Wedding Wednesday: Budget and Reponsibilities

One of the big things that the FH and I had to do was make a budget. I always thought I'd get married pretty low budget $10-15K low. Because honestly, I find it hard to spend so much money on a single party where the only thing driving the expense is the word "wedding" (or more realistically "bride").

But I had a feeling that the FH with his huge guest list would be alot higher. I was pleasantly surprised when we sat down, that yes, he was higher, but not by as much as I expected.

We went of theknot.com's budget tool for the most part. But I knew that I would be able to cut some corners.

For instance my dress budget was $1200 (which I still thought was too high, but figured I could get that with alterations, and some accessories), but so far I have spent $537 on the dress and shoes ($50 of the shoes was credit card reward points). Alterations may cost me at most $200, a lace bolero $100. My accessories shouldn't end up more than $100 if that. So all in all I will spend completely on my outfit what the cheapest dresses cost in the bridal salons. It helps that I bought an evening gown instead of a "proper" wedding gown.

Then we divied up the responsibilities. It's a pro & a con that the FH wanted to be involved in wedding planning. It's a great help because I knew it wasn't up to me to do everything. It's a con because then he has a say in things, and sometimes he says "No" to things I like.

We decided the most important things for the wedding (after actually getting married) are the Food, Booze and Music.  The food is definitely up FH's alley. And being a vegetarian, it definitely made more sense for him to handle that. He's also big into his liquors and wanted to do the bar ourselves, so that too, is in his court. I love to dance. I want to dance the night away at my wedding so naturally I get music.

The next up for me was Photography. These other than our memories are what will last after the actual day so I really wanted a great photographer (in my budget).

Decorations and flowers also naturally fell to me, though there are things that I got FH's opinion on and things that I delegated to him. Like sinage. We can make them cheaper than we can buy them, and FH is great at wood working.

Some of my ideas have changed over time, but thankfully FH and I got on the same page about style and "theme" pretty quickly and I'm mostly running with my ideas now.