Wedding Adjacent

So I've noticed a phenomenon recently in my wedding planning journey.  In the process of unplanning the wedding, Wes and I have been spending the wedding budget on things with long-term usefulness.

Exhibit A: The Mixer of My Dreams

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We bought this stand mixer.  The mixer I've been lusting after.  And we got a pretty decent deal.  Why did we buy this?  Well, I've mostly written about Project Wedding Dress so far however, there is also a Project Wedding Cake on the horizon as well.  So far Wes has made a pound cake.  I'll be testing out the dough hook soon and bake some bread.

Exhibit B:  A Fitting Assistant

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Continuing on with Project Wedding Dress requires more hands and agility than I have.  Fitting on myself is just hard and while Wes is a real help, I just wish I had a little more control over the whole process.  Hence, the dress form.  Beyond Project Wedding Dress, I also plan to make a lot more of my own clothes.  I'm pretty much over ready to wear clothes that just don't fit right.  Project Wedding Dress has really given me a lot of confidence in my construction abilities.

Both of these are fairly major purchases.  (Of course, anything over fifty bucks is a major purchase to me.)  However, they both will have usefulness that will outlive the wedding. 

Yay! for longevity.

Un-Planning a Wedding

Remember our tiny budget?

That budget was a major stressor for a while.  I couldn't figure out how to make it work and still feel like a event.  I was struggling with the casualness of it all.  I wasn't immediately sure why that was because as I've mentioned before we are actually casual people.

Part of the reason might be that most wedding blogs, sites, resources, whatever are so opposite of our goals and definitely our budget.  It was a little disheartening.

I've mellowed since then.

First, I let the wedding planning go for a little while.  Wes and I have a lot going on here these days and he's going to be out of the frame for a while as he gets ready for his qualifiers.  There's a family reunion coming up and I have a project to complete for that.  The Little Bit's birthday is next month . . . and life goes on.

Second, I have learned to find inspiration elsewhere.  As time went by and I focused less time and energy on wedding planning, I started finding inexpensive options elsewhere that could work for our wedding.  Things that won't cost a fortune and will still feel special.  I plan to feature some of those ideas here in the upcoming weeks.

I call it un-planning and it is really kind of awesome.

Budget Planning: When It's Cheaper to Pay Shipping

I got busy spending some moolah, some scrilla, some samolians today, 

I had two glorious weekend days off in a row and rather than spend them cooped up in a car, I let my fingers do the walking and ordered this.

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The Paper-Source Swatchbook. 

Now, I am not what you would call a big internet shopper and there is a Paper Source in Atlanta which is only about an hour or so away from our digs.  With our two glorious days of freedom we could have easily made the drive.  Shipping costs nearly as much as the product itself.   So why order it online?

In this case, my dears, I find seven bucks worth of shipping a small price to pay.  Seven dollars is less than the gas money such a trip would use up.  Espcecially since it's unlikely I would make up my mind about invitation colors and whatnot after just one trip.  Seven dollars is also a reasonable price to pay for a satisfyingly lazy weekend.  No road trip.  No traffic.  And I love myself a nice swatchbook.  I find it a cost-effective solution to an internet shopping problem

What's not to like?

Now of course, I'll be counting the days until my pretty gets here.  And yes. . . this means we are finally getting around to starting invitation production!

Planning to Begin to Plan: Part the Second

Without further ado . . . our wedding budget.

Apparel: 200.00
This includes the dress.  Yes, the WEDDING DRESS, and whatever Wes wants to wear.

Flowers: 100.00

Stationary: 100.00
This includes postage as well.

Miscellaneous: 100.00
On the budget sheet we downloaded, miscellaneous actually includes the marriage license.  Why is that miscellaneous?  It's kind of necesssary.

Ceremony: 150.00
This includes officiant fee and tips as well as altar decorations and guestbook.

Reception: 400.00
Including food, decorations, entertainment, etc.

There you have our essentials.

What's missing?  Well, we completely did away with categories for photography (GASP!), wedding rings, honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, and gifts and favors.

Our challenge now is to prove that it can be done and that it can be done well.

Planning to Begin to Plan: Part the First

. . . .  or How to Create a Wedding Budget.

Wes and I made the decision to have a wedding and committed ourselves to not spending more than $2000.00.  We felt pretty good about that decision until we did a little more number crunching.

That's when we got real.  Really real . . . and slashed the budget to a little under $1,200.00.

That's how much we can realistically save and afford to spend within the time frame leading up to the wedding.   Part of that is because Wes is a full time graduate student right now and I work part time as a retail slave while trying to get into a program of my own.  Wes has a mortgage and child support; I have student loans, some minor credit card debt, and a busted Macbook in need of repair.  We are also saving for things we would like to have in the not too distant future.  All of those financial responsibilities are prioritized over saving for the wedding.

