Theme battle

[BraveTangledPrincess]

So, my boyfriend and I are talking about the big M word. Like a lot of girls, I have a secret Pinterest board full of different ideas and themes and such. So, today I asked him what he wanted. He said he likes the idea of a country themed wedding. I'm sure we could pull it off, but I'm not entirely sure that's what I want. We are going to be having a reception in his state and then a ring ceremony/reception in mine. It would be easy to pull off two seep rate weddings, but for cost reasons, and simplicity, we need one theme.

I haven't told him my feelings on the country theme yet. So, how do I say it to him and/or how do we compromise?

[lyonsgirl]

First, welcome to LFAD.

Onto your question.... Are either of you "country"? If you've just started talking about marriage (and actually use the words, not abbreviations because the real word is too scary or something), don't worry about it yet. I know you're excited, trust me. Been there done that (a few times). But talk about the MARRIAGE rather than the WEDDING. A wedding is only a few hours. A marriage is a lifetime.

Also, question. What do you mean, a "ring ceremony"? To my knowledge, there's only one kind of ceremony: the one where you legally get married.

ETA: PS, "marriage" should be the theme of your wedding. If you want to have a country "style", by all means. Themes are for birthday and frat parties, not weddings.

[BraveTangledPrincess]

We are LDS, Mormon, and we are getting sealed in the temple closest to him. We didn't want to leave out my family and friends, so there's the option of a ring ceremony, where you just trade the rings. The sealing is the actual, binding, legal ceremony.

[lyonsgirl]

Interesting.

When have you talked about getting married? I mean, timeline wise. Two, 3 years from now?

[BraveTangledPrincess]

Neither one of us is really country, but he's small town and I'm big city.

We haven't gotten to the specifics of when it will be. It depends on things like, his family wants to move out of state next summer and no one knows where they will go yet. We like the idea of spring time, so probably spring 2015? But I kinda like fall too.

We were both previously engaged, which you would think would make this easier. Nope. His ex left him and his family totally out of the wedding planning. With me, my ex didn't realy care to put his input into planning. So, I really value his thoughts and opinions. I just want it to be our wedding, not mine or his.

[lyonsgirl]

If I were you, I wouldn't bring how you (plural) want your wedding to look until you're officially engaged. (out to your family and friends engaged, not "oh we're engaged but keeping it a secret". I don't say this because I think you would do it, I say it for anyone else who might be reading. I've noticed a trend of "secret engagements" recently (not just on LFAD) and they don't ever end well.)

When the time comes to be actually planning, you sit down together (whether it be via phone or webcam or if you're lucky, in person) and start putting ideas on the table. Although, honestly? In my experience the two things that need to be figured out before anything else, and I really do mean anything, when it comes to wedding planning are the budget, and then the guest list. Once you've got a budget, it makes all of the other decisions 1000xs easier.

[Zephii]

Instead of going for a set theme, you can take things that are special to you and your story and incorporate them together. For example for our wedding we had mailbox favours (because of the long distance), a carousel wedding cake (because of our relationship history), red and white colour scheme (blood and semen, a religious thing - also his country colours), furry cake toppers, book instead of bouquet .... just a whole bunch of different things from our lives that told our story. And it all worked and went together well.

So, if he wants to incorporate his passion for country, you could just keep it simple and have a country wedding cake topper, and maybe cowgirl boots under your dress and leave it at that. It doesn't have to be this big theme. (I'm not a fan of theme weddings, to be honest, though they can be amazing.)

Just bring parts of yourself to the wedding, and somehow it will all fall into place.

P.S - We also didn't talk about our wedding until we were engaged. Honestly we never discussed getting engaged or married until he proposed because he believed it was something we should meditate privately on and consider in our own hearts without influence from the needs of the other.
For us we figured out the date, country and budget, then worried about the pretty aspect.

[Dziubka]

If I were you, I wouldn't bring how you (plural) want your wedding to look until you're officially engaged. (out to your family and friends engaged, not "oh we're engaged but keeping it a secret". I don't say this because I think you would do it, I say it for anyone else who might be reading. I've noticed a trend of "secret engagements" recently (not just on LFAD) and they don't ever end well.)

I beg to differ. I mean I don't really know when an engagement becomes official or un-seceret. But we had been talking about our wedding way before I had a ring on my finger. If you want to get married eventually, then I don't see what's wrong with discussing a few possible ideas for the party.
Between my SO and I, due to cultural differences, we both have majorly different ideas on what a wedding is, what it's supposed to look like, etc. I'm glad we discussed it before actually getting engaged. Not only because we have 1.5months between the actual proposal and our wedding.

Also I feel like we've discussed that before, but there are a LOT of different ceremonies. You can get married legally, religiously, just have a commitment party/ceremony, where you don't get married legally or religiously, but it's still sort of a wedding, etc, etc.
A wedding is not the same to everyone. For my SO the religious ceremony is the "actual" wedding, for me it's the legal ceremony. (And in my country, they have to be seperate ceremonies).



On the original topic:

Do you see a "battle" already? I think Zephii had some really good ideas. You can take elements that you both like or that are significant to you and make the wedding "you-themed". It should be about the couple anyway.

[lyonsgirl]

Dzu, my SO & I discussed the wedding prior to the engagement as well. However, having a "battle" about something that isn't even really a big deal (ie the decorations), then maybe the discussion should be held off for a while.

I know that marriage ceremonies/traditions vary by country and/or religion, but what I said was my opinion, not any kind of fact. I didn't want this to turn into that topic again.


I really like Zephii's comments-our wedding is extremely reflective of us. The music, cake, food, decorations etc.

[lucybelle]

Dzu, my SO & I discussed the wedding prior to the engagement as well. However, having a "battle" about something that isn't even really a big deal (ie the decorations), then maybe the discussion should be held off for a while.

I agree with this. I mean if it's fighting instead of just talking, it should be put to the side. I mean talking about getting married is important in my opinion, but what colors are going to be in the wedding? That's silly to me. Figure that out later. Sure it's fun to be like "oh we can have a big wedding/small wedding, etc etc" but as soon as it's not fun and instead is arguments then just stop talking about it. Deal with it when the time comes.