Budget Sharing: Vent

**Disclaimer: I'm not singling out any one blogger, website, or budget-keeping bride! I've seen this happen over and over again and I just need to take a moment to share my feelings...

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Dear people who share wedding "budgets,"

The total cost of your wedding is the amount spent to put your wedding together. The total cost of your wedding is not:

1. The amount you spent personally. Mom's money is still money. Aunt Shelly's gift of flowers is still a wedding element that cost someone money. Imagine if someone tried to pass off a fully paid for reception as "free" because Dad picked up the tab!
2. The amount spent after perks or discounts have been applied. Congratulations on getting recognized in a national magazine or online publication! You should be proud of your beautiful wedding, but you should not try to make budget brides believe that they'll get huge discounts on planning, photography, or invitations. Those people gave you freebies and/ or discounts because they would receive free advertising and publicity.  
3.  The pre-tax/ pre-tip/ pre-service charge amount. These charges aren't fun, but they do exist and we must embrace them. Sure, I'd love to leave out those 8-30% add-ons too!
4.  The costs associated with the big ticket items alone. The details are easy to forget about, but $25-100 here and there adds up fast. Things like escort cards, personalized napkins, and flower girl baskets belong in the big budget as well.

Honestly, I don't care how much your wedding costs! It's a personal decision and only you can decide if your choices are good or bad. I believe a wedding budget isn't something to brag about- it's something to share in order to help other brides out with planning. It doesn't help anyone to see fake numbers!

Yours truly,
A bride that plans on counting every penny spent.


**Again, this isn't about any one person- it's about the new "trend" of budget weddings motivating quite a few brides to jump on the "wow, look how great my super-cheap wedding was" train... to the point where they might just try and show off a budget that is not so much grounded in reality.

Sale Alert

Rue La La is having their bridal sale. I bought my wedding dress and invitations through one of these sales... it's worth checking out.

Prioritizing

My "cut the coffee?" question of last week resulted in some darn good advice.

To those who said, "do what you want, it's your wedding!" YOU'RE RIGHT!

And to those who said, "give them what they want, it will make them happy!" YOU'RE RIGHT!


The truth is that they're the same thing. I should do what I want... and what I want is for my guests to be happy. I also want to save money where possible so that's where I need to step back and take a look at my priorities:

As you can see, "happy guests" at number three overrules "affordable budget" at number five. While I do want to save money where I can, I'm going to try to stick to cutting back in the "unique elements" and "pretty things" categories.

So, yes, we will have $150 (unless I can negotiate it down) worth of coffee at the wedding. I mean, if I really planned the whole day around exactly what I would want the wedding to be like, there wouldn't be any meat, alcohol, or coffee. The whole thing would start at sunrise and we would eat nothing but ice cream while we sat around and talked at the dance-free reception. I'm not kidding... a wedding geared towards my exact tastes wouldn't be so much of a crowd pleaser. A wedding geared towards what I want, now that'll be worth attending.

How do you prioritize your wedding wants? What would be at the base and top of your cake?

PS Please note that wanting to "maintain my sanity" overrides making the guests happy. I just might have to draw the line in some places!

Cut the Coffee?

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In case you were wondering- yes, I'm still working on that whole wedding thing. Don't worry, I haven't accomplished anything without blogging about it. Currently, I'm attempting to nail down the catering (as you might remember, the last attempt didn't work out). As of now, I've found a caterer with great recommendations and food... but without the best budget proposal. Before I commit to going with them or move on to another caterer, I'd like to look at all of my options including making some cuts to the current list.

The first thing that jumped out at me as a possible cut was the coffee. The $150 coffee. Yes, I'm having a brunch wedding and coffee does say, "breakfast," but we really won't be eating until noonish and it should be around 90 degrees at that time in July. Plus, I don't even drink the stuff and, unlike food, no one really needs it.

What do you think- can I cut out the coffee or do you think more than three people will miss it?