We Want This Wedding

We Want This Wedding

November 22nd, 2010 @ 9:13 am by Ms. Sloth
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A few months ago, when Mr. S and I realized that we didn’t know how we were going to pay for our wedding, we considered some alternatives: changing the venue to something cheaper, having a tiny wedding at City Hall, pushing the wedding back a year or so, or going into debt to pay for the wedding.

Well, we chose what is probably the most irresponsible option: We’re going to save as much money as possible, and go into debt for the rest.

I know, I know. But, honestly, the situation isn’t as dire as we expected it to be. A family member (an angel sent from heaven?) came through with a bit of dough unexpectedly. We’ll be able to save a fairly significant chunk of change before the wedding. And the amount of money we’ll have to charge, while not tiny, won’t break us. We can have it paid off in a couple of months, especially if we use some of the money we’re bound to get as a gift.

Still, it’s a far from ideal situation, and it was a hard decision to make. But there’s a good reason why we made it.

Because we want this wedding.

We have been planning this wedding for close to a year now, and we’ve become attached to it. I can’t speak for Mr. S on this, but I have honestly fallen in love with this wedding, and it’s still months and months away! I love the bright color scheme, I love our garden venue, I love our music, I love our eclectic menu (I also love that that sentence rhymes).

It’s a lot of money, yes, but we are spending very wisely. In our opinion, nothing is frivolous. It’s true that we could have had a cheaper wedding, but we’re spending money on what’s important to us. We’re having the wedding that we want to have: a kick-ass celebration with the people we love.

Because we want this wedding. And we’re going to have it. And it’s going to be freakin’ awesome.

Tags: budget, emotional, philadelphia |

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21 Responses to “We Want This Wedding”

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Member

sunnydebs (message) 784 posts, Busy bee

Can you cut some of your regular expenses to help save more up for the big day? Maybe brown bagging lunch (if you don’t already do that) or clipping coupons for groceries could help you save just a bit more?

11/22/10 @ 9:52 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Sloth (message) 3,184 posts, Sugar bee

@sunnydebs: Yes, we’re doing that. We’ve cut WAY down on our everyday expenses in order to save more money for the wedding.

11/22/10 @ 9:55 am (reply)

Member

sunnydebs (message) 784 posts, Busy bee

Good good good. I figured you may have done that already, but it’s amazing how you can cut back when you put your mind to it. Best wishes to you!

11/22/10 @ 9:56 am (reply)

Guest

So glad it all worked out!

11/22/10 @ 10:09 am (reply)

Member

Violet Violet (message) 985 posts, Busy bee

Good luck! We had to make a similar decision, and it’s not easy. I’m glad you guys are having YOUR wedding!

11/22/10 @ 10:10 am (reply)

Member

KaitlinHudson (message) 1,131 posts, Bumble bee

Good for you! I wish I would have been more like you and spent what I wanted to spend on because I loved it and not just settle for something else. But that’s okay! There’s always vow renewals

11/22/10 @ 10:26 am (reply)

Member

Aubergold (message) 1,406 posts, Bumble bee

I support you!! LOL. No matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise, weddings are a pivotal cultural event in our society and it’s OK to WANT them. If you have your head on straight, a little debt is not the end of the world.

11/22/10 @ 10:38 am (reply)

Guest

Mary

I am in your same situation, and we’re trying to figure out how to save money in our every day lives. The first thing to go is of course our social life - we try to go out less, to avoid eating out an such. The problem is, we don’t want to disappear from our friends lives for a year! Who will come to our wedding then? Our friends often go out socially, and our apartment is not big enough for us to organise dinners or parties at our place. Do you have this problem too? How do you deal with it?

11/22/10 @ 10:42 am (reply)

Member

BunnyBunz (message) 173 posts, Blushing bee

We are in the same situation. We are saving every penny we can but it just isn’t enough to cover everything. We have cut back on many things with the wedding as well as taken on many DIY projects to save money. There are just some things we don’t want to give up. I have this wedding pictured in my mind that over the past year I’ve become attached to and neither me nor my FH want to give that up.

11/22/10 @ 11:10 am (reply)

10.

Member

Rubies (message) 862 posts, Busy bee

Also a suggestion: If you have some books that you never read (especially text books you have lying around) list them on Amazon.com. I made like $300 selling books after college and most of them were books other students were throwing out. (One classmate gave me her 3 calculus text books and I made $100 off them). The nice thing about Amazon is they do not charge you to list books, the bad part is sometimes you make only like $1 a book.

I find selling stuff to be great on many levels, besides earning a little extra cash, you force yourself to get rid of “things” which are unneeded.

11/22/10 @ 11:36 am (reply)

11.

