Wedding Budget: Modifications

This evening was a bit of a stressful one talking about budgeting woes, both with our household budget and our wedding budget.

B (aka not Mr. Communicator of the year) and I were apparently not on the same page about some things. When we set our wedding budget, he thought that what we decided on included the honeymoon. Now I have had to explain to him that typically the words “wedding budget” mean just the wedding itself, and the honeymoon would have a honeymoon budget.

Soooo I have to now reduce the budget I thought we were working with for the wedding by $3000-5000. Sort of crazy. I am actually quite frugal and a good budgeter, and I am really not that much of a diva, but at first I felt really sad, just disappointed, as most people would be. I didn’t feel like our budget was that high to begin with, though moderate. Fortunately we got a great deal on our venue.

I am focusing on this as a challenge and I think the main thing that will help is cutting down the guest list. I am using theknot’s wedding budgeter tool (and also the one at brides.com but that one doesn’t do as much of a breakdown and it is actually virtually the same numbers).

So I looked at the guest list. I had planned on 125 and had already written down all of the people we were planning to invite. I added them all up and it only comes out to 105! So I guess I don’t have to cut anybody after all, yay (I just can’t add any more 😉 ).

I found a GREAT photographer yesterday on the recommendation of a friend but he is about $1000 over my budget so that’s a no-go. Guess I will have to find someone else. One of the most frustrating things has been not getting enough information from our parents to help with planning. I have asked repeatedly for both sides to get me a list of people they want to invite that we could go through and consider. My mom got me hers but B’s mom has taken forever and after she gave us it and I thought we were done with that, she suddenly e-mailed us a whole other list yesterday. I’m sorry but those people won’t be coming now! 😉

The other thing is that I just have to ask my mom how much her and my dad are planning on contributing. Right after we got engaged, she gave an offer to help and tentatively offered a third of what our original budget was. At least this is what she hinted at. I just have to ask her again and find out what exact amount that really means or what specific things she wants to pay for so I can really PLAN. Hard to do with parents sometimes; B had a hard time discussing this with his parents today —> don’t want to go into that, but they will just be doing the rehearsal dinner.

It’s so hard to hold in my almost rage at his mom. She is the monster-in-law who was totally fine until right before we got engaged. Then she decided she needed to hang on to her precious son. When we told her we got engaged, she said to me, “Congratulations, I guess. You seem to make my son happy so I guess that’s good.” I almost feel like she just thinks we are being so extravagant with the wedding because she thinks B is a bad money-manager (he’s not and more importantly I am not and I manage us fine). This makes me mad because if you knew our budget, you would NOT think it extravagant at all so that makes no sense. I just wish he wouldn’t have asked her for money. I really think one shouldn’t ask, you should just take them up on their offer if they do (like my mom did). {Sorry, I have NO one else to rant about her to. All I do know is that I have to stop talking about her to B because it’s really stressing him out. I need to hold this all in sometimes, but I just get so passive-aggressive about someone treating me that way.}

As for the household budget, we just need to LISTEN TO ME basically! I am the voice of reason with money around here. 😉 We are okay month-to-month but we can’t put much at all into savings right now and we have to be careful not to spend too much on fun stuff because we are on only one income. [Major guilt problem with this for me.] I know that this is only temporary though. I am comforted thinking that most everyone has it a little rougher when they are first starting out together than they do years down the road when they have built up assets and savings.I really know what I’m doing; I just feel like such a nag doing it so I hold back sometimes lately, but I need to stop that.

We are sticking to a $70/week grocery budget and I am in charge of planning all that out. Might blog about that more on here. And then just having one night of take-out and one fun activity (like a drink out or a movie) per weekend. I cook the other nights. It’s hard because there are so many fun things we want to do around here and I am always wanting to get OUT of the apartment because I am stuck here so much! We can do that, it’s just things coming up with friends. I think B has a hard time just saying, “We can’t afford that” to people because it’s embarrassing or something but I always read that you can’t be afraid to say that. I just said that we should say, “Oh, sorry, we can’t because we are saving for the wedding.” I have been trying that lately and it gets a really understanding reaction out of people.

I am nervous because we have to go to San Diego again next weekend to meet my parents there (they are flying in from Denver for their anniversary), and that’s okay, we will just go out to dinner with them, but we won’t be able to go on this whale watching cruise with them (my mom is an idiot anyway because the whale-watching season down there is December-March but she is insisting on going in mid-October). Maybe they can come up here and see our place in addition to dinner down there or instead. I might suggest to do that instead, because we have to go to SD again the NEXT weekend to see B’s friend anyway. But I AM going to see my parents no matter what because I miss them. And I will make a budget for seeing his friend with a cheaper dinner and beach time/walks. It will be okay.

It will be okay! That’s the motto of the day. I rode through a lot of tears today (not really just about money, about other things that are more serious) without doing negative things and it’s so hard and feels terrible! But I still feel better than if I did that because at least I feel more comforted.

I just do feel calm about the money part because I (ME) feel in control of it and know we can stick to the budget because I am the budgeter! It’s a good feeling to feel in control.