Weddingbee Blog

It’s been an emotional few days in wedding-planning land, folks.

It began with the startling realization that we’re not going to be able to afford our wedding.

Neither one of us is stupid, but we were shocked to realize that there is no way in hell we’re going to be able to afford this wedding we’ve planned. It’s not like we’ve planned an expensive wedding. We picked the cheapest caterer out of our options and the cheapest menu that the caterer offered. We chose the cheapest photographer. A friend of ours is DJ-ing for a steal. Another friend of ours is making cupcakes for the cost of supplies. We’re not hiring limos or having an ice sculpture or even having fresh-flower bouquets. We’re not having a videographer. My future sister-in-law is doing our hair for free.

I thought we were being so frugal, so smart. But there’s nothing else to cut, and we still won’t have enough money to pay for everything. In order to afford the wedding, we’ll need to save $1,000 a month every month from now until our wedding day, and there’s no way that will happen. We’ll be able to make a big dent in what we currently owe, but there’s no way that we can save every penny that we need. Our families are helping out a bit, but even with their generosity, we’re not going to make it.

Mr. S and I had a ten-hour car ride yesterday, so there was plenty of time to discuss our options.

• Take out a loan to pay for the balance of the wedding. This is a really unattractive option because we don’t want to start our married life in debt. The only pro to this option is that it’s the only way that will allow us to still have the exact wedding that we’ve planned.
• Elope at city hall and then use the money we’ve already saved for a kick-ass honeymoon. This sounds so stress free and amazing, but I think we’d hurt a lot of people if we didn’t include them in our wedding day. I know that my family and the boy’s would be devastated to find out that we eloped, and I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone like that. Also, we’ve already put down deposits on the caterer, venue, and photographer, and I don’t want to just flush that money down the crapper.
• Scale back our wedding to a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception only. If it was as simple as keeping our current location and caterer, this might be the ideal solution. But our venue has time restrictions: we have to be out by 10pm. So any party would have to start at around 6pm—smack in the middle of dinnertime. It’s bad form to have a party during dinner but not serve dinner. A cocktail party would be fine if it started at, say, 8pm, but then we’d have to find a whole new caterer and venue, and we’d probably lose a ton of money that we’ve already put down on deposits.
• Get married at Mr. S’s parents’ house. The boy’s parents own beautiful property on a lake in the rural Midwest, and we could get married there for free. (His brother and sister-in-law married there, and it was amazing.) Catering and other vendors will be much cheaper out there than in Philly, too. But if we get married out there, then most of our guests, especially many of my family members, won’t be able to attend.

So that’s it. I have the feeling that we’ll end up taking out a loan. And that sucks. But at least we won’t lose our deposits, and at least we won’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

Did you have any money stress while planning your wedding?