Wedding Planning Tips

One of our church “kids” who is now 24 is getting married. She & the fiance have already had a baby together plus he has two older kiddos. They’ve been living together for over a year. The girl’s parents were very hush-hush about her pregnancy, & although it was offered to host a baby shower for their daughter, they refused because she wasn’t married (engaged but not married) to the father. Now that the wedding is close, the offer was made to throw a bridal shower; I was asked to help and agreed. Was unaware that the mom of the bride not only has requested an open invitation be sent to the entire church congregation, but also gave an additional guest list (of local friends outside the church) to the main hostess. We’re expecting between 75-100 or more guests, and there are only three people-me being one-hosting this event! This is quite a slam to my pocketbook, especially since I will be expected to provide at least one gift in addition to the shower expenses.
I have to admit that I feel it is greedy for the family to open this event up to everyone. Makes it quite hard to plan our numbers. The same church group (including this mom and daughter) was kind and generous to give me a bridal shower two years ago before my second wedding. I made sure it was invitation-only because I didn’t want my friends to go broke catering the party. Plus, there really was not much I truly needed. One gift option was to make a donation in my name to a charity in lieu of a gift. About 25 ladies attended. The two friends who hosted the shower did not give me gifts, nor did I expect them to because the shower was their gift to me.
So….I’d like to recruit the help of a few other moms from our group to help provide food. I know they wouldn’t mind making a plate of sandwiches or a salad of some sort, and it would sure help. I’m also wondering if my part in putting on the shower would suffice as my gift…at least for the “shower gift.” I do plan to get the couple a wedding gift.
Thoughts??

So we’re having a long day of festivities for my friend’s wedding. We are starting with the bridal shower for lunch at her grandmother’s house, mainly for family, then we are going to her aunt’s house to do a lingerie party with dinner for friend’s and her family that is a little more wild. After that we plan on doing a bar crawl. I need ideas for party games for all three parties. I need to keep the shower PG-rated since there will be children in attendance, the party is going to be all adults, just not everyone is over 21, so no early drinking games or anything. Then the bar crawl games work for whatever.
Also for favors, do we give everyone favors and just have special stuff to set the bride apart or is she the only one that gets trinkets?
I have no idea what I’m doing here. The last bachelorette party I went to was for my aunt and all we did was sit around watching the older women drink and stumble around a bonfire (not my idea) so I really need some fun ideas for this 20-something crowd.

So we’re having a long day of festivities for my friend’s wedding. We are starting with the bridal shower for lunch at her grandmother’s house, mainly for family, then we are going to her aunt’s house to do a lingerie party with dinner for friend’s and her family that is a little more wild. After that we plan on doing a bar crawl. I need ideas for party games for all three parties. I need to keep the shower PG-rated since there will be children in attendance, the party is going to be all adults, just not everyone is over 21, so no early drinking games or anything. Then the bar crawl games work for whatever.
Also for favors, do we give everyone favors and just have special stuff to set the bride apart or is she the only one that gets trinkets?
I have no idea what I’m doing here. The last bachelorette party I went to was for my aunt and all we did was sit around watching the older women drink and stumble around a bonfire (not my idea) so I really need some fun ideas for this 20-something crowd.

So we’re having a long day of festivities for my friend’s wedding. We are starting with the bridal shower for lunch at her grandmother’s house, mainly for family, then we are going to her aunt’s house to do a lingerie party with dinner for friend’s and her family that is a little more wild. After that we plan on doing a bar crawl. I need ideas for party games for all three parties. I need to keep the shower PG-rated since there will be children in attendance, the party is going to be all adults, just not everyone is over 21, so no early drinking games or anything. Then the bar crawl games work for whatever.
Also for favors, do we give everyone favors and just have special stuff to set the bride apart or is she the only one that gets trinkets?
I have no idea what I’m doing here. The last bachelorette party I went to was for my aunt and all we did was sit around watching the older women drink and stumble around a bonfire (not my idea) so I really need some fun ideas for this 20-something crowd.

There are a lot of people coming so they need to be inexpensive…around $2 each and also we want it to be something they can always keep. It is a summer wedding.

My sissys wedding shower is in 2 weeks, im in need of some family friendly game ideas

Im the bride and my family friends are throwing me and my fiance a couple’s wedding shower this weekend. Invites went out a over 6 weeks ago and his mom my FMIL is not attending. She decided last weekend to throw her own halloween party for the same day and had the nerve to invite us knowing we were busy. She is the only part of his family we invited to my families wedding shower, his side never even offered to throw us one.
But anyway would you be a bit PO’d if this was to happen to you?

A couple cannot immediately afford (and also wants more time to plan) a large wedding and reception that includes their family. They have decided to have a private ceremony for the two of them at Cape Hatteras on the date they had originally planned, with no reception, and postpone the formal wedding/reception until the following summer so they can save up more money for it and also book the venue they want.
That being said, when is a good time to have the bridal shower for the bride? Before she and her fiance’s private ceremony, or after that (before the formal wedding)?

I am a bride to be and I am not sure about how to ask the bridesmaids about the bridal shower. After reading the post I see that I am not suppose to toss it my self but I don’t know how to really come out and ask them. Could someone please help me with some ideas?

I have various video clips, most of which I have taken on my Panasonic Lumix digital camera. Other clips have been emailed to me through various other formats. I am trying to put them all together as a surprise video for the bride during her bridal shower; however, Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Maker are not recognizing a lot of the clips. Also, there are a few that it did recognize, yet only the sound comes through with no picture. Can someone please recommend the simplest, easiest to use program out there? Or, can you instruct me on how I should go about doing this (compile clips and bring them to a professional, convert the clips, etc.)?
The bridal shower is in 3 days, so I am in need of help asap.
Thank you so much!