OP, if I ever post a close-up picture of myself on the Dis again, look at the wrinkle in between my eyebrows. That there wrinkle appeared approx one month post-proposal. We dubbed it my engagement wrinkle. Stressful times!
At the 9 month mark, as long as you figure out a hall, and BOOK that hall, it's all downhill from there!
I am
very glad that it was downhill for you after those things, but my reaction based on my experience when I read that sentence was to start laughing hysterically (in my mind, as DH was coaxing DS to sleep and I didn't want to wake him). Those were the EASY things. Everything else was hard for me!
And then, when we called a halt to the proceedings to have counseling, and then had to re-book everything, the easy decision was to switch sites, keep cake lady and photographer, and then again, everything else was hard all over again.
I am getting married on 10/31 of this year. Do you want to know what I've done so far?
ALMOST NOTHING!!
Well, we knew where we wanted the ceremony & reception (same place for both) so we went and booked that right away after we got engaged last August. So that's done.
Then I saw this wicked cute prom dress that could totally pass for a wedding gown on sale for $150 bucks in the mall. It fit perfect. I bought it and some things I plan to sew onto it
We just booked our honeymoon.
I'm using fake black roses
I will literally be my own DJ.
FI's best friend is a really good photographer and offered to just take pics for us.
Our decorations will consist of jack o lanterns and assorted Halloween stuff we already own. The place we're getting married at is decorated like a gothic castle anyway so very little is needed.
We're making our own invitations. It's Halloween so favors will likely be candy spread over the table.
You do realize that you have done almost *everything*, yes?
My friend was married right near Halloween, during the World Series with the SF Giants playing, so she used orange and black. Married in a serious catholic church so orange pumpkins weren't allowed, but white ones were, so she did a sort of harvesty theme with them along the aisle. We got together a day or two before at her fiance's home to decorate a bunch of pumpkins (took a LOT longer and was a LOT harder than anticipated!), and then had to cart them to the reception site (harder than anticipated and heavier than anticipated). Looked neat, though.
Oh and yes..The Knot website stresses me out..LOL It keeps telling me I have like 50 things overdue!
Forget the knot. Awful place. I started there, but it was not all that helpful.
OMG.... I went on the Knot for like, a day.
Woo, in one day you hit most of the biggies over there! Would be like coming here the first day and starting convos about photopass shares, bringing back mugs, room occupancy, etc etc etc...there's bound to be a ruckus!
But the one thing that's so hard on the internet, about especially the cash bar stuff, is that there are heavy regional differences. Out here in WA, there's no heavy influence either way. In the midwest, if liquor is served, most weddings will have a cash bar. On the east coast, it's not done very much; open bars are much more accepted. In theory. In person, it's not as stressy as it seems on the internet, but when you're planning on the internet you have to be aware that people just don't want to admit that there are regional differences.
OP, I would do what feels right right now.
If your fiance does have thoughts on it, get them from him. If he doesn't, don't push it. I kept pushing DH, which I felt was allowed since HE was the one that wanted the "poofy wedding" (I wanted Vegas), HE wanted the big family affair (b/c his first near-sham marriage was in a backyard with no one there), HE had dreamed of having a wedding his whole life (I dreamed, literally, of *having* babies, but never of weddings)...but it turned out he really wanted me to suddenly turn over a new leaf and have had dreams about weddings etc etc. (I did mention we had to halt and have counseling, yes? LOL)
Anyway, I wanted him to have opinions, but he didn't have many at all. I had a hard time accepting that, and it caused problems. So if your fiance doesn't have many opinions, let him be.
I highly recommend the wedding planning section of constantchatter.com. Well, maybe it's awful now, but it was good for me then, so check it out!
It was started by an average everyday person who was on the message boards on weddingchannel.com. One day, the WC powers that be started changing things around, and those of us who had been there for awhile had enough. The person started CC, many of us moved over there, and it was AWESOME. I loved having my wedding journal over there (then baby journal). Sure there's bound to be drama, but there always is, everywhere.
If you have any friends that are willing to be an ear, make use of them. I didn't have friends willing to be an ear for the wedding stuff. Funny, how they'd happily been ears when I was single, dealing with the crap of the dating years, while all of them were married and feeling bored, but as soon as I found what THEY had, they didn't care anymore. Not so fun! So I used cyber-friends. Thhhppth, real life friends.
Some people just didn't understand how delicious it was to stress over types of flowers (most of the time that is determined by the season you're marrying in...for instance, unless I wanted to pay a TON, with an August wedding I wasn't going to get tulips or peonies...but dahlias were fabulous!), favors, whether to make a seating chart or not (I was going to, but then a friend was in the hospital for weeks, touch and go, and I sat with her instead of dealing with that stuff, and then people sat themselves just as I would have sat them, only BETTER), etc etc. If you have *fun* worrying about those things, go for it, but make sure poeple know it's fun for you! If it isn't fun for you, then once you make a decision, STOP looking.
I tortured myself by, well, first not having an idea of a wedding, then having to stop and plan a new one (went from late Sept aka Fall and reds etc, to mid-August aka summer, pink and light greens), and then I kept on getting TONS of bridal magazines. Including a rather expensive adoration of British bridal mags (modern bride = $10/year...British Vogue Bride = $12/magazine).
DH didn't really think that was smart of me, but then again, when I look back (b/c I still had the British ones until a few months ago, and still DO have the articles/pictures that inspired me), I definitely used those British mags in style and feel.
I hope you don't get your very own named wrinkle, but I do hope you have fun. Congrats!
Um, do you know how much that costs? We aren't made of money and we don't have mommies and daddies with money to foot the bill. Even if we did, I would never ask for them to pay for an open bar! Nor would I expect one if I was at a wedding. In fact, I honestly don't think I've ever been at an open bar wedding 
I'ma go ahead and do it anyway and save about $2000 to put in our travel fund for future trips. 
