Sweet Deals!

Our goal is to have the wedding of our dreams while staying in budget.  But now that we are approaching the three month mark, the little unexpected purchases (and let's face it, splurges) are hitting me left and right. 

One thing I've learned: being a bride is expensive!  I've been getting regular haircuts instead of pushing them off for a few months weeks.  I'm booking appointments for facials at the spa for a glowing complexion.  I'm minding my cuticles.  And all these little and necessary treats are adding up!

And then I came across the best cost saving idea for brides to be:

(Oh if I could solve problems with pink frosted cupcakes...)

Social shopping!

Sites like Groupon and Living Social (and BuyWithMe for NYC folks) have been key to snagging deals for those little unexpected wedding expenses.  

(source)

So far, I've boosted my fitness routine by taking advantage of a month of unlimited boxing classes, thanks to Living Social.  And I snagged a facial at a nearby spa too!  And today, I purchased a deal for a private dance lesson!  Just in time too, because while I love shakin' it on the dance floor, I really have the grace of Frankenstein so I need some tips to help me avoid the middle-school sway for our first dance.  Here's hoping our lesson is the most informative of my life!

(source)

To keep from crowding my inbox, I downloaded the Groupon and Living Social apps onto my iPhone.  I also made sure to use my junk mail account so I won't be too tempted to buy deals I don't actually need (like half off pizza and pasta--delicious but unnecessary).  So far it's worked great!  






Have you used social shopping sites to score wedding deals?  


PS-- There's another great deal site called Yipit that filters through all daily deal sites, to help keep your inbox from getting cluttered.  It's available in over 20 cities, with more to come.  It's not available for my city, but it could be for yours!

Budget, Part 2-- My Heart Speaks Up In Defense of Our Wedding

 Saltwater Farm Vineyard - August 2011*

As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait long to speak with Mr. Marmalade after my outburst.  Funny how things work out that way.  Sure, I didn't want to waste the little time we had to speak by going over our wedding, but it couldn't be avoided.  So, he figuratively talked me off a ledge from thousands of miles away.  I hung up the phone and tried to process the conversation, which only got me started again; the room began spinning a little, my heart skipped a beat, my brow furrowed (worst habit ever, please please let me break that habit soon).  


So I talked to some married friends at work.  Then I talked to BM Cuz.  And when the workday was over, I went over to my aunt's house, and I talked/cried it out with her.

Everyone had the same general conclusion.  "You need to have the wedding you are planning.  You aren't going overboard.  It's okay to spend money on this.  You will tighten your belts again and again, but you will never regret spending money on your wedding."

 Chardonnay Grapes, Saltwater Farm Vineyard - August 2010*

So, we are not eloping.  And here's are my conclusions:

1.  When it comes to almost everything related to our wedding, I used the word "our."  But when it came to my doubts about spending, I used the word "me."  This "me-fest" had to go.  It's our wedding.  If we decided to spend money on OUR wedding, what right do I have to say no on my own?  We chose to have a wedding, so any change in plans had to be decided together.


2.  A big wedding is something he wanted from the start, more than I did.  He wanted to have a day for us to share with our friends and family.  He was looking forward to it.  He deserved it. So why couldn't that be enough for me?  I think, deep down, once I got past all the panic, the thought of a big wedding grew on me, and I wanted it too.


3.  Our wedding day is bigger than us.  We will celebrate our union.  What I didn't take the time to think about was how our families felt about it.  Contrary to my pessimistic part I, this mattered a lot.  Our families deserved this just as much as we did.


4.  We aren't going crazy and spending ourselves into debt.  Weddings are expensive.  There are few that have planned or have been part of a wedding in the past few years that would argue that.  We set the budget, and I've stuck to it.  I had to accept it for what it is and stop being such a cheapskate.  


Truth be told, I hate spending money.  It makes me nervous, but it was time to get over it and stick to our plan.


5.  The toughest realization (the one that still hurts), was that our dream wedding venue and our "dream" wedding, wasn't in the cards for us.  There were way too many factors that go into planning a wedding at a venue that is not "all inclusive."  My aversions to what I considered to be a "wedding factory" got the best of me, and I was wrong.  I needed to keep things simple and consolidate as many vendors as possible so that in the event that Mr. M's plans changed, I'd be able to take it in stride.  And to be honest, more than the money or anything--the thought of changing our date and losing our deposits (or worse losing our vendors) kept me up at night.  I'd spent way too long worrying about the worst case scenario.  


So with a very heavy heart, I had to let go of our seaside vineyard.  

Saltwater Farm Vineyard - August 2010*

There were still plenty of changes to come for us. But letting go of our original plan was the right thing to do. I don't know how I would have made it through our long engagement without that piece of mind.  


