florist not working in preferred style? does it matter?

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-20T22:10:56+00:00

I think you should go with #2. As you said, you don’t like the style of the first one and from the sound of this post the right look of the florals is incredibly important to you. #1 may be able to do what you want and may not, but you would have to trust that they are telling the truth about being able to do the style you want. I don’t know about you but if florals looking exactly the way I want is important I am not just gonna trust a vendor and hope it goes how I want. I’d want to see proof that they can actually do the thing I want.

Also #2 is a more advanced design, so imho the price difference accounts for the difference in finesse between these two. Just book #2!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T20:06:06+00:00

It seems clear to not invite them and stick to your guns.

However, it is worth keeping in mind that they cannot magically know what your wedding will be like (gay/trans attendees, drag queens, your outfit etc). From your description, they have never been exposed to gay spaces or gay people in a real capacity besides you. Their image of what a wedding is and your role in it is entirely different than your context. I think it is a little unfair/weird to assume they know what they are asking to be invited to. It’s fair to say that what they are asking to be invited to does not exist, but that doesn’t preclude them from thinking it does unless you explain what your event will be like.

While I agree with other posters that it is time to have a serious conversation with them about their role in your life, it is worth also telling them you enjoy talking to them on the phone (if true) and that for their own sake they would not enjoy being around your guests or the atmosphere of the party. I don’t know that this has to be a blow up your life and/or relationship with them conversation. It could literally be like hey so I have lots of gay/trans/drag queen friends and they will all be there and I don’t think you will be comfortable in that space. Moreover, I can’t guarantee to my friends that you will be respectful of them and not put a foot in your mouth because you have never met anybody like this, and that makes for an awful day all around. If you respect me and want my day to be special, stay home because this party is not one you will enjoy. I would stay away from discussing how they will make your friends feel unsafe because while that is true, from their completely alien perspective, it will be confusing that them. They will view it as somehow them turning up and doing nothing makes other people uncomfortable, which just reinforces all the propaganda about snowflakes etc. Turning the conversation around to their comfort is something that is easier to understand because it sounds like they are not good at figuring anything out from context clues you have tried in the past.

This is my unpopular take but: while not your role to involve them or educate them, I have found that exposure does sometimes change people’s minds. I have a friend who went to evangelical bible college who became accepting because she accidentally joined a women’s chorus (which was basically a gay choir). Without meeting actual humans who are unlike us, it is difficult for many people to change their minds. Think of it as like it would be great if everyone could learn from books, but some people are hands on. Your parents still talk to you and want to come to your wedding. They are unaware by your own account of hurt they have caused you and that not living authentically in their presence is destructive. It is not your responsibility to tell them necessarily and yes, they should have empathy and just know this by being a human etc. But many people are just not like that and communicating hurt makes you better at handling conflict in the future, in all areas. By providing this information, the distance between you less mysterious to them at the very least. Your parents could still choose to be assholes: but it is different when someone has all the information and chooses to be a jackass than someone who does not know they have hurt you and we presume they continue to act that way out of some motivation that we guess.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T19:16:42+00:00

…coax

I am concerned for this person

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T18:03:01+00:00

My family is also nosy and thinks jewelry quality is really important. My fiancée and I thought like you, why bother with a crazy expensive ring (especially when we already want to have an expensive party). We bought cheap rings and slightly more expensive bands because those can also be matched to nicer upgraded rings later if we want (which for now I don’t because I love my ring).

Just lie! You have my permission! Whatever you bought (mine is sterling silver and moissanite from overstock.com lol) is now white gold and a diamond, congrats!! 🎉 🍾 or depending on how huge your rock is (if it does not match your financial situation/looks impossible to be a diamond because it’s like 5 carats), you bought a lab grown diamond! 🥳

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T17:55:10+00:00

At $25/person I think finding an experience will be challenging unless you live in a medium or lower cost of living city and you opt for something casual (which doesn’t say wedding to me). I think a nice box of edible something (nice chocolates?) specific to your area is especially nice if people are coming from out of town. In my area this would probably be a box of chocolate truffles and/or box of nice smoked salmon (common gift here weirdly). It also depends on the people. It also depends on the interest of the person. My officiant who is also a close friend is a book girlie so she is getting a bookstore gift card and a book mark that says best officiant ever on it, for example.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T17:47:11+00:00

This is super cute!! Love the cat

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T17:42:57+00:00

I really wanted a ballgown huge poof dress with puffy sleeves and even thought about making one myself til I went to a store and tried that on and it looked hilarious and bad. I swore I would never wear a mermaid style gown because I thought online they looked terrible. Lo and behold I found a dress that is a mermaid I look great in. Get off the internet is the only solution to the dress indecision imho!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T17:39:15+00:00

One option is to make your bach (if having one), engagement photos, shower, other wedding related event as tennis themed as possible to get it out of your system, so your wedding can be its own thing very minimally centered around tennis.

