i understand the fairytale. i understand the want to showcase your baby girl committing her life to an awesome man and wanting everyone you have ever said hello to to see it. by OHEMGEE does it cost a fortune.
i had originally wanted to run away and get married on some island - just me and him. and our parents if they could find their way. but don't get my wrong. i did envision the big ball gown, the fuss of hair and makeup, flower overload and everyone having a good time. you know, a day all about me. :) but as you age, or at least for me, the glitz and the glammer of this day has kind of tarnished.
i am excited. i do want to marry the guy of my dreams. and i do want to throw the party of the year in celebration of our love. but lets face the facts that it's not just about the two of us saying i do and the ones we love celebrating in that.
it's finding the perfect venue, getting the perfect photographer, dj, caterer, making sure dietary protocols are met, enough alcohol is purchased and buying that one, only single one, red rose so your mom will be happy because she doesn't like your color scheme. it's working your butt off on diy projects to have your maids say "nah, try this instead" or your fiance disagreeing with you on cake flavor.
it is an overwhelming headache that i'm sure most people would pay someone to handle all of it. but i had a budget that i have blown and i don't even have a dress yet!
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!
ok - out of my system. whine fest over.
this post is about me whining, taking out my frustrations of what it takes to make a wedding day beautiful (so much stinkin work and money!) but i also wanted to warn girls how much to really expect things to cost.
like i said, in my head, i only wanted to spend about $10,000 for the whole thing. but i wasn't prepared for how much a venue, photography, food and alcohol would cost. and that's not even touching favors, wedding dress, flowers or any extras. i have already spent my budget. and i'm still spending trying to get it all.
here is just what i have already booked or spent so far.
be prepared for a nice venue to cost you some money. the venue i went with is one of the nicer venues in the area and anything extra over the conference room where the reception will be held cost extra. so the outdoor patio we'll be using for our ceremony was extra as well as a backroom we'll be using to get ready in.
i made the mistake on invitations of counting every person we'll be inviting (which you will need to know how many mouths you are feeding) and so we have invited 225 people. i ordered 250 invites from vista print. i didn't even consider that perhaps in one household will be 6 people and they would only need one invite. so, after i ordered them and received them, i counted how many households i had.. 108. ugh! i'll have over 100 extra invites to just toss.. but i may use the idea from pinterest and send them to celebs to get free signed photographs or something.. or i've even thought to send them out after i start getting some no's on my rsvp's.. but we'll see.. just keep in mind the more mouths to feed, the more catering will be.
my catering expense was a rough estimate the company sent me to show how much it would cost to feed 200 people and to make a budget for it. i'm hoping we'll have less than 200 people rsvp and so that number will hopefully decrease. but this is for a buffet style dinner. it'll include two veggies, chicken, pasta, salad, bread and tea. it also included desserts but since we will have the wedding cake, we are subbing those out for cheese trays for the happy hour.
photography was an issue for us. i had chosen a great person but wasn't satisfied with their packages and they weren't really too willing to personalize them for our needs. which is understandable. but i found another awesome photographer who gave me everything i wanted. for this price, she will include our engagement photos and all the rights to them, 10 hours of wedding day coverage and all the rights to them. some photographers offer credits towards photo albums or prints. matt and i had no interest in either. we would rather have the rights to print them off when we have the room to display them and create a book off of shutterfly if we ever have the desire.
flowers were another hurdle for me. i really wanted live ones. and i really wanted something different than roses. however, i did some research and found at a local florist for just a single bouquet of carnations would cost me $80. if i wanted roses, it would have been at least $120+ and i didn't want to spend that much of my budget on flowers. instead, i found a great deal on hobby lobby. premade bouquets of true touch roses come with 9 roses each and they were on sale for $20. i purchased one set per bridesmaid and two for myself that i plan to put together to make one large bouquet. they come wrapped in white ribbon that i plan to replace with black ribbon for my bridesmaids and white ribbon for my own. for the $225, i purchased all of our bouquets and all of the corsages and boutonnieres we would need. score!
finally, we are diy our centerpieces. i'm currently in the process of spray painting wine bottles in gold in different designs. we spray painted beer bottles black and i'll paint our wedding hashtags on those and we have another beer bottle we'll paint in gold glitter if it works. the 3 bottles will go in the center of each table on top of a black and white striped table runner and we'll have blocks of wood with table numbers on them. also, we'll have a few votive candles on the table as well. in the bottles we'll have white roses and some greenery. i wanted to keep it simple and classy. our table cloths will be black and our napkins white.
i'm currently shopping around for a wedding cake and a wedding dress. also, trying to confirm some things with a dj. we have decided to prebag candy as favors instead of having a candy buffet. mostly because my mom pointed out that my nieces and nephews may over stuff their bags with candy leaving little for the rest of the guests. so, i will go ahead and package those. it'll also save me some money since i won't be needing an extra table to hold the buffet or purchase the vases to put them in. some other small things still need purchased and ironed out as we go. i have decided to make a few of these purchases every month until the wedding so that it's not $10,000+ going out of my bank account at once.
i will post some later on as i'm doing the diy projects or finding other ways to cut costs on our big day. a destination wedding is sounding more and more better by the minute..
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