Member

plantains (message) 2,433 posts, Buzzing bee

I fully support your decision, now you can relax, enjoy your wedding planning and know that you made the right decision for you.

11/22/10 @ 12:00 pm (reply)

12.

Member

that girl (message) 71 posts, Worker bee

I can definitely understand the desire to have YOUR wedding because you’ve fallen in love with it. I hope you get everything you want.

I wanted to leave my comment at that but I think its important to remind everyone to stick to your budget, even it is a little above what you can afford, rather then getting caught up on getting everything you want. Debt is never fun if it gets out of control, speaking from years of experience - a recovering spend-aholic. My goal is to be debt free before my wedding in June so I’m continualy checking my wedding budget and making sure I’m not rationalizing overspending.

Good Luck!!!

11/22/10 @ 12:04 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss Panther (message) 1,046 posts, Bumble bee

I’m totally with you! People will tell you, “It’s not worth it, it’s just one day,” blah blah blah, but really, it’s NOT just one day. It’s memories that you’ll cherish and pictures that you’ll look at for the rest of your life. I mean, I haven’t had mine yet, obviously, so I guess I have no right to talk about how it’ll feel after the one day is over, but eh. Better to finish up with a little bit of manageable debt and no regrets, I say.

11/22/10 @ 12:46 pm (reply)

14.

Member

blondeeebuckeye (message) 1,083 posts, Bumble bee

I think it’s great that you guys have looked at your situation, looked at your option, and made a decision. I’m a little shocked at how many ‘bees think this is okay in your situation, but I see other posted slammed ALL THE TIME on the boards for their decision to go into debt over their wedding.

Anyway–back to YOUR post! I would like to echo some of what @that girl: said about not rationalizing overspending.

We will be paying our wedding off for about 2 months after the wedding (mostly because of the honeymoon), and it’s been a challenge at times NOT to add more debt to that amount (a videographer would be nice! we should get a suite the night of the wedding!). Sometimes it’s REALLY hard to say “no” to additional spending since we already are going into a little bit of debt, but I would encourage you to try to do so in order to not end up in more debt than you’re already planning for–we all know how wedding “extras” can quickly spiral out of control if a couple isn’t careful..

Good luck!

11/22/10 @ 12:49 pm (reply)

15.

Member

ehh5000 (message) 87 posts, Worker bee

You may have already thought about this, but your tax refunds will probably be coming at the perfect time for you (definitely before your wedding if you do them early). This could potentially be a big help! I know that my husband and I are greatly looking forward to getting our tax refund this year because we are going to use it to pay off the last of our student loans. Woot!

11/22/10 @ 1:36 pm (reply)

16.

Bee

Mrs. Trail Mix (message) 6,328 posts, Bee Keeper

Yay, so glad you’re happy with your decision and I’m happy too bc I’m excited for your wedding!

11/22/10 @ 3:25 pm (reply)

17.

Bee

Mrs. Octopus (message) 1,446 posts, Bumble bee

Totally off topic, but I can’t stop singing the title of this post to myself to the tune of the Jefferson Starship song “We Built This City.” WE WANT THIS WEDDING ON ROCK AND ROOOOLLLLLLL

11/22/10 @ 7:11 pm (reply)

18.

Bee

Miss Giraffe (message) 4,216 posts, Honey bee

Word up, Sloth! If you want this, then you totally deserve to have it!

Paying it off in a few months is not bad at all, and you should get to have want you want!

11/22/10 @ 9:30 pm (reply)

19.

Guest

Kendra Dee Photos

The chance for a wedding may be a once and a lifetime event. What we did, was sit down and prioritize what mattered the most to us for our special day. We took the top 5 things and created a budget around that. Almost everything else became a creative and/or DIY project. : }

And of course, we limited and are still limiting eating out, entertainment, etc..now we just invite everyone over our place.. it’s a lot cheaper ; }

Congratulations and good luck.. It’ll all work out great!

11/28/10 @ 2:22 pm (reply)

20.

Member

kendradee02 (message) 3 posts, Wannabee

I just got married last year and know exactly how you feel. When it’s all said and done.. as long as you fully understand what you’re getting into and the extent that your spending mayhave to change… it’s well worth it!
The chance for a wedding may be a once and a lifetime event. What we did, was sit down and prioritize what mattered the most to us for our special day. We took the top 5 things and created a budget around that. Almost everything else became a creative and/or DIY project. : }
And of course, we limited and are still limiting eating out, entertainment, etc..now we just invite everyone over our place.. it’s a lot cheaper ; }

Congratulations and good luck.. It’ll all work out great!

~Kendra
KendraDeePhotos@gmail.com
http://www.KendraDeePhotos.com

11/28/10 @ 2:23 pm (reply)

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