We could spend more on the wedding, but why?

I liken this to the decision I had to make in Lane Bryant the other day--because shopping analogies always make everything better.  Bras there, and my plus-sized busty girls will tell you, are almost always buy one, get one half off.  I bought one bra because I only needed one and had to seriously check myself not to get two just to get fifty percent off.  Because . . . I only needed one and more would have just been more.  More product and more money than was necessary.

More for our wedding would just be more.

First, pick out the things that are most important to you.  Then identify the things that would just be more for the sake of more.  The getting married part is number one for us.  That means we want a beautiful, meaningful ceremony with the people we love and who genuinely love us in attendance.  A big wedding and reception with all the really gorgeous and exciting bells and whistles would just be more.    

We approached each budget category with the same kind of perspective and rather ruthlessly slashed it down.  What we absolutely loved and needed would stay . . . and then only if it could be done in a financially responsible way.  The rest would have to go.

The wedding is one day and we want to have that day, just not at the expense of the rest of our lives.

Flowers Anytime?

What's a girl to do when she dreams of this?

But she doesn't have much of this?

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If you're me you relate this unfortunate incident to all such unfortunate incidents in your genteely impoverished childhood that seems Dickensian in retrospect and boo-hoo a little bit.
Then you get down to business.  Plotting business.

Say hello to my current obsessions .  . .

Ranunculus

Green Hydrangea

Pink Anemones

Cafe au Lait Dahlias (drroooool)

Sigh.  Beautiful.  Dusky.  Vintagey.  Preeeeeeeeettttttttyyyyyy.  What must I do to make you mine?

I can't afford to purchase you in bloom but maybe . . . I could grow you.  And keep you with me forever and ever and ever.  Now we're talking . . . but how. 

We currently live in a jail cell/cave that has the very odd combination of huge windows and very little natural light.  Or artificial light for that matter.

Wes suggested that we create a set up like this . . .

utilizing compact fluorescent bulbs.

I like this idea for a two reasons.  One, I could grow the flowers I want for the wedding sure. And two, I could grow the flowers I want like all the time.  Not to mention tomatoes.  Don't get me started on the impossibility of finding decent tomatoes at certain times of the year.

This article totally makes me thing it's possible and I have to say I am really hyped about the possibility of having tulips whenever I want them.

It must be said though.  YouTube and eHow regularly save my bacon and/or make a fool out of me.  We shall see.

*Just for kicks. . . google "growing flowers indoors" and count the number of marijuana references.  FUN!

Wedding Bell Blues

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John Selden said, "Marriage is a desperate thing." 

Truer words.  We haven't even gotten there yet and I'm already feeling the heat.

I always knew marriage would be an endeavor fraught with all kinds of peril for me.  There's this vast disconnect, you see, between my need for personal freedom and the weight of societal expectations.  In the day to day you don't feel the pressure so much.  After all, no one is policing your household or watching you as you negotiate the chores or argue about the dishes.  This wedding thing though. . . it invites it all in.

I was trying to explain this to Wes last night--badly--because I haven't fully comprehended where all my angst is coming from myself.  Ultimately, I decided, the wedding is just one area of life for which I feel ill-prepared.

I am ill-prepared for the display of womanliness and femininity and domesticity that weddings kind of demand.  I am ill-prepared for the pressure to make it beautiful, to be beautiful, to feel beautiful.  I am not and never have been that kind of girl which brings it down to the core of my discontent.

I was not at all prepared for the sheer force of my desire to be that kind of girl.  I am shocked and dismayed and off-balance by how much I just want it.  It's like this wedding is my one chance to binge on white, lacy, frilly things without ridicule or censure and something in me wants to just go for it.

I have no idea where this is coming from.  The wedding I want is less traditional and formal than anything you usually see in Brides or on The Knot.  The wedding blogs I hit up. . .  okay yes, daily . . . are not centered around those kinds of weddings.  They don't exert pressure.  They are sensible and sane and approach alternatives for the budget conscious in positive ways.

And yet . . .  last night, I was looking at our wedding budget and our rest-of-our-life-budget and wondering where I could squeeze an extra three thousand dollars from to pay for wedding photography that costs more than twice our budget for the whole shebang.  I found myself looking at low budget Vera Wang dresses on David's Bridal and wondering if it wouldn't just be worth it to spend the damn money.  I was considering wedding favors-which I personally hate. 

All the plotting gave me a flipping headache.  Then it just made me kind of sad.

How do you hold on to your sanity?

Line Drawn

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The guest list is quickly becoming the bane of our existence.  

