You are worth two stamps

One to send the invitation to you, one so you can mail me back saying you are not coming to the wedding.

as I get further and further into the wedding process, the costs are staring to add up. Not that I am obsessing about them, as we like to say 'we have the money, and are only doing this once". At the same time we don't have an unlimited budget.

One of the key ways to get your budget expenditures down is to lower your head count. who you invite to your wedding is a very personal thing, and according to all the magazines, websites, in laws, outlaws, friends, and enemies...this list will change over time. However the list I got from my mom is not going down anytime soon.

There seems to be two ways to tackle this problem. First is to fight over each and every person that is on the guest list. Telling your parents "I don't care if they invited you to their daughters wedding, I don't know these people, they ain't coming" or setting ground rules like "unless you have talked to them in the last year (talked! not wrote on their facebook wall) they are not invited"...well that will bring a lot of tears.

The second way, which is what I am doing much to my fiances chagrin, is to invite everyone you want and hope that they say no. It is a strange thing to think "i like this person so much I want them to know I am getting married, to who, when, and where.....but I don't actually want them to come.....if they could stay at home but send a gift, well that would be ideal."

In my defense most of my invitees have to travel, have kids, and really only liked me when I was drunk....so out of the 80 I am inviting I am thinking that 8-16 wont show (they say it is 10%-20%).....my fiance thinks, if we invite them they will show up.....or in her words, we are going to need a bigger tent (and budget).

So please, if you read this (and no one does) and you get an invitation to my wedding...to show your love and support, please don't come. It would be an awesome gift.

Caterers and all the food stuff

Sorry I have been absent no one who is reading this, but I am kind of busy planning a wedding!
Things have progressed of course, the venue has been chosen although we are still waiting for the contract to arrive in the mail. I should say I have been patiently waiting, my fiance not so much. I actually had to call and put my nice voice on and say "it has not arr rived yet, maybe we gave you the wrong address?" like I don't know where I lived. "please send the contract to..uh...1..uh..2.....uh...3....way, the moon, USA".
The nice lady told me she put it in the mail. It had better be there today.

In other news we have started the process of choosing a caterer. I called a few places (our venue only works with certain caterers and gave us a list) and asked for quotes.

How come every estimate we get from www.theknot.com comes in about 100% less then the real world? We have already upped our budget....twice.

When thinking about your budget here a few things NOT to do:
1. figure out how much you are spending per hour on that day
2. Remember all the times you already bought drinks for someone on your guest list
3. devise ways to get corporate sponsorship
4. figure out new ways to cut costs, pot luck wedding? anyone?
5. drink heavily

Needless to say, when I saw the first proposal for the food budget my first thought was "the food better be easier to swallow then this proposal!"

However, what everyone tells me is that they remember two things from a wedding. The food and the music. So this is an expense we can't skimp on....although they are doing wonderful things with cat food these days....all organic!

venue shopping

So it looks like the first major decision to make (besides the size of the party, which is going to be many fights to come) is to start looking for venues. Apparently if you do not book the place you want 12 months before the date you will not get it.

I guess I never really thought about it before, where do I want to get married? What sort of room do i want to party in? In college, the answer was always either "the bar" or "someones basement" (Note: do not recommend either to fiance).

There are a wide variety of places out there, I do know what I don't like. I don't like wedding factories, where they are only in biz to have one wedding after another. I have been to these sort of places, and on one occasion while the priest was saying "I now pronounce you" the preacher at the ceremony next door beat him to it, and the ceremony I was at was overpowered by applause.

So those places are out (also cause during dinner we sneaked into the other wedding to go to that bar).

If it is outside, it seems like you must have a tent. I am all for a tent, but when my fiance asked what happens if it rains? and I answer we get wet....arms get crossed defiantly. A tent does seem rather expensive for what it is.

Someplace quaint maybe? That is what we are looking for, but quaint also equals small....it has to fit.

At this point we have gotten some recommendations on places, checked them out online and narrowed them down to our top six...we are looking at them this weekend. If none of them work, then I guess our top six will become a top 12 and we will look some more.

Wish us luck, I wonder if this is how Columbus felt when he first left in search of the new world? Maybe, but then again the Queen of Spain was financing him so it may have been easier.

Just got engaged!

Hello blogworld. I just got engaged to the love of my life last Friday. The weekend was filled with an enormous amount of well wishing and congratulations. Nothing I have ever posted on my facebook page has ever had so many comments (ranging from congrats to congratulations) or likes.
It was great.
everyone talks about the post engagement "bliss" which I have to admit has been wonderful, we have been calling each other future wife and future husband and I have to admit I like the way it sounds.
Of course now comes the harder part, everyone told us to give ourselves a week to enjoy our engagement but we have already started looking at venues (gotta get em quick). I know the stereotype is that men take a backseat in planning the wedding, but i am determined to buck the trend. I may not make all the decisions....this has nothing to due with my gender but rather my knowing that my fiance has much better taste then me......but I do intend to be involved in the planning part.
To that end, everyone has told me about www.theknot.com to help me out....so I went there, a wedding novice (besides drinking a them) to see what I can learn. Was not looking for anything specific, just the broad strokes. So I was happy when I saw the title of this article on the planning basics page "Just engaged: do these ten things first" http://wedding.theknot.com/getting-engaged/engaged.aspx
I was very surprised to see that the number one thing to do after getting engaged, the number one thing to do, is "send a funny e-card:tell everyone your getting hitched with a video starring you".
Just like my father did, and his father before him. It is actually a tradition that goes back to Moses.
If this is the extent of advice I will be getting online, I may have to go with it alone.

For guys who don't know what to do, the correct answer as to "just got engaged: what to do first" is call you mother, then the rest of your family.

Hope this helps.