Disappointment

Also, I've noticed lately that whenever I talk about tentative wedding plans with friends, even just one or two friends, it's like I've jinxed myself and guaranteed that I'm not getting anything I really want for myself. 

Mister and I were really close to signing a contract with our venue vendor.  It was a really wonderful venue, a beautiful Spanish/Mediterranean-style venue with Michelin-star food.  It was one of my favorites of the sites we visited.  They were even very accommodating about giving us tons of discounts to try and make it work within our budget.  But at the end of the day, we realized that our overall costs were still going to be a lot more than we wanted to pay.  We had a pretty difficult conversation about it tonight, and in the end, we decided not to go with the vendor after all. 

I'm not going to lie: I was pretty heartbroken.  The relief of thinking that we finally had a venue and date down was wonderful, and to have to give up a venue that I could be so proud of made going back to square one even more daunting and anxiety-ridden.  I found myself vacillating between feeling heartbroken to "I don't care" mode a lot within the span of an hour.

At this point, I've resigned myself to the fact that the sort of wedding I would feel excited about planning is not really feasible given our limited budget and the standard wedding costs in the Bay Area.  (Actually, it would be plenty feasible if we were to elope, but too many important people would be upset at this point.)  The fact of the matter is that I don't enjoy large parties or being the center of attention like that.  To have to plan one makes me even more anxious because I'm already mildly sociophobic and I can't stand the thought of people judging something as personal as my wedding.  It would almost be easier to have our parents plan it however they want and to just show up.

So right now, I don't care about my own wedding plans.  Right now, it feels like we're just doing this wedding planning to make everyone else happy, and if there isn't a part of it that I can get excited about, it's like I own no part of it except for half the bill. 

Don't get me wrong: I'm very excited to be marrying the love of my life.  But this wedding planning and wedding event is really detracting from that experience for me, and I still wish we could just elope and just really focus on the part that matters most.

I feel guilty about not caring, too, like it's selfish to not want a wedding. 

So as a sort of compromise, we're going with our second-choice venue.  They're reasonably priced and are truly all-inclusive (invitations, DJ, food, coordinator, and hotel bookings if you want, etc.).  The way I see it, if I don't feel excited enough about it, I just don't want to bother planning it.  So we let them plan it instead.

On the other hand, I could probably get excited with creating our ceremony.  We'll see how that goes.  More updates on that later.

Guest List vs. Venue/Budget Debates

Side note: these last few posts on mixed feelings and budgetary blessings mark a changing tone in this personal wedding planning blog, and this pleases me.  This is what I need right now, not all the wedding porn.  (Not that there's anything wrong with bazillions of photos of wedding details that people love, but there are so many other places one can go to for that.)

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Like the dutiful wedding planning couple we are, Mister and I sat down some time ago to come up with our initial guest list.  I knew with my very large extended family that this would be no easy task, but we agreed on a few guidelines:

- Extended family would only go as far as aunts, uncles, and cousins.
- The "no ring, no bring" rule would apply to family members.  The only exception we'd allow is my brother's girlfriend (who seems like she could very well become my sister-in-law in the near future).
- Friends may bring a plus-one under the following conditions: they are married/engaged, or we know and like their plus-one enough to want them at our wedding (in which case, they're probably friends already).
- We are not inviting people that neither of us personally know.
- We are not doing "courtesy invites" as the risk of RSVP acceptance is too high.
- We are inviting people that we are willing to spend $100+ per person on.

We were able to cut our list down to our core number of 140 guests, with a "waitlist" of about 30 guests (mostly friends) that we would like to invite but would be okay with not inviting.  About 100 of the core guests are family members, so it would be nice to add more friends as family members declined an invite.

So as we're in search of our venue, we've kept the number 140 in mind as our baseline.  Of the 8 venues we've seen so far, our favorites were the ones that offered a more intimate setting for 140 and 150 people maximum, respectively.  It sure didn't hurt that these were the only two venues to also offer free tastings before signing anything!

But now we're worried because out of the blue, his parents gave us a list of about 60 people they want to include in our guestlist, 20 of which are not already on our list.  Mister is angry and upset at this because these 20 extra people are people he doesn't know or barely knows and never talks to, and his mother is insisting that inviting these guests is an absolute must, even as courtesy invites.  He's already explained that we already have a waitlist of guests and can add these 20 people to the waitlist, but his mother is continuing to insist that they be on the main list instead. 

The repercussions of extending our list from 140 to 160 are stressful.  Doing this would mean we would have to give up on both of our 2 favorite venues and either go with our secondary choices or continue our venue search.  Additionally, Mister and I are willing to spend more per person for the list of 140 we have.  With the 20 extra guests, we're not so willing to spend that kind of money on them, and Mister says that if we had to include this additional list, we should try to reduce our total cost per person.  I don't like that the invitation of these 20 people could end up downgrading the total experience of our wedding for our priority guests.

It's such a tricky situation, the guest list.  I think we're being pretty reasonable by allowing these people to be in our wait list, but when his mother is making this a non-negotiable item, it's going to make tensions unnecessarily higher. 

Time for consultation. Time to google the answer, lol.

