My wedding nightmare

I have nearly had my first nervous breakdown over my wedding ... and it's all my MOTHER'S fault. Other brides possibly have their mother-in-laws to deal with but not me! As the family have offered to cater and my parents insist they are paying for alcohol and have from the start I feel the burden of accomodating my mother's wishes/edicts as much as possible. However, I'm getting mightily sick of the emotional blackmail! The minute that I try and wrest control of my own wedding back from my mother's clutches I get "You don't want us to help?? Then we won't - do it all on your own!" or ... "you're paying for your wedding? Then pay for all of your wedding" when I dare ... I really can't deal with this anymore ... my fiance and I are about to say - "It's our wedding, please don't pay for anything because we will be covering all the costs including food and alcohol" so that I can keep my sanity. The only catch is that covering the additional cost of alcohol and food will stretch us to the limit on top of our mortgage. Not a good thing :( Things are made worse by the fact that my cousin and his girlfriend recently got engaged - about 3 weeks ago ... we got engaged more than a year ago ...but I just heard that they've ALREADY booked their reception venue!!! It's driving me NUTS. Ever since I got engaged it seems that other people have gotten engaged after us and gotten married already and we're still planning our wedding!!! :( I think I've almost lost my mind.

My First Blog!!

A year and a half after we got engaged - 8 months out from our tentative date and we still haven't found the all important reception venue!! Apparently it's next to impossible to find a half decent self-catering function venue in Brisbane!! Ok ... maybe I'm not happy with half decent - I would just like somewhere that is relatively nice inside (no peeling paint, no multi-coloured paint, no HOLES, no giant cobwebs), has a kitchen suitable for reheating pre-prepared food, an industrial dishwasher and that isn't licensed. We've been running into a few suitable community venues that are licensed - how do you get a liquor license for a COMMUNITY venue??? My favourite so far is Beenleigh Community Centre - it's beautiful inside and highly suitable apart from the slight problem of OVERPRICED alcohol due to the community centre being licensed. I don't think my parents want to pay $20 per bottle of wine ... there's not much choice either ... they've got Wolf Blass or Wolf Blass. Brown Brothers have some GREAT wines for under $20 that most people love. I will keep you posted on the progress of "The Great Reception Venue Hunt!!" ... in the meantime check out some of my "inspiration images".