Pro BAM, Advice, and Under $15k Wedding Budget

Wow! Im sorry for all the problems you had you looked gorgeous tho. Congratulations

Wow it's unfortunate that you all had to deal with the unprofessional conduct of some people. On another note you looked beautiful! Your bridesmaids dresses are so pretty and romantic looking. Great pictures! Congratulations!

Oh and one last piece of advice! Reuse potted plants if you can! We wanted to thank one of our very special vendors who was recommended by a friend. She did all of our signs and programs and went above and beyond for us. She refused a tip in cash and when we met with her at her house we saw succulents everywhere and she told us how much she loved them. We made her this after the wedding from the succulents in the centerpieces.

Thank you for the advice!

Congrats! Sharing your budget is a huge help to people who haven't started theirs as to what to include and consider! Thanks for sharing!

Oh my gosh! You have all my sympathies! On the other hand you and your wedding party look gorgeous!

I am so sorry this happened to you. I am so mad for you! Despite it all you two look very happy and your fake first look is actually adorable!

Literally sounds like the doc from hell... I hope you get your money back!

Girl. You are Everything! Your day was a complete fucking shit show and I want to beat his ass like it was my wedding LOL. I am absolutely sure it will all work out for you in the end.

Anyone who does not take heed to this advice has to be losing it. Thanks so much for this transparency and congrats girl!!!!

@FutureMrsJ Aww love you! I will def keep everyone updated. I just want to help everyone have the best possible wedding. I'm currently helping my twin plan her wedding. Good luck with your wedding planning <3

Is it any consolation that you look gorgeous???

@Danilaughs Thanks! I gained about 20 lbs during wedding planning so I didn't feel my best but I really appreciate it!

OP, I am SO sorry your wedding wasn't as wonderful as you were hoping. It makes me so angry reading about your "coordinator" and how the venue is refusing a refund! How unprofessional!

I actually just let go of our original photographer because I was afraid of her inexperience (and lack of time management, but I'll save that for my BAM). Reading your story definitely helps make me feel like I made the right decision.

I'm heartbroken for you on all accounts that were less than ideal; the pictures you posted were beautiful! You are a stunning bride!

I appreciate your honesty and feedback; I definitely think it's eye opening considering I took the same path as you by trying to save money. Praying your lawyer will help you get a full refund as you deserve!

Congratulations on your marriage! You're beautiful!

How heartbreaking! I am so sorry this happened to you and your family! You looked so beautiful, I loved your hairstyle!

I hope you guys have a super bomb vow renewal! You and your husband look so wonderful together. Happy married life !

I'm SO sorry that all happened, oMG. You look amazing and you're a beautiful couple!

I'm stunned and saddened for you. I'm glad that you're working with an attorney. That mofo needs both a firing and a beating. Both should hurt the whole time.

However, you were a beautiful bride, and you both look incredibly happy. Congratulations!

You look beautiful! I am so sorry that your wedding day had many bad memories. I pray that you have an amazing renewal in a few years!

I read the entire post while i'm still in the very early planning stages with my husband and I can honestly say, i'm so so sorry. I know you're hearing that a lot, and I can't say i've been through something that bad, but maybe I can offer some empathy to your situation with my story.

In early January I decided to trade in my perfect iPhone 6 to Verizon to get a brand new Galaxy Note 8. My husband has the Note 8 and it's absolutely amazing. It has a pen for drawing and when you hover over words in other languages it will translate it for you! (Which really comes in handy for me because my husband is Puerto Rican and I only speak English)

Anyways, I have had Verizon for 8 years now and that entire time i've had iPhone so making the switch to Android was obviously going to be different but I was ready. My iPhone was in perfect condition. I had it for about 3 years but I always had a case, screen protector and even the plastic on the back from the first day I got it. So I knew the trade in value was high. I ended up getting about $200 for it towards my new phone which I was so excited about. The guy I worked with was a really nice younger guy really willing to help me out but he didn't have the phone in stock in that store so we had to pick it up at another Verizon down the road. No problem. Got to that Verizon and another nice young guy helped us.

Important: I use my phone for everything. Picture taking, videos, Instagram, applying for jobs, calling, texting, looking at wedding venues, EVERYTHING. I also had 128gb of memory on my phone so I took A LOT of screenshots and pictures, about 20,000.

Back to the story. Went to the other Verizon, got everything finalized, picked a case for my phone and he started transferring all of my data from my iPhone to my Android. I didn't know they could do it this way but he put a wire between the 2 phones and literally sent it through the wire. As I said before I had 20,000 photos so he told me my transfer could take a while and I could walk around the mall for now.