Blessed to have the friends/family that we do!

I've estimated that with a few of our friends and family stepping in to help out on wedding-related services, we're saving almost $6000:

- Photography, estimated value at least $2,500 (courtesy of a friend of a friend who is a published photojournalist going into the wedding photography business)
- Makeup/hair, estimated value about $150-$200 (courtesy of a good makeup/hair friend)
- Wedding dress, roughly estimated value at least $2,000 (courtesy of my fashion designer sister and longtime seamstress mother)
- Officiant services, estimated value about $300 (courtesy of a friend who will get officiated for us for free online!)
- Bentley "rental", estimated rental value at least $1,000/day (courtesy of a friend with resources and a generous heart)

Total saved: $5,950

Okay, so we probably wouldn't have even rented a fancy car, so it's closer to about $4,950 that we'd actually save, but still!  The more we can save, the more we can afford on little luxuries for our guests. :)  And the man and I would love to splurge on the food!

Seriously, though, I feel so blessed and thankful that we have the friends and family that we do.  What a great community to start married life with. :)

Alternative wedding music

Some music selections for the ceremony or cocktail hour.

FF VII OST - Aerith's Theme
FF X OST - Suteki Da Ne (Piano)

And the mister and I wanted to celebrate our joyful "I Do's" with a version of this finishing touch:
FF Victory Theme

Mixed feelings

I haven't updated this blog in awhile, but as my subject line so succinctly puts it, a lot of complex emotions have been stirred since the mister and I got engaged.  We went from discussing elopement to doing a simple courthouse ceremony with a nice dinner (all immediate-family-only) to doing a casual beach wedding to doing a nicer wedding, etc.  Most of our friends have been generally supportive of whatever we decide to do, even if it's an elopement.  And I deeply appreciate that their support has been unconditional, even on whether they would be invited to a ceremony or reception, because they love and trust us enough to know that we will celebrate with all of them in due time and with the appropriate amount of fanfare.  Family has been trickier to navigate, and I anticipate that more complicated issues with family will arise later, but for now, it's manageable.

Wedding planning stress also noticeably spikes when I'm PMSing.  We've agreed to not make any major decisions while I'm in PMS.  I think this is very wise.

We are also struggling with how to set our budget.  The mister and I are not really broke and can afford a nicer wedding, but paying more for a nicer wedding means having to save more/longer for our first home.  Really, the main thing is that we want to get married, and everything else about the wedding day (dress, flowers, guests, etc.) we don't really need or can do without.

But our parents would be the most disappointed about us not having a wedding ceremony and reception, and so we decided to at least make an effort to plan an event on our terms.

So far, this is what happened:

• We started a guest list and narrowed the main list down to about 140 people, which includes immediate families, extended families (only as far as first cousins), and our closest friends with a select number of plus ones.  Our plus-ones rule: If they're married or engaged, their spouse or spouse-to-be gets an automatic invite.  If they're not married/engaged, we should know them and/or like them well enough to feel that they would contribute to a happy wedding atmosphere.  We also have a secondary guest list prepared.
• We've settled on doing a Sunday ceremony with a lunch reception.  The benefits are awesome.  More dates are available than for Saturday weddings.  A lot of places give additional discounts for doing Sunday weddings, and the decline rate for out of town guests could be slightly higher, meaning we can save more money from a smaller guest count or add people from our secondary guest list.
• Our friend M has a photojournalist friend who offered to photograph our wedding for free!  I expect we'll cover the material costs and wedding food, and we'll probably still give her something for her trouble, but this would help our budget a lot!
• My mother's dream has been to make my wedding dress someday.  Add the fact that my sister is a budding fashion designer from FIDM, and I've got my dress team!  This will also enormously help our budget.
• We visited a few venues in Monterey/Carmel, one in Fremont, and one in Burlingame so far, and most of them have been great about giving us cost proposal estimates for comparison.  Our favorite places are the most expensive, of course, and though I have a definite favorite, we are continuing our search.
• Expanding on the venue that is my absolute favorite so far: the place is so nice and comes with just enough that centerpieces would be the only decoration we need. 
• Traditions we are intending not to include: bridal party (we just want all our friends to enjoy themselves on the day of as guests), engagement party, bouquet/garter toss, church ceremony (I have not yet told my parents about this yet).
• The expense of wedding cake is pretty hefty.  And of the weddings I've been to so far, cake in general is good, but not great.  We are considering cake alternatives, such as pie, or a small dessert buffet.
• By popular demand, we will keep the bachelor and bachelorette parties.  And whoever wants to plan them can plan them.
• We are thinking of asking a special friend to be an officiant for us. :)
• I'm finding myself more and more interested in planning the ceremony and have found a number of readings that I can't wait to test out and possibly integrate in the ceremony.  Maybe my baby sister Jenny would do a reading for us from a children's book.

Latest dress love

Love this flowy number from Le Spose Di Gio, but 1) don't know where I'd find it to even try it on, 2) probably way out of my price range.

Another post might be brewing soon, but it's less "scrap-booky" and more relational/philosophical.

Success!

We're engaged! :)