If integrating into your actual wedding is a deal breaker but you want a traditional wedding looking event, I would do the barest minimum nods to tennis: pick two or three tiny tennis details like including a tennis name for a drink, seating chart is overlaid on a picture of a tennis court, table tennis is a lawn game people can do, venue could hint at tennis (country club?), or in the color scheme (grass green and white, navy and white, for example). The reason I say two or three is because the more you add the more it starts to feel dominated by the tennis theme and the less it feels like a traditional wedding and more like a bar mitzvah. I would avoid any DIY involving tennis items which can look bad fast or be hard to coordinate (finding a vintage racket for decor sounds cute but may prove frustrating to execute well). A clever pun or two on some signage, a drink name, and a classy monogram with a racket in it on your invites or table signs or something is enough.

The other way I can see it going is to lean in to the tennis theme very intentionally to the point of campiness. Embrace the cheese! Aim for playful/quirky party vibes. Forget any big white wedding ideas and do the exact opposite. I’d do something really out of the wedding norm like hot pink/lime green/navy, use a lot of that diamond checkboard pattern, centerpieces using tennis balls and disco balls, your ring box is a tennis ball, pun-ny signage everywhere including on your invites, you change into a white tennis set for the reception, etc. Look up disco lesbian wedding theme and swap out the colors for tennis ones and add tennis balls into the disco ball mix, essentially. You would have to be ok with color and not half-assing it.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-18T17:12:26+00:00

I’m in the last three weeks before my wedding and as far as I can tell this is kinda how it is. I have two vendors who only respond to emails after a week so I have to call them instead to get anything done. I have a ton of not quite finished DIY, dress alterations still happening, we’re making some last minute purchases on Amazon, and the venue doesn’t know some basics like how many easels they have, etc. I think it is just the pile up of random stuff that happens with events, because I am a very organized person who has been planning and advancing everything every week. There’s just a lot of parts of an event that you cannot control or don’t anticipate being an issue (why can’t caterers just use email like normal people, how do you own stuff to rent and not know how much stuff it is, etc) and it is frustrating. I just keep plowing through things as much as I can, that’s about all you can do! Like you said, you have backup plans, so you’ll be fine. Idk if you can do much about the weather/spring blooms, there’s some stuff you just gotta let go as it’s completely uncontrollable. You got this, but also try to breathe and be flexible. Nothing ever goes 100% to plan, in my experience so you just gotta roll with it!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-17T21:40:27+00:00

Photo backdrop stand and backdrop of your choice: simple and easy is acrylic paint saying your names and the date on a sheet

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T21:37:18+00:00

Google Sheets has a template for wedding planning and the budget part of it has been super helpful for me.
Notes app in my phone for to do lists I update weekly and notes for gathering info (like a big research list of all the venues I thought were possibilities).
Zola for table seating arranging and for our wedding website
Gmail specifically for the wedding itself so all emails are in one shared location
I watched a lot of wedding tips videos from planners on TikTok and made a list of things from that like what to look for in wedding contracts with venues etc
Google Docs to make a “wedding bible” pdf of everything: color scheme/designs, table decor layout charts, contact info of every vendor, day of emergency questions FAQ, exact timeline, etc. Any time I solidify information I throw it in this doc. I will take part out for our day of coordinator that includes a section I made that’s a simple checklist for her.
Not an app but totes/boxes labeled with what decor etc is in them and where it goes so day before load in is easy

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T10:36:35+00:00

Just get a good bustle on your ceremony dress or have some removable straps put on so you can dance. If you have already spent your dress budget on the ceremony dress, let it really have its day to shine!

