[Los Feliz Slim]

I was married on a Sunday and it was great. People coming from out of town would've taken Friday off for the rehearsal dinner anyway, so no big deal to take Monday off instead.

My biggest piece of advice is to resist every temptation to get stressed about it. This is a party to celebrate being in love and starting a life together, letting annoyances get you or your fiance down would be a crime. One way my wife and I did this was to exclude family from planning. Of course, that means you have to pay for it yourself, but IMO it's well worth it. Also, if you say "Thanks but no thanks" to the offer of money, they'll probably give you money anyway and you'll keep control over your party.

Depending on where in SoCal you are we got our flowers from a place in Commerce that was super-cheap and really good. I think we spent like $1800 on flowers for a formal 130-person wedding, I know people who spent 4x as much on similar flowers.

Just remember: it's your party. How people dress, what the music is like, the food, etc etc etc, it's all up to you. Don't let other people tell you how your celebration is supposed to be.

Congratulations.