Creating a Budget

Today I am going to make a few posts. The first one that will actually help you is creating a budget. This includes knowing your budget. Zane and I are not having family help us pay for our wedding. We are paying 100% by ourselves. This makes us more aware of how much our one day is going to cost. If you are having family help pay please take into consideration how much they will be sacrificing to help you. When its not your money you don't see the financial suffering due to a wedding. 


The first budget was $10,000. We looked around at local "wedding" venues and realized they are all crap! Newest budget is $7,500 with a goal of keeping it under $5,000.
We went to an amazing brewery. They have many locations and wonderful buildings and gardens. They even have a ballroom in downtown. They had great "deals" as you didn't pay a site fee you had to have anywhere from $7500+ depending on season/date of food and beverage purchases. This sounds great until your not allowed to try the food! If I am paying this much money and am paying all for food I would like to know what I am getting myself into. The second problem was one location didn't have enough room to do a aisle for the wedding and breakdown into reception. Instead our guest would be asked to go outside for a hour in November in most likely rain. If we wanted off season in the ballroom they didn't have a ac for the summer in August. Downtown old building in August heat sounds sticky, sweaty, gross and to much money.


We then went to a wedding house. We were very pleased with the location. It was ok. It was off a busy road. They kept saying they had parking attendants who would park guest car in the Uhaul lot next door. If we wanted a outdoor ceremony we could have it.....its by a busy street and all you could hear were cars, ambulances and people talking. They even had TWINKLE LIGHTS. Really twinkle lights are Christmas lights they don't take down. According to them this helps the ambiance. So, we sit down after our tour of basically a updated house without rooms and got told it would be $17,500 for the cheapest wedding they do. We both laughed hysterically. We were in SHOCK!!!!!!!! 


Our adventures at venues continued until we gave up and decided to stay engaged partners forever. Our wedding was not going to happen. With prices always over our budget or 100% of our budget we had lost any happiness that comes along with getting married. The day that is supposed to be about love, happiness and a commitment was becoming depressing, stressful and sad.  We were happy about giving up. These places make there money many times over for what? Clearanced Christmas lights???? Crappy food that you really don't want. A planner that really is just a sales person and probably will only be helpful the day you pay them. 


A few months later I decided to have our wedding on our property. Were lucky enough to have many acres so we have room for parking and a tent. Even if we had a small yard we could have a very intimate affair with the people we care about and be happier then spending to much money. There are also state parks with a refundable fee if you clean up. Point is sometimes having a outdoor event somewhere close is the way to save a lot of money.
With this decision came a smaller budget. Since we don't have a site fee now were going to put that money into landscaping our house which will be cherished for many years. I then decided to have a themed wedding of Alice in Wonderland.


So, for decor I am going to spend around $1000. This sounds like a lot, but please hear me out. Themed weddings are not cheap at all. Renting silverware, plates, cups, etc. is not cheap. I am working at going to garage sales, goodwill, thrift shop and buying 100s of pieces for our wedding. We will not have plastic forks or knives. We will have real items in our wedding. To have tea cups, vases, candy, birdcages, etc. etc. for decoration is not cheap either. I will have a list of how much I actually spend on everything. I am keeping records of everything I purchase and how much I spend. I also am asking all my friends on facebook if they have any tea items they are getting rid of. If its going to goodwill let me take it from them


For a wedding dress I don't have a budget  yet. I am currently selling my elliptical which is sold this Sunday, a previous wedding dress I found brand new with tags at goodwill for a little more then I spent and our sons clothes that were going to goodwill. Anything I sell from here on out will go towards my wedding dress. So in all honesty if I sell $1000 in stuff on craigslist that is how much I can spend on my dress. Ive also lost 50 pounds. So, I am going to have a garage sale and anything I sell will go in my evenelope. Open your eyes and look around and see stuff that you could no longer live with. You can do what you want with the money you make. I will probably only spend $300 and have the rest for my decoration, food or renting the big huge tent.


I will start a blog just for cost of my decorations. I am also working on getting items together for our engagement wedding shoot. It will be Alice in Wonderland theme of course. My goal is to keep it under $200 including our photographer fees. These will also be our save the date cards. I will reuse and keep all decor in the photograph to be placed in our wedding.