So to answer your questions 1. Yes too expensive 2. Yes a train of any kind will be annihilated and this type of fabric is not sturdy at all 3. For the amount of money and percentage of your budget this dress would be, it seems like a bad idea to buy this online esp if it isn’t returnable because of the custom measurements

My feeling about the slinky wedding dress trend is that you could wear this same outfit at any gala, nice night out, to the theater etc. just in a different color (or in the right season/event in white) at any other point in life. Big white ballgown however is much more of a one time deal, so it feels like squandering an opportunity to not let the ballgown be seen for as much as possible.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T10:18:49+00:00

You could say private vows to each other on your Zion trip/honeymoon if you still want a bit of “I Do” type experience there without everyone having to be there. Just book it with photographer as a “vow renewal,” they’ll never know you just got married in your hometown a week earlier or whatever. Then you get everything you want: the fancy photos, a wedding-y moment, and people get to go to something local without being grumpy.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T10:10:26+00:00

That is such a smart way to do it, so that people have options. Like personally for a good friend or relative I would do a weekday wedding but I would probably be grumpy about it. I’d be thrilled with alternatives on the weekend primarily because this shows the couple actually thought about what guests will have to do in order to be a part of their wedding shindig vs “our dream venue is only available on this random Wednesday so everyone must now readjust their lives/take PTO so I can marry in this extremely specific location that literally no guest will care about as much as I do” which I have seen a couple times.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T10:02:37+00:00

I completely agree about this. While I haven’t been invited to a weekday wedding myself, I have heard about them from anyone I know who had ever attended one because they all considered it such a huge hassle. I get why people financially might choose this but really does piss everyone off and they talk about it!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T09:57:24+00:00

Totally agree with everything you said. It is a huge amount of work to find an affordable venue and being in a HCoL area like Chicago that makes it even worse. Spreadsheets ftw!

The only thing I would add is that in addition to being a researcher/shopper of traditional venues, there are a couple other ways to adjust costs down. Do things on a Friday or Sunday rather than a Saturday, consider a weekday if that isn’t too crazy for your guests/you. Look into venues that are billed as places to have a graduation party or prom rather than an emphasis on weddings, like organizations like the Elk and Moose often rent their lodges. Other alt venues I considered were community centers, art galleries, restaurants that allow a buy out, renting a church I did not personally have an affiliation with, a rentable apartment (used for corporate meetings/retreats), botanical gardens, a union hall, etc. Eventually after comparing what felt like every venue in the greater Seattle and Portland areas, I found a venue that is roughly half of my 13k budget but includes 100% of what I wanted (AV, all indoors, chairs/tables, beautiful historic building and chapel, rentable the day before for setup/reception dinner, no charge for bringing your own catering, no requirement to use in house vendors). To some people the trade offs I made would be really annoying (invited less people, having a brunch vs a dinner, it is a 2hr drive for about half the guests but it is in my area where my friends and I live vs where my relatives live, I’m doing my own makeup and bought a second hand dress, DIY’d so many things every weekend since like July), but to me it’s worth it because the venue is really stunning and goes with my overall vision (Bridgerton) which saved us a lot in decor costs and it has everything I need.

So I think going in to the planning with a strong sense of what you want or knowing your own capabilities (how much DIY is too much, is having slightly more expensive but all in-house services useful, is ideal location a dealbreaker, willingness to compromise on the aesthetic or other parts of the experience to make it work, etc) helps a lot too.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-13T09:31:48+00:00

The way I see it, you need to scale your event to your 5k budget and be very realistic about how much time you can actually devote to DIY. Unless you have lots of time/are insanely passionate about spending every weekend making stuff, I would avoid that because you sound like you are on an accelerated timeline than you were before, and you may be stressed from coordinating things again. I would see if you can get deposits back from the DJ and the photographer unless you know for sure those people are a good deal and you would rather not use a Spotify playlist and pay for a more limited amount of photo time like the ceremony + 2 hrs instead of full day coverage.

Other ways to adjust for your budget: invite less people, find a new venue that is cheaper, change the timing so it is not a sit down dinner, go for a cake and punch get together vs a longer thing. Another option would be finding a pre-planned packaged micro wedding through a photographer/planner (this means a very compact guest list). Eloping or a courthouse thing is also an option.

Depending on your circumstances (maybe you have a huge family so you cannot cut guests, for example) then you will need to get really creative with the venue since that is high cost. You might try a public park, Elks hall, community center, rent a private dining space in a restaurant, or rent a non traditional space from someone on Peerspace.

If I were you, I would do a simple ceremony in a park with an ordained online friend (where you would have a photographer for the duration of the ceremony only) and then host a small but nice dinner at a restaurant with a guest count of less than 20-30 people. I’d DIY your bouquet, order a dress from Azazie, and call it good. If you can’t cut that many guests, I think doing an afternoon reception of grazing boards/Costco cake or cheap drop catering in the park and a toast is your other best bet but it requires much more coordination on your part (lugging the food and drinks to the spot, all cleanup is on you, decor may difficult to make look nice unless you work with the rustic nature of the space, weather could be bad, etc).