So we gladly took him up on thay offer and came back about 2 hours later. When we got back the new phone was all set, and he just wanted to make sure the new phone was equipped with all of my data before he wiped the old one clean and sent it back to the warehouse as a trade in. Now as I said before, i've never had an Android before, so I had no idea about the settings aside from playing with my husbands phone a few times. On iPhone everything is simple. Go to pictures, it tells you how many pictures you have. Android is not simple. If you want to know how many pictures you have exactly, not even the workers know how to find it. So it said "22gb" of photos. I didn't know what that meant in terms of how many photos so I told the worker that. He assured me that seemed like the right amout for how many photos I had. So I said ok hesitantly. He erased the old phones data and I was excited to have a new toy to play with!

The next day I was going through my settings changing my font sizes and my background picture and seeing what this new phone could do. Upon checking out some things I realized almost all of my text messages were gone. Mind you, I had the iPhone 6 for 3 years, but everytime I had a phone before that it was all of the same data being transferred onto my new phones when I upgraded. So basically I had texts back from 2013ish on my phone I was saving from when my friend went to the Marines and said bye to me, my families texts, texts from my best friend of 8 years where I never ever deleted our text thread since the day I met him....A LOT of memories...all gone.

So that kind of punched me in the gut until it got worse. I found deep in my settings that it CAN give you an exact number of pictures...13,000. I had 20,000 on my iPhone and only 13,000 transferred over before he deleted the old phones memory.

In 2011 I graduated high school, in 2013 I got my first apartment, in 2016 I went to London and it was my first time ever on a plane before, in 2017 I went to Germany and I eloped with my husband. A lot happened that I had saved in that phone. A lot is an understatement.

And so I went to my pictures to check on the damage....every picture was out of order. It said I got married in 2014 when I met my husband in 2017. On top of all of the memories I lost, the brand new Android I got was malfunctioning and turning black and crashing the 3rd day I had it.

So I obviously went back to Verizon and after spending a good 5 hours there, they said they would give me a new phone because of the malfuncrioning issue, but the photo transfer is not something they can do anything about because I couldn't prove that I had 20,000 photos to begin with. Are you kidding? 20,000 is something even the workers remember seeing because its such an absurd amount.

After that I left crying. Actually I cried for about 2 weeks until I realized it wasnt over. I decided to call and complain to see if they would atleast offer me some compensation for my lost photos (I did not have them backed up because I don't own a laptop, and iCloud deleted my photos once before/doesnt have enough space to hold 20,000 photos unless you pay extra so my photos are gone forever)

After speaking to a very polite customer service man on the phone, he placed me on hold to talk to a supervisor about my situation. When he came back it was like he was a different person. He told me the most they could offer me was $25 because it was my fault for not backing up my photos. I literally said "are you joking?" Mind you, my only jobs in 8 years have been retail and food service. I was a Supervisor and a store manager during that time and I NEVER leave a bad tip or rush people who are working because I HATE that. But this guy really got on my nerves. $25? That's not even enough to fill up my gas tank? Thats not even enough for a dinner for my husband and I at a decent restaurant? Was he joking? Nope. He continued to tell me that it was my fault for switching from iPhone to Android, it was my fault for not putting my photos on iCloud or having a laptop and it isnt their job to compensate for things like this. I was LIVID.

But I do not give up. After that I called at least 5 more times and explored all of my options. The manager I spoke to cut me off in the middle of explaining my situation to say "I don't mean to cut you off but is there anything I can actually help you with because I keep telling you I can't do anything but you're not getting it and I don't want to waste YOUR time" I laughed. Needless to say, I am taking them to court. They wouldn't even let me trade back this phone for an old iPhone 6 which is what I had before. They wanted me to trade this back and pay for my iPhone all over again. Who would rebuy something they traded in and owned before? Especially after this?

To put it in a little more perspective, my family has been with Verizon for 8 straight years. My iPhone was 100% paid off and in perfect condition when traded in, I was always polite, I was lied to about how much the new phone would cost monthly (for 2 Note 8's I am paying over $215 a month on a FAMILY PLAN not including the $50 phone cases or screen protectors or anything) and the night before I called to ask for compensation my mom called to complain that the bill was too high and they knocked off $130 from the bill just for her calling to complain. But offered me $25.

Anyway this is the longest post of all time but I wanted to share it with you because although I don't know exactly how you're feeling because weddings are obviously much more important and well planned out than getting a new phone, I can really understand how you feel and how frustrating it is to anticipate this amazing awesome thing, only to have it blow up in your face and instead of being able to get over it, you now have to deal with the stress of going to court. I really do feel your pain. Everytime I look at this phone I want to cry and I pray my court case goes my way but i'm so scared it wont and i'll just end up crying again.

I truly wish you the best figuring this out. I think you looked beautiful in the pictures and hopefully you can get enough money to plan a dream honeymoon as well!

Your pics are so cute! Thank you for sharing all this detailed advice.