10 Months

Wedding Countdown

December 27, 2019 | I thought it would be fun to create a series of posts called Wedding Plans, that I can look back on and reminisce 🙂 I’m a budget beauty, kind of person and I enjoy gloating over having nice things that didn’t cost a lot. One realization that I arrived at very early was that weddings are EXPENSIVE. Even the smallest of traditional weddings can cost well over $5,000. That’s just money I am not willing to part with for a few hours of celebration (that is mostly for the guests!) So, what did we ultimately decide for our big day?Keep reading to learn more.

Backstory

This may be hard to believe, but I actually never envisioned myself having a wedding. Ever. Not to be confused with actual marriage. I have always dreamed of finding the right man for myself and building our life together, but all the big life events leading up to that; I didn’t give much thought to. A lot of women have said as a young girl, they dreamed of their wedding day and often had their mind made up on exactly what they want, but that wasn’t me at all. I will even admit, the delay of me thinking of/planning our actual wedding ceremony may have even added to our already lengthy engagement. My main focus was the commitment of engagement and the promise that we would be by each other’s side. Clearly, I didn’t think about what comes after engagement.

So here we are! Planning my wedding; three years and several failed attempts later.

The Failed Attempts at Planning

I’ve tried the traditional wedding planning route and I always hit a snag somewhere a long the way.

The Elopement Wedding – How exciting would it be to elope to an exciting place like Vegas or a tropical land like Hawaii?! There were several issues with that. For one, I wanted my special day to include the special people in our lives; no matter how many that may have been. Travel for our family and friends may not be in their budget. Ultimately, it wasn’t in ours either. (Plus, I have severe asthma and neither one of us can swim so Vegas or a tropical wedding would just be silly.)

The Traditional Wedding – Neither one of us are devoted to any one religion. A church wedding is not what we envisioned. Mr. Right is of Catholic roots and having a traditional Catholic wedding (and all that comes with it; like the lengthy marriage counseling) was NOT what either of us wanted. I did plan for the garden ceremony type with a reception, but after my price inquiry returned from the venue, I was set against it. Our guest list had been slimmed down from 80 to 50 and it still cost more than we felt comfortable paying for.

So how did we plan on going about a memorable day, with the people we love, without being broke? In steps the perfect plan…

A Civil Ceremony

with a wedding party to follow!

Now that my actual wedding type has been chosen, I can focus on a checklist of things that need to be done. I’ll talk all about it in my next Wedding Plans post.