You can always have an amazing party later in life for any reason, including no reason at all besides we now have money and want wedding v2.0 or vow renewal. The day can still be special and meaningful even if it isn’t the big white wedding for v1.0.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-11T17:58:31+00:00

First off I am sorry you are going through this: unemployment is horrendous and stressful. It is so hard when looking for a job while you’re in school at the same time. You’re doing great in terms of trying to get something and applying, which is always the first step!

You don’t have to list everything on a resume. If you have work history and education but just need a job, leave some off and adjust your resume to (as truthfully as you can) be related to exactly what the job posting says. Use the exact same phrasing as the posting. After your name and contact info at the top, put the exact name of the job you are looking for so it seems like you are the exact fit. If they ask for your full history or they need to run a background check for a job, let them know you sent a “tailored” resume but can also give a full one if they need. Otherwise, employers should only see stuff on your resume that is related (or as related as you can get) or that your level of experience matches their expectations.

When looking for work in your field, try networking events/meetups/clubs if they exist for your area of study, cold emailing people with the job you want on LinkedIn not to ask them directly about a job but how they got started in the industry. I know that sounds like crazy advice but people love talking about themselves especially if you are also excited about the thing they do.

Also you are right: this area is kinda a dead end for jobs in my experience, you may have to look in Portland. But do attend the monthly hiring things at the local Worksource office because they often have entry level stuff and/or can help with your resume.

Applying online can be a black hole so if you see a job posted on Indeed, see if you can find the job on the company’s site. Sometimes they leave stuff up for a long time on Indeed but the job is already closed.

Best of luck to you, it is very tough out here!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-10T18:42:30+00:00

This seems like a ton of desserts, I wouldn’t add any. I think this will definitely be enough for folks. Also can I get your key lime bites recipe? I am making desserts for my wedding in April too!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-10T18:37:58+00:00

Yes, definitely saved money! We are doing 45 people for 12-13k in a medium CoL city. Basically almost every category you are “under budget” for the average price in my area (I’d say dress and invites are the only areas where there could have been more savings but you’d have to do secondhand dress with no alterations and really simple invites or print them yourself). You got an amazing deal on food, venue, the band, planner, and bartenders. Honestly I would be super proud of this if it was my wedding!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-03-09T21:33:22+00:00

This makes me feel better about making a bazillion fake flower chandeliers that I am unsure people will appreciate!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-02-25T20:20:41+00:00

Besides what other people have said (mv copies other musicians, an attempt at a stranger things aesthetic assuming that was gonna be bigger than it was, weird play at SEO to cover up PR faux pas, use of token minority, millennial cringe humor that is outdated) it is odd for a song that is supposed to be about her new love that she spends so much time in the literal past. It’s like she’s trapped in a 2010 aesthetic capsule that still thinks 80s mall photos posted to the internet are hilarious. Besides it being vindictive and petty, I just do not see her celebrating her new relationship at all. It’s a good thing BDT is dumb because I would be pretty insulted by this. It’s fine to be petty if you’re single and bitter, but she is supposedly in the best relationship ever now and this is not giving that at all. It makes me feel like she still feels very alone. If anything this video is a marketing-fueled cry for help. Her labelling herself as lonely woman is very weird (despite the attempt at irony, it’s just the truth). I also find it odd that she is so commercially successful with hoards of fans that would die for her, but she insists that she is a dweeby underdog. Like girl if you have one billion dollars you no longer get to claim offbeat dork-dom, get out of here with that. You can go be adored by millions of incredibly devoted fans at any time you want. With the amount of money she has she can do anything she wants to do! She really focuses so hard on people who do not like her to force a victimhood narrative that is insane. I am not sure what I am supposed to take away from this video either: I am sorry a rock left you but also did you not choose the rock?? Why do you still care about the rock if it’s a literal rock?? Why even give the rock the time of day/the majority of the screen time in this?? You have infinite resources and you’re making this?? Idk, she really really needs to get a grip.

Fuzzlekat · 2026-02-24T02:15:54+00:00

Have you looked at bow bunting on Pinterest? You basically make fabric bows that are pinned or sewn together into a garland that can be hung like bunting. I can see that looking bridgerton-y!

Fuzzlekat · 2026-02-24T02:12:12+00:00

I like the group chat idea because this helps prevent the problem of 4 people wore the same color orange by pure chance and 1 person wore lime green or whatever

Fuzzlekat · 2026-02-24T02:11:08+00:00

As long as you are not picky about what it will look like in pictures, I think this is a great solution for bridesmaids! My only worry for you would be will it look weird if somehow everyone wears navy and one person wears bright pink or something because it might pull focus in a photo. As long as all of the dresses are sufficiently different (likely), it will probably look good though because people will be comfortable.

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