Don''t even know where to begin.

[Cehrabehra]

IME it doesn't quite work that way... I got married 2 years to the day of the day we were going to have the ceremony and celebration... the favors said 1993 but I wasn't even fooling myself. We were married 1991 and whatever plans I had that the first couple years would be casual was thrown out as soon as I said I do. It was real and it was *NOW* and that was the moment the seed that became our marriage was planted.

ETA - I guess the deed has been done Hope everything went the way you hoped it would!!

 

[jaylex]

Re:

Date: 5/20/2010 11:50:02 AM
Author: Guilty Pleasure
In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong AT ALL with having a wedding shower after they are legally married. The point is to celebrate the marriage and help the bride. Her joy in her marriage and her need for help do not expire the day she signs the paper. There is no rule that says showers must take place before the wedding day, just like baby showers can take place after the baby is born and people can have wedding receptions after their wedding day. Just change the wording to note that it is in honor of the recent marriage instead of an upcoming marriage.

That being said, a bachelorette party would be completely inappropriate. You will no longer be a single lady; your time for ''last night out'' will have passed, and any sort of typical trashy bachelorette stuff would be in poor taste for a MARRIED woman. You can still have a night out with your friends or an all girls spa day or whatever, but any reference to ''bachelorette'' or those games that some women play with tasks and coupons, etc. should be omitted.

A wedding shower or vow renewal would certainly be appropriate. I would find it strange (but not rude/shocking) if I was invited to a wedding for people I knew were already married but I would certainly go to celebrate with them and bring a gift (if I knew them well, I''d probably send a gift for the legal marriage and bring another to the celebration).

Big DITTO to the bachelorette party comment above (and the same goes for bachelor party).
Since you will be married at the time, that would be very inappropriate.
A girls night out for dinner/tea/spa (or girls night in -- movies, etc.) would be a lot of fun and appropriate. (same for the guys -- race car driving class, ball game, fishing weekend, etc.)

Woah. I didn't even see that this went on! Sorry everybody! I did an update on a different thread I posted... But I figured I should do one here just to "tie up" the loose ends.

beginning of update: "the "ceremony" was us walking in to our church, chatting with our pastor, saying "I Do", Pastor validated the license and said a prayer for us and we hugged him and left. It took literally 5 minutes lol. I cried a little bit... nothing like the sobbing tears I was expecting, but looking at DFH as he said his vows was just so "neat" (at a loss for a better word). And I'm pretty sure he was almost crying lol.

After that, his BM took us and my MOH dinner. The four of us are all really close... BM drove two hours after taking his MCAT's just to go to dinner with us! That was a really a lot of fun.
Then Fi and I checked into a hotel near the restaurant and I got us upgraded to a jacuzzi suite . (the front desk girl was super nice to us because we were "newly-weds", she even gave us a discount and our "suite" cost about 25% less than our original room would have!) lol
We had a few hours of "alone time" and then our BM and MOH called us to "see how we were doing". So we invited them to our suite and we had such a blast! They brought us wine and champagne and we all hung out in the hot tub until they left at about 1 am. The next morning, I went into work and he played a few games of baseball lol.
Then, after 6 agonizing nights of having to sleep apart at our respective parents houses, we moved out on our own. FREEDOM!!!

I'm so glad we went through with getting married. I feel so much less pressure for our wedding to be "perfect" and it's so nice to finally be on our own. We haven't been fighting or stressing and I'm finally sleeping through the night again! Our friends are super supportive of our decision and can't wait to celebrate with us at our "wedding". (we told our close family and friends and the wedding vendors we've booked so far... we didn't feel like friends of the family, who we only see a couple times a year, were in the "need to know" category).

My mother sincerely apologized for what she did.. She was crying. But we've been able to move past it and haven't fought since I moved out.." end update

But I wanted to address the bach/shower/party things.

We weren't planning on having a "traditional" bachelor/bachelorette party to begin with... much to Jay's best man's dismay. But he and MOH were going to plan a mini vaca for us and the rest of the party. Just a weekend away before the wedding. The way Jay and I look at it, we haven't been "single" since December 11th, 2005 (the day before we started dating). And I've personally never understood the whole bach party deal.. You've willingly gotten engaged to someone, which obviously means you love them and want what's best for your relationship... and you'll be making a legal, life-long commitment to that in just a few days (or weeks... w/e) so the way you "honor" each other is to go out and let half (or completely) naked girls dance on you? Or get so trashed that your girlfriends are having to carry you home before you make a sloppy scene? lol. We're pretty strange (obviously) but these types of things didn't fly before we were engaged, and wouldn't before we were married.. and won't before our reception.

My mom, her friend and my MOH are throwing me a bridal shower. i didn't ask for it. They insisted it was their "right" .

Jay's mom and stepdad are still hosting the rehearsal dinner. As much as she "disliked" our decision and reminds my mother of it pretty frequently, she seems pretty excited about the dinner and reception for some reason? I'll never understand that woman.

But that's about it for now.

And yes, Jay loves that he can call me "Wifey" and actually have it be true. lol

Thanks for all your well-wishes and heartfelt advice, girls!
Off to work!

 

[yssie]

Congrats Jaylex, you sound really happy with your resolution and that's lovely to hear

 

[mary poppins]

I'm glad everything worked out and you are happy. Plus, you still have more wedding activities to look forward to!

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

Thanks for the update Jaylex!

Sounds like everything worked out for the best and i can hear the happiness in your post. I am very happy for you!

 

[TooPatient]

Congratulations!

It sounds very sweet. Maybe not what you had imagined, but very nice and personal.

I'm glad you're happy together (and married!!) and your families are still excited to share your wedding with you. Sounds like it all worked out pretty well.

Congratulations again!