Aimee, I don't really have any advice for you, just an enlightening example:

My best friend's family is rich. Her wedding cost like 5 times what ours will. I was a bridesmaid. Her father bought all the bridesmaids our outfits (including shoes) and paid for professional gays to do our hair and makeup. We paid our airfare and hotel fee, but because of that my friend wouldn't let us buy her anything more expensive than, like, a $16 table setting. She did it right, yo.

I'm not having a wedding party or any showers, and we're shunning gifts altogether, because we're past the age when we are just starting out our lives and need stuff to fill our house. I might do a manicure-pedicure day the day before for the ladies, but I'm gonna pay for the whole thing, even though I am decidedly not wealthy. The reason: The only thing we care about is having the people we love around us, and happy. We want to make that possibility as likely as we can.

Anyway. Like I said, no real advice. But in your shoes I think I would skip the spa and do everything else.

Also, I'm feeling very get offa my lawn with the kids thinking the Pete&Pete era was the golden age of Nickelodeon.

Yeah, but David and I are both older than you... mwhahahaha! Can't kick us offa the lawn on accounta age!

Live action, Rio. It was big with the Sassy reading crowd.

I read Sassy! I'm gonna have to Netflix that shit.

Can't kick us offa the lawn on accounta age!

I can!

Oh, wait, that's not necessarily a good thing is it?

I can!

Just me. David's still the fogeiest!

What day is it Rio? Coming soon right?

Having been a bridesmaid and a bride, I think saying you can't afford it is fine. You can't, and any reasonable person would understand. If you said you couldn't afford it and then were being a bitca about the people who did go, that's bad. Being a bridesmaid can get spensive, yo. At the same time a bride with a lot on her mind, plus a little bit of nerves can forget what's going on with other people. Nothing wrong with a gentle reminder.

I paid for my attendants' dresses but mostly because they couldn't be arsed to pick a style, so I got them all short black sheaths. From Target.

I read Sassy, but I think I wasn't watching Nickelodeon by then. I think that was the era of basketball and debate for me, so no time for tv.

What day is it Rio? Coming soon right?

August 14! Still so much to do.

I hated the planning part. Anything I could give to other people, I did. Helps that my uncle's a florist and we were doing it in Mr. H's parents' front yard. We even made people bring their own chairs.

I'm enjoying the planning, actually, because it's going to be a very small and simple wedding. But, working 60 hours a week as I do, I don't have time to really plan, which is what causes me the agita.