AlohaBird

I know the easiest way is to just say "Nevermind, I don't want one." I just don't want to hurt my sister's feelings.

Backstory: Destination wedding, we invited 85 people, 55 are coming. More than half identify as female (about 30 going/45 invited) my sister wants me to pick 5-10 female friends from the list of people going or invited to be sent invitations to the bridal shower. It's a small-ish destination wedding (I think it's huge, but I know that 50ish people is considered small on weddit.)

I feel like she just wants to invite "her friends" and our family. And I'm afraid that she's using most of the location capacity to invite mutual friends and family that weren't invited to the des

Sorry for the sensational title, but I was a little thrown back about the situation. I really wanted menu cards and now it's going to be a "wait and see."

A little background: Our caterer is farm to table, locally sourced from north "side of the island", so he literally goes out (either fishing or to the farms) and picks up food the day of or day before for certain dishes. We had dinner when we visited the island and it was amazing and everything I could dream of for us foodies.

I'm okay with not knowing... I think. I mean there's nothing else I can do about it. But I'd been dreaming about picking out foods for months now. He does know about allergies/dietary restrictions for our guests.

I woke up from a crazy dream this morning and of course, I was doing math problems. Wedding math problems. Apparently that's something I do in my sleep a lot (math, not wedding stuff.) This time it was wedding related, though, and the numbers were huge. So I wondered will the amount of spending our destination wedding make a difference in the local economy.

We have a little less than 60 guests but everyone has to fly into the location because no one is local. Our estimated budget has bloomed to about $25K, not including hosted welcome brunch, airfare, car rental, my dress, rings, honeymoon, gratuity or gifts to family. Outside of our wedding we are having three optional group activities; a

I made a graph to illustrate our RSVPs so far. 51 YES, 24 NO, 28 NO RESPONSE

Three days ago and I had almost 40 "no response" invites. I guess this is better? Why can't people be timely. (Note: 7 people have a later response date and I think 6 of them are nos.)

When we got engaged I joked that we'd have everything planned, booked and mostly paid for in six months, and I was mostly serious about it. That is so not the case. We have deposits on one venue, photographer, the DoC, the flowers and hair/makeup person. Airfare (first class!) and our lodging are paid up and my dress is paid for (thanks GiGi!!) and our RSVPs are due in 28 days.

We have 28 yes, 9 no and 63 no response.. SIXTY-THREE.

What I thought we would have finished:

I thought by now we would have our deposit for our caterer, but they are creating new contracts and moving spaces so we are still waiting for them to take our money.

We need to rent c

I've been having a terrible time deciding on my destination wedding bouquet, to the point that I think I'm going to buy bulk flowers and make one or two (I like arranging flowers.) So my question is how did you decide on your bouquet? I hope it's okay to ask people to use the formatting below.

DIY or Florist or Other

Colors

Shape

Flower types or objects

edited: Spelling errors (sorry!) and to say post photos if you have them - I think everyone is enjoying them.

A vendor just withdrew their quote/bid on our wedding, FH "saw it coming" but didn't tell me. I feel like I just got turned down.

Story: Guy came out to our venue and gave us a bid, his tents were $400 more each than everyone else's, but I felt bad about not using him - since he came out and did measurements (for free) and seemed excited. So I found a way to use most of his rentals - but we just couldn't justify throwing away $400 as much as we hated the idea of having more than one vendor do rentals. He obviously didn't like the idea either and said "Thanks, but no thanks."

And now I feel even worse than when I tried to give him business. Thoughts?

This might be the wrong place to post, let me know, but I figured you guys would be in the know about artist/bands that spotlight the ukulele.

I'm looking for an artist or band that plays the ukulele and does vocals to perform at a wedding. Our budget isn't huge, but we also don't know the going rate for artists. I do know that eliminates the bigger known names that tour. But a good artist deserves to be paid well I'm an artist also, I believe in paying what someone is wortg for their art.

Does anyone have any recommendations, YouTube videos, etc.? A small band would be ideal, but a good solo artist will work too. Thank you in advance!

This is going to sound terrible and maybe bridezilla-like...

I have to invite a couple people that I don't want at our wedding. Some that have been rude to me to me and talked smack about me/my relationship behind my back, others that actually tried to break up my FH and me, and ones that are completely disrespectful of people I care about. Has anyone gone through this? I want to ask our photographer to avoid taking too many photographs of them at our wedding, because I feel that they don't deserve to be remember as part of it and I'm afraid that they will try to take the spotlight because that's their personalities. Has anyone ever asked a photographer to limit the amount of photos they to

Edit: Affordable private venue found!

Abbreviated Crosspost: I posted over in r/weddingplanning in more detail, but I'm hoping locals or informed individuals would be able to help me.

Does anyone know of private rental homes or other non-resort venues that are available for event rentals on Kauai's North Shore? We'll have 25-50 attendees.

I know of Common Grounds and Na 'Aina Kai as venues. Also found a real estate company for 3 private homes that requires 5 days for events (at $550-$750/nt) + $3000 for the event.

If anyone has ideas or recommendations, we'd really appreciate it.

Mahalo

Hey everyone - I feel like things are starting to look hopeless trying to find a venue. We've contacted two non-estate venues, one of them, Common Grounds does catering and venue - but they don't book the venue until 6 months out. The food will come out at about $5,000 w/o alcohol or venue costs, which we are still waiting on a quote. (I hope it's okay to post names of venues/vendors.)

The other non-estate venue, a botanical garden is $4,500 and requires an in-state coordinator to manage all of the details. While we plan on meeting with and hiring a part-time coordinator to help facilitate our chosen vendors and do the day of, we've already contacted caterers, we chose our photographer a

I went to two different bridal shops, the first one was very anxiety inducing, but the second one was AMAZING and so laidback. Not only did I find a dress I liked, I found 4 dresses! This is the one I chose. It's perfect for me and my destination wedding. And....because it's been discontinued it's $1000 under budget! It's a Maggie Soretto -the designer I've dreamed of wearing forever, well since I first saw one of her dresses years ago in pale blue. I never thought I would actually get a strapless dress, but I guess you never know until you try them on. http://imgur.com/a/kOpbN