long engagement

A Laughable Amount

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Jar with coins inside

Since one of the pluses to a long engagement is the ability to save up for the wedding expenses over time, perhaps it’s time to broach the subject of exactly what our budget is. After all, budget it one of the big three to decide early on, along with when and where, and can have quite a bit to do with the latter.

I firmly believe that your wedding can be as lavish as you want; it doesn’t matter if it’s your first or your fifth. Whatever you want–as long as you can afford it–go for it.

And while Todd and I are a double-income-no-kids household, in possession of good jobs and able pay our bills every month a wedding budget wasn’t really something we’d planned on needing, oh, ever. Since I changed the rules, so to speak, on that topic, we had to confront the issue that if we wanted a wedding, we would need to pay for it.

Being the non-saver of our duo, I had to take a hard look at what I could realistically save up over the next 2 years and a bit. I figured $100 a month would be tight for me (for reasons I’ll get to in another post) but I could do it. That sounds like a lot, right?

Um, yeah. $2500. Double that because Todd is already adept at saving and I’m insisting we do this equally and you’ve got our starting wedding budget: $5000. (Okay, because we started saving before the engagement was official, it’s more in the $5500 range but let’s be cautious because, well, it’s me. And while there are plans for being able to increase that amount, it’s our bare-bones budget and the safe number to work from.)

I’ll sigh while you laugh.

But I know we can do it! It may not be easy as pie but I’m convinced it’ll all work out okay, we’ll just have to do a few things that every bride and groom have had to do since the beginning of time, even those with unlimited budgets:

  1. Prioritize
  2. Shop Smart
  3. Make Some Sacrifices

Plus, we’ve got a few things on our side:

  1. Small guest list–we’re talking a cap of 50 people, including us!
  2. I’m an inveterate crafter with my own in-home studio (own my own Gocco and everything) and Todd is quite handy with tools and such.
  3. We don’t want a big massive show-stopper of an event, just a good party to celebrate this next step in our lives together.

Next thing is to figure out how to allocate our meager funds to make sure we get not the perfect wedding, but a wedding that’s perfectly us!

Pretty Book and Flower Icon

 

How did you figure out how much your wedding budget would be?

Tortoise and Hare Plan Wedding

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning
Tortoise digitally "wearing" lipstick and a tiara and veil

original image via stock.xchng | photography by hortongrou | embellishment by Miss Road Trip


Alternate Title: Why Wait vs. What’s the Rush

Slow and steady wins the race, right? But is it so much a race to the finish line when gaining the altar is the prize?

The Hare Says: Might as well do it now!

After all, if you know you want to spend the rest of your life together, why bother waiting 6, 9 or 12 months to get started. Let’s get down to business!

This was me when I was younger, and I blame that impetuosity mostly on the impatience of youth and the eagerness to get on with life, already. Many times I’ve looked back and the cautions to slow down, to take our time, and wish I’d listened–but for the real fact that had I not made those quick choices then, I wouldn’t be who or where I am now.

And, really, who among us could honestly say we would have heard–much less listened to–anyone implying we didn’t know exactly what we were doing?

The Tortoise Says: Marriage isn’t going anywhere, we’ll get there when we get there.

The aforementioned youthful impatience would call that sentiment lack of conviction, claim lukewarm feelings, and then shrug and go find something shiny to play with.

Now that I find myself on the turtle’s path this go ’round, I’d like to think it’s a product of age and that haste could easily be the product of insecurity as much as impatience. Apparently, though, the rabbit’s path isn’t just for the young, as I was recently reminded of, and what got me thinking down this road.

This past fall a friend of ours became enamored of a woman he’d been acquainted with, through mutual friends of theirs, for the past 2 years when a group trip abroad threw them much together. By early December they had decided to wed the following June. Two weeks later it had been moved up to the 30th of that month.

The day before the wedding I received a hold-off call (as I had offered to do their wedding cake), as the wedding was now an engagement party and the wedding was being postponed. Not for lack of affection, he assured me (and I believe him), but to allow time to work out some fiddly bits.

And it’s the fiddly bits that the turtle path is so well suited to manage. In their case it’s a matter of making sure the Catholic Church recognizes the marriage (she is a widower but he is divorced with annulment not really a viable option) for her to feel most comfortable. For the Road Trips, the turtle path allows us to save up for the sort of celebration we want to throw without putting undue stress on ourselves in the process.

But I now see that taking our time doesn’t mean we don’t love each other just as much–maybe even more!–or that we’re not sure of the life we want to have together. In fact, it’s not stopping us from living that life.

Are you a tortoise or a hare?