On Money

Let me get one thing out of the way right now, so that I dont have to delicately dance around it for the duration of writing here. We have enough money, but we dont have alot. We're part of the (rapidly dwindling) middle class. Groceries? A night out in the city? We're not struggling. A twenty thousand dollar party, however...Not only does it seem over the top to me (us) but it also seems a bit...wasteful. Im not trying to slam on anyone that spent alot of money on their wedding day, because its a really personal thing; but for us, not only is that not really manageable, its also not really desirable. We've set our budget hovering around the 10k mark. Which I think is ALOT but at the end of the day I suppose its not. The other issue (if it is one at all? it might be too early to tell) is that my family is enormous. My mother is one of 10, I am one of 23 grandchildren. We're looking at minimum 50 people, and thats going to upset someone. Hopefully we'll be able to inch that up to 75 without too much worry but there are nights when I think to myself that this will never get pulled off.

I've used every budget calculator out there, and Ive got a pretty good idea of how the breakdown goes. Since Im chained to an excel spreadsheet for most of the day at work, I have some 'skillz' I've put to use making 'master workbook' there's the budget, the guest list, a vendor comparison page, and possibly more. If it works out for me, maybe I'll write it into a template and put it up here for a download, that way it will be available to the masses.

On another note, I discovered a mantra I'm going to use:

"Its just a wedding, and if at the end of the day you are married, then you have done it right."

Why Isn't Wedding A Four Letter Word?

So I'm engaged. I'm pretty psyched about this, actually. Psyched to make a commitment in front of our family and friends, psyched to have E in my life forever. Psyched to be a wife and a partner to someone who makes me laugh when I'm crying, and psyched to have a husband and a partner thats not afraid to say what he's thinking. ever. I have a feeling its gonna be pretty cool from here on out.

Except one thing. The Wedding. The word strikes fear into the heart of mere mortals, and not for the reason that you think it might. Its the venue, its the music, its the fact that I cant process whats in my head to be whats going to happen. This is what happens when you spend more time picking wildflowers, climbing trees, and watching the mupets as a little girl rather than thinking about your wedding. In short: I'm totally unprepared!

Ballrooms? Bands? Cake (THAT NOONE WANTS TO EAT BECASUE FONDANT IS NASTY)??. I'm overwhelmed, and also utterly underwhelmed by the whole thing going on here. I look at 'handmade weddings' online and they look manufactured. I look at manufactured weddings online and I feel uncomfortable. Its weird, it feels wrong, and it doesnt fit. Its probably strange that I feel this way. Most women have been planning and revising this day for some time, and in some respects I have too. But I always figured it would happen magically, organically, and that it would be easy. "Yes I like this". "No, there will be no that". Oh boy. I was wrong.

I'm hoping to have something of a vintage wedding. But not in the respect that most people think. My parents (happily married for almost 35 years,without so much as a vow renewal) wore rented or borrowed wedding attire, got married at a church, had dinner in a rented hall, and at the end of a simple day, they went off on their way, back to their house to leave for their honeymoon the next day. There was no lighting specialist, there was no trip to Kleinfelds, just a woman in a borrowed dress committing herself to a guy in rented (powder blue!) tux. And it turned out fine!

There has to be a way for me to do this my way. And GD-it Im gonna find it. We're going to do this inexpensively, as low stress as possible, and I'm going to have fun. Really if by the age of 27 I havent learned how to throw a pretty decent party, I have bigger problems.