Weddingbee

Part One

We had a Catholic ceremony, the most basic version minus the communion. Lucky for us, the church waived their fee for us, saving us at least three hundred dollars.

The only amounts we paid were: $100.00 for the choir/music director (she gifted us with part of this, but she was doing the wedding on a seriously bad back injury- she deserved something!), $100.00 for the rehearsal coordinator (amazingly, I was switched over from a terrible one to one we adored, so the money was totally worth it), and $50.00 for the two altar servers, kids Mr. Kiwi asked specifically to be in our wedding. Total for the ceremony: $250.00.

Our photographer was an old friend of mine from girl scouts. Melody Rohaly and I had lost touch over the years, and finally reconnected later. Lucky for me, she only charged us $500.00 for all pictures in CD/DVD form, an album, and retouching. Since she also stayed at the hotel with us the night before, and came down for our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner (taking pictures the whole time). We gave her $650.00. I would gladly have paid more, not having many girl friends, it was such a joy to spend my “last night as a single woman” with a friend who had known me when I still ate paste. I look back on that last night with such fond memories, she was really such a blessing.

Our DJ was terrible. We paid too much for him, although we didn’t pay much!! Sadly, I didn’t really care about the music, which was such a selfish thing, but he did get all our “decided” songs right. He was $150.00. Word to the wise: don’t ever listen to a friend who tells you he has an awesome friend who could totally do the wedding for cheap. It was cheap, and sucked. We most likely could have done better with an ipod and our mac book. For my next wedding, we’re splurging on a DJ!! Yes, this was the dumbest thing possible.

Invitations were also something I semi-cared about, but we couldn’t afford pricey letterpress, or anything like that. We decided to go with Invitation Consultants, and found a perfect invitation to cover our needs!

In real life they weren’t as orange looking, actually closer to a brick color! I seriously loved our invitations so much because they were just perfect, and so nontraditional. The total for 125 invitations, and reply cards: $184.00. I have no regrets about this choice.

Marriage License: thanks to Mrs. Lemon, we went to the Beverly Hills Courthouse and picked it up. California is so expensive for licenses! $70.00.

For our cake topper, centerpiece vases and the crud that went inside it, it totalled $80.00. A big help was those coupons from Michaels, the ones that are like, 25% off a single item, or 40% off an entire purchase. I used these coupons religiously (make sure you have family and friends scouring their newspapers and magazines for this).

The amber votives from cudge were sold to someone, and I recouped most of the cost. Keep an eye out for selling your wedding “stuff” after it’s all said and done. Had any of those centerpiece vases ($1.99 ea. at Walmart, luckily they matched some my aunt already had, so we only needed a few) remained after the wedding, I would have sold THEM, too!!

This may be a veeeery sticky subject: the reception. Our total bill was: $7,910.91, for 145 people. We decided NOT to have an open bar, as from a poll amongst family and friends led to the discovery that not one person expected it or actually wanted it. That was a lucky break, since I’m sure it would have been a lot more. Our meal consisted of chicken piccata, roasted red potatoes, some kind of vegetable and rolls. The rolls were actually super good- since that’s basically the only thing I ate while I was there. I heard great things about the chicken, and I know for a fact the sauce was fantastic. The food was steaming hot when it arrived, and it couldn’t have been better.

The four tiered cake was included in our package, from Torrance Bakery. It was SO GOOD. I can’t wait to thaw out the top tier in a few months.

We were treated SO well at the Radisson, and our night-of suite was phenomenal. We were so lucky to be able to just take off upstairs when we needed a break.

Now for all the little goodies:

Our favors were a gift from my sister in law, and they came with the boxes. We did spend about $20.00 on personalized ribbon and stickers during Namemaker’s sales.

We managed to get a break on the travel for the honeymoon, we paid $420.00 on airfare and board, partially gifted from an uncle.

My work paid for our transportation to and from the church - it was a great limo and we had a fantastic time.
(I have to admit, seeing this picture of my Dad and I makes me tear up. He was the first person I had seen at the church, and I was so happy to see someone I loved so much. His pocket square didn’t really match, but he found it in his drawer that morning and thought it would be perfect. This is so something my dad would have done that I didn’t even give a crap. He wanted to feel good, and he did. That’s all that mattered to me)

Our thank you cards and programs were found on sale at walmart and paper and more. Together it was $45.00.

We were lucky to have been gifted a ton of things: the limo, the table signs, guest book, trips and just plain gift cards and cash that were either given to help with the cash flow or to just have. I want to thank everyone who took a part in our day, because this really turned out better than we could have hoped.

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