[QUOTE=Mackieman;10344960]It's also the one nice thing about having to pay for everything ourselves: we are the ultimate authority in how this whole thing will go down.QUOTE]

If I had to pay for it myself it would definately be in Vegas. On another wedding detail, I am letting my mom pick out the dinner rehearsal place and as it turns out its nicer than our reception site (and more expensive) but thats her deal.

Vegas for the wedding isn't really my thing. My thing was our parents and a Justice of the Peace followed by two weeks in Europe, but that didn't fly as she wanted an actual wedding. Now, so as not to construe my better half as a bridezilla, it should be noted that everything we're doing is pretty low key and small, but it is the stuff that is important to her, so that's what I'm making happen.

My brother got married married in Vegas three years ago at a Catholic church across from TI. He definitely didn't elope as 100 guests filled the place. Who knew such a large church existed on the Strip?

We both wanted to elope, but I didn't want to upset my folks. We went for a small wedding too and got married on a beach in FL. One of DH's sisters in Jacksonville offered to help plan the wedding. Sold! I'm so not into formal occassions and have no idea about linens, centerpieces, invitations, etc. Luckily, two of DH's sisters basically acted as our wedding coordinators.

I don't understand all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding weddings. I definitely didn't dream about and plan my future wedding as a kid.

I heard that story too...mine's parents were young and broke and planned theirs in 10 days with nothing but cake and champagne in the backyard. She initially wanted to do a version of that. Quite frankly, :rolleyes: with extreme prejudice - I understand the circumstance of them at the time, but my family has a social/business network that needs something larger than that...her family's social network is each other. (:rolleyes:) We considered doing family-only in Vegas and then going right to FLL for a cruise. PHL-IAH-LAS-IAH-FLL-CLE-PHL, or something like that. We also considered MCO. Finally settled on local and making the travel budget more honeymoon-focused instead of wedding-focused. I also, wisely I think, prodded her into thinking about whats and wheres before the ring so at least there were the beginnings of ideas.

Take out "all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding" from the above post and you'll have my thoughts on the matter. :o

A big ^ to all of you for trying to make the other half happy. I'm sure that will only bode well for a very happy, long marriage :)

Going to Vegas with my brother this weekend, I struggled with getting a big ^ from El Presidente.....

I have a friend who thinks like this. They bought a house together, got the cars, pets, all the Barbie package trimmings. She's rather Barbie-eqsue herself, come to think of it. But he, for reasons he doesn't talk about, won't close the deal. I don't get it - to each their own, of course.

Easy. Bake. Oven. !!! @:-) goodness.

Yeah, I'm the same way as your friend. Much to the chagrin of my SBH. :o

Has she started dropping hints at you yet?

I'll give you one - shouldn't that count more ;) ^

We're beyond hints and are in final approach to ultimatum land. :o

There's an FTer with a great sig line to this effect. She's usually on the US board and the sig reads: "Women and cats will always do as they please; men and dogs should just get used to the idea."

Men are getting smarter as a species...we've learned that if the female is unhappy, we by default are unhappy.

MR BL wisely figured this out. He is, sadly for him, surrounded by women, so he needs to just deal with it. At a birthday dinner for our niece; it was a table for 8 - my sil, niece, her roommate, her friend, BL JR, step bl, MR BL and I. Needless to say, he was a bit outnumbered but he's become quite used to it.

This is where things get difficult in many ways. I've attended weddings that were more business events for the parents (think 400+ people at Chelsea Piers celebrating the union of two construction families where as many guests were business associates as there were friends/family). At that point it was much less about the couple getting married than about the families.

Our wedding was 125 folks in Ithaca, NY. Everyone but 2 had to travel to get there, including us. It meant that the wedding was about us and not everything/everyone else.

There has to be a way to balance between the social/business network and family. I just haven't figured out really what it is yet. But making sure that the wedding is about you and not all the other crap is the most important part. Otherwise just throw a party.