 

Our various parental units are dragging their feet on contributing addresses and whatnot.  (Mama's all, "Look little girl, I only have one good one!"*  Har har.  She's all jokes all the time.)  I would like to have it set and solid as we would like to get an email Save the Date out to family and friends as soon as possible.  We also need to get invitations printed and assembled.

 

We aren't getting married until September but since most of our families live out of state it is a destination wedding for them.  We want them to have plenty of planning time if they would like to be here.  (And yep, we do actually want them to come)  Also-it's hard to move on with the rest of the planning when we aren't sure how much of anything we will need.  We are expecting, through our very scientific and mathematical reckoning a fifty percent or lower attendance rate.  We factored in things like geographical distance, perceived levels of familial responsibility, willingness to sacrifice vacation time, and burning desire to see rural Georgia up close and personal.  Basically, we are inviting 100 because we can't not invite everyone, expecting 50, and would be thrilled down to the ground with 25.

We went to a bridal expo and my hopes of foisting off some of the work to you know, actual vendors, were pretty much dashed.  It's pretty much going to be a DIT production down the line, especially if we are going to be able to afford any sort of catering.  Numbers will really determine whether peeps get a meal or a snack.  Because catering, my dears, is where I'm drawing the line.

We won't be cooking on our wedding day. We can bake, or "bake," or "make" the cake since that can be done beforehand and tasty-but-not-fancy shouldn't cost hundreds.  We might even make some cold sides because again, that can be done before.  As for cooking anything on the day of? I just don't wanna.

Which brings us back to numbers and timing.  If we are going to be making decorations, programs, cakes and planning activities and whatnot, we need to know how much and how many.   Or even if we have to make them.  If only ten people plan to attend we can get downright lavish. . . . lobsters for everyone!  Now don't get me wrong.  If having everyone I love there meant having to weave my own cloth and grow our own food and hunt our own game than that's what we would gladly do because that is the dream. 

If not though . . . I will outsource that #$@& in a minute!

*My mother had a major stroke a couple of years ago and is still regaining use of her left leg.  Upon occasion she finds this enormously humorous and incredibly useful.  She's awesome like that.

Getting it Up

Wedding planning is like sex when you're too sleepy, or too full, or only kind of into it, or headachy, or thinking about something else.

It can be done. . . . but probably not well.

That is just where Wes and I have been with this here shindig.

We have a vision.  (Vision is both more and less twee than "theme" so it's perfect).  We want to have a casual, fun, kind of lazy, happy picnic in the park wedding.  I like to call it our "Farewell Summer" party with an overlying theme of "Shit We Like".  (That last sentence is like I was momentarily possessed by Martha Stewart and I'm talking about my annual Hampton's party where everyone wears white and drinks wine and is bourgeois and then . . . the real me re-establishes dominance at the very end.)

We know when it's going down.  We're doing the damn thing on September 1st which is kind of like the prelude to actual fall.

We know how much we want to spend.  As close to $1000.00 as possible.  Why no . . . . no we don't smoke crack.

The question is. . . can it be done?  And can it be done well?

Until recently the answer was. . .  maybe.

Even though the stage is pretty much set, the course plotted, we have been dragging our feet on actual execution, aka, parting with cold hard cash.

Sure we dipped our toes in on smaller details.  Ordering fabric swatches and designing our invitations--not that we have actually made them yet.

The next step will be getting some quotes to see how much, if any, of the work can be outsourced.  I have been slacking on that, mostly because I'm a little worried about reactions to the whole, "So, how much do you have to spend?" question.  I'm anticipating shock. . .  or incredulous laughter. . . or maybe they might actually faint.

That could be kind of cool.

Wedding Realities-Floral Edition

I fantasize about this

But the budget ain't having it.

We are at that point in our wedding planning process when we look at what we have to work with and what is available for what prices. . .  and just kind of despair.  So much so that I broke one of my rules and ranted--for a full fifteen minutes to an unsuspecting co-worker about the ridiculous pricing of all things wedding related.

Yep. . . that says 100.00 dollars people!

She wasn't exactly enthralled but surely somebody out there feels where I'm coming from!

Are there less expensive options to real flowers? Yes of course.

Ribbon bouquets . .. Brooch bouquets. . .

Both awesome.  Then there's this one. . . made from fabric and completely gorgeous.

  

So why not go with something like this?

Because it's a lot of damn work, lol.  I say that lightly but seriously, I am well aware that there are very beautiful, very crafty ways around having real flowers.  When if comes down to it, I may have to adopt one of those ways to make a floral sort of thing happen at this here wedding.  

The dirty, dirty truth is that this is one of those times where I would just rather spend the money.  There is already an insane amount of DIT going into this shindig.  Is it sensible or sane to add more?

All that can be said today is thank God it's not going down until September!