And with that, we were back to the drawing board!




Did you have to make a major change to your wedding plans?  What kind of change did you make, and do you feel it was the right choice in the end?

*All images in this post belong to me.  

Budget, Part 1-- My Head Tries to Talk Some Sense into Our Wedding

A few months into planning our wedding, I had a major crisis.  Call it a crisis of conscience, call it an anxiety attack--call it what you will.  My panic caused to me reexamine what was essential to our wedding.  So join me as I look back on my wedding "epiphany," and how I nearly cracked to get there...




I came across this gorgeous wedding by Maggie Harkov via Brooklyn Bride and my jaw dropped.  This wedding is all at once sophisticated, sweet, simple, and elegant.  It's everything I want our wedding to be.  But there's one huge difference staring me in the face--

All images via Brooklyn Bride / Photos by Maggie Harkov

we're not eloping and nothing about our wedding is simple.


This beautiful City Hall wedding tugs at my heartstrings.  I need the simplicity of it.  I want it.  There is something that keeps pulling me back to a teeny tiny wedding at city hall.  These gorgeous images certainly have something to do with it.  But there is so much more.  


The wedding we're having is all wrong.  It's keeping me up at night.  


...here goes: 

I don't feel like I am at a place in my life where I should be spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on anything.  Not even the celebration of our marriage.  When I think about the amount of money we are planning to spend, my head starts to spin a little and I become overwhelmed with guilt.  I've worked really hard to get myself on track financially over the past few years, and it's hard to reconcile the cost of this wedding with anything that remotely resembles fiscal responsibility.

Yes, there is so much more to a wedding than money.  When will we ever get to be the center of attention again?  When will I ever get to be a bride?  When will we ever have our nearest and dearest in one room again?  The thing is, I don't feel like I want that attention.  I don't feel like a bride.  I'm not good at taking compliments or letting anyone take care of me.  And, this may sound like sour grapes (it's not), but I can't help but wonder if our wedding would matter as much to our guests.  It sounds silly, it really does. Because when I look back at all the weddings we've attended, and I remember how how happy we were to share those special days with the couple.  But for some reason I can't see it for us.  

And I can't for the life of me come to any conclusions of what I want our day to be like outside of the words "elegant, simple, and joyful."  Wouldn't we be just as joyful in a courthouse?  In the end, wouldn't we be just as married?


Is it fair for me to plan this huge wedding without input from my husband to be?  Is it fair for me to plan a big celebration when in all likelihood, most of his nearest and dearest will not be in attendance?  Is it fair to ask our vendors to change our date, repeatedly?  Would they even do that for us?  Are we setting ourselves up for losing a ton of money by planning a wedding without a schedule that's set in stone?

I don't know.  But this has been gnawing at me since day one.  Let me apologize if anything I said above has offended anyone--I don't want to go back and edit myself outside of spelling, since it was really just a train of thought that I had to put out there. So let me just say, that if I offended you, I'm sorry.  But I'm still working through this.  And obviously, this would be something to talk to the Mr. M about when I hear from him again (though I feel terrible for even bringing this up, and I wonder if I'll have the guts to say anything).  

Enough.  My thoughts are racing.  Need to take a time out. 




Present day Miss Marmalade here!  Looking back on this post was tough, I wrote that post in a pretty frenzied state. But I'm really happy I thought things through before they got out of control.  


Has anyone ever had to take a moment to pause your plans and really come to terms with what you want and need from your wedding?

You Want What? Where?!?

Budget, buzzkill...it's all the same to me. After a few weeks of riding the wave of euphoria that followed our engagement, I was brought back down to reality by the BUDGET (insert shreiks of horror here)!!

So when Boo asked me how much weddings cost around here, I choked. The thought of setting a budget is pretty scary, especially since I have absolutely no idea how much these things cost. It's not like people run around telling you how much they paid for their lovely wedding, and it's not like I can go up to them and ask. "Hey Julie! Your wedding last June was AWESOME! We really had a great time--the food was great, the band was amazing, and the cake, well YUM. And speaking of cake, how much did you pay for that, because man! It was goood!" Ok, the thought of talking like that to a friend of mine, or anyone for that matter, is officially scarier than coming up with a budget...

I turned to the next best thing. Google. And I found costofwedding.com. This tool right here is a dream. It's not to be used as the be-all and end-all factor in planning a wedding, but for two people going into this with zero experience, it's a great starting point. SoI quickly started punching the zip codes of the locations we tossed around.

Our hometown (CT): $29,985 - $49,975

Garrison, NY: $36,410 - $60,684

New Haven, CT: $13,922 - $23,203

New Rochelle, NY: $32,739 - $54,565


Yes, the picture was becoming clearer. And it looked something like this:

(Source)

To be continued...