

-My husband and I along with our wedding party were the buffet servers. It was a good way for us to interact with every guest while also keeping the line moving. The main reason though is because we wanted to give back to everyone in that room that showed up for us.

Happy planning! Oh and feel free to drop some cool stuff you had at your wedding!

For context, I’ve known my boyfriend for a long time. I knew who he was in high school and then we met right out of high school. But we didn’t start dating til I was 26/27 and I’m almost 30 now. We got engaged at the beginning of the year and planned to have a small ceremony next year with close family. There’s a trip we’re taking in a month out west and some friends were gonna come with us. But they backed out. We’re still going. And we never booked anything for our wedding next year and the more we thought about it we decided that’s not what we want. So we’re choosing to elope on our own. We’re both introverted and don’t like being center of attention. We felt like we were just accommodating for everyone else but ourselves. But now we’re choosing us. We’re so happy about it.

Problem is, I now have to tell my mom. We have a decent relationship. It’s just not the closest. And I’m currently living with her at the moment and I have a child that she’s pretty overbearing with. She doesn’t really let me be a parent. I’ve always struggled to approach her about hard or big decisions/changes in life. And I’m beyond lost on how to tell her.

TW: suicide

I'm getting married next summer to a wonderful guy. I have a big family (one of my parents has 7 siblings), his is smaller, but he is on board with inviting my entire family including aunts, uncles and cousins if I wish. We are paying for it ourselves and inviting about 100 people.

Here's the problem. My father and one of my aunts, his sister Diane, had a MAJOR falling out about 30 years ago when I was early elementary school aged. Diane asked him to perjure himself as a witness during a court case she was involved in. He said no, of course, and she went absolutely nuts. Turned all of his siblings against him, would scream at him and us when she saw us in public, totally isolated him and us (wife and kids) from the rest of the family, etc. It really affected my father and we nearly lost him to suicide as a result (but he is okay now!) What's really sad is that he and Diane were best friends growing up and she was also very close to my mother. Like sisters, all through university and young adulthood.

When I was a teen, Diane and my dad sort of made amends, enough that she and her kids would occasionally come to ours for Easter or Christmas dinner. One night at dinner, she had too much to drink, was really rude to my dad, and called my mom a bitch. Dad asked her to leave. By that point his relationship with his other siblings had kind of been mended, but it was clear that beneath the surface this one sister was still really upset with him.

In my adulthood, dad has been either close with or on polite terms with all of his siblings, including Diane, but she has been consistently quite cold and rude to him, my mother, and to me and my siblings. We see her once a summer at family reunions and she'll do weird things like try to prevent us from coming in to the house (not her house), insisting we stay out on the porch, not acknowledging my mother when she speaks, etc. This past summer was different, she was very nice and warm to me, but it was likely because I'd just had a baby and people will do anything to get some baby snuggles lol.

Besides her, my other aunts and uncles have all been very lovely to my siblings and me. I'd like to invite all of them to the wedding, except Diane. I just can't stomach inviting someone to my wedding who caused my father so much pain and has looked my saintly mother in the eye and called her a bitch. This will mean that I'm inviting all of dad's siblings except her, and our family reunion (which she will be at) is the week before our wedding date, so there is no way she doesn't find out.

Literally nobody has a problem with this - not my parents, not my fiancé, not my siblings - but part of me feels like I am being petty and should just invite Diane to keep the peace/prevent another blowup. Or that having them all together might somehow bring them closer together again. My dad is a big believer in keeping the peace and I know that deep down he likely feels a little sad about her not being there, even after all she has put him through.

I'm not a gigantic bitch for not wanting her at this wedding though, right? Like do I stick to my guns or should I be considering adding her to the invite list for the sake of avoiding more drama?