Can We Afford That??

Planning for a wedding is probably the most interesting and unique experience of my life to date. Of course there is the obvious part, getting married to the love of my life. But then you have to figure out all of the details that go along with it and since we are not eloping, there are a lot of them. Where to get married? Who to invite? What are we going to wear? What are we going to eat? When do we want to have it? And the biggest driver for all the prior questions is - can we actually afford that?

Thankfully some resources have broken down the percentage of your total budget to tell you what should go where, but even still... holy cow! One of the break downs totals 105%. I don't think that's really going to help. Another issue is that some of it's just not really defined. For instance, there is no category of spending for centerpieces. I suppose you just steal from some other category, lump it in with the miscellaneous category (as well as every other thing you don't have a spot for), or you merge in with flowers category and call it a day. Or better yet, I can call on Ben to hijack at least two centerpieces per wedding until ours and we should have enough to go around. Brilliant!

I think I just had no idea how much of a balancing act all of this will turn out to be. What may not seem like a bad price for a DJ may end up being totally out of line with what you "should" have spent according to your total budget. I now have new found respect for those who have already planned a wedding a lived to tell about it.

What I am really trying to say is when you enter our hand made sand castle we built on the beach for the reception and see PB&J and bananas for dinner, but it is really well decorated, you'll know we clearly had no idea how much flowers would really cost. I can see the calculator and myself becoming very good friends over the coming months.