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?

A Sweet Pop of Color

There are a couple (or many) words that embody what I would like our wedding to feel like:  feminine, romantic, classic, effortless.  When I started planning the wedding, I took the time to create an inspiration board to represent what I wanted our wedding to feel like, overall.   

I present to you my original inspiration board:

First row:  MarthaStewartWeddings.com / StudioBlush / KahiliCreations
Second Row: Little White Dresser / Jonathan Edwards Winery / Sweet Eventide
Third Row: MarthaStewartWeddings.com / Kristina Marie / BellaFigura.com

It was so pretty but it needed something.   I quickly realized that the one thing that was missing was a bold accent, something loud, something more "me."  That something was RED.  

Oddly enough, I never considered including red even though it's our favorite color--yes, our.  Now, I don't claim to have interior decorating skills (wish I did), but the colors of my bedroom are crisp white and sea glass and with touches candy apple red. Instead of trying to look for inspiration I quickly realized, that the best thing is to go with what you know.  Don't think too much and just choose what feels right.  To me, that was something as simple as being inspired by the color palette in my favorite room.

The only thing is that when it comes to a color as bold as red, it's easy to get carried away.  Red is a color that makes ME happy but it's also associated with passion, aggression, danger--not really a sweet, feminine, elegant color for a wedding.

So I did what any bride to be would do, I consulted Martha.  And look at that!

Image via MarthaStewartWeddings.com / Styling by Rebecca Thuss

And this:

 Image via MarthaStewartWeddings.Com / Photo by Littlewing Studio

Yes! Back on the red train!  

Cherries are red in a very sweet (sweet? heyo!) and subtle way.  They are organic, so there is a natural variation in color that I love.  And they are actually quite beautiful and elegant.  Oh and did I mention that they are in season for the Summer?  Because they are, and what could be more perfect than taking inspiration from the season?




Now I just needed to figure out how and where to use them!






Was it hard to decide on a color palette for your wedding?  Did you use the season as a guide?  Or any of your favorite things/places?

Bridesmaids Dresses Are In!

Our dresses are in!  Cuz was a little anxious to see what they looked like when they arrived.  We'd only seen them in plum, and although we loved the color, it wasn't right for her wedding.  So she went with her gut and ordered our dresses in wine.  

Here is the dress in plum:

Bill Levkoff #521

Side note:  this is a picture of #521 from Bill Levkoff's website.  Do you get the feeling that this is some kind of joke in the bridal industry?  When selecting which images to use on the website, do they purposely pick the one that looks absolutely nothing like the actual dress?  Just wondering, because we'd seen this dress online and it was never a possibility until we saw it in the store.  Hint hint, WIC.

(Source)

 Okay, well maybe the dress isn't all that different on the site.  I guess there's something about tying the sash in the front versus tying in the back--makes a big difference.  Plus, we couldn't see the detail of the pleated bodice on the site.  

I digress, here is the dress in wine.  It fits pretty well, but it will need a couple alterations.  It's still comfortable, gorgeous, and after the seamstress has her way with it, it will easily pass the Running Man test.  Oh you haven't heard about the Running Man test?  It goes a little like this: put on a bridesmaid dress, zip up, and bust a move (drop it like it's hot, shake a tailfeather--there are many scientific variations).  If the dress is still in place and in once piece, you've found yourself a contender!  And an example of the highest caliber party dress. 

Here it is:

  And again:

What's that?  Why are my arms outstretched?  Um, I don't know.  Think it was for balance, since I was standing up on my toes.  Ever since I could walk, I would parade around on my tip toes when I played dress up, twenty some odd years later, the habit is here to stay. My expression is still that of an exicted toddler, the hearts are up there to save me the embarrassment.  Sorry folks!




Now I need to drop this hot number off for a little nip tuck!  Easy peasy. 

Happy Friday!

I am on on the lookout for a cute correspondence set.  Once upon a time, I had a great big pink set with coordinating floral envelopes.  I imagined it was a set that Anne Shirley herself might have picked out and kept in a secret place, only to use for special occasions.  Writing to Bear certainly qualifies, don't you think?  Maybe a little spritz of perfume a la Marty Maraschino?  Okay, now I'm getting out of hand here.  Correspondence set--yes.  Perfume on the pages--too retro even for me.  Plus, if I was following the example of Ms. Maraschino I'd be writing multiple letters to multiple soliders, and eventually I'd be dropping out of high school just to enter beauty school and then to drop out again at the behest of Frankie Avalon aka the "Teen Angel."  Oh hell no, I'm not going down that road... 

(need source)

Back to what I was saying:  have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday To You

Me-oooow!

I'm interrupting this blog to wish my kitten a very happy birthday! Yes, he totally reads the blog.  Ok no, he doesn't read (the poor little guy), but he would.  No, he wouldn't.  He would probably prefer to sit atop the fridge, licking his butt, which is probably what he is doing right now...

Anyway, happy 1st birthday Ollie!  You're growing too fast.  Thanks for being my buddy.  I'll make sure to give you some extra Greenies today and maybe buy you a new toy so you can lose it under the couch.  

xoxo, 

The lady who tortures you by giving you hugs, trimming your toenails, and squirts you with water when you try to climb the screen of the sliding doors aka Mich

 This may also be another reason he doesn't love me so much.  Sad that it's one of the few pictures of him that I have stored on my computer.  He would make a good cat of honor, right?  There's no such thing as a cat of honor, and he probably would take the "honor" and use it as a jailbreak.  *wonder why*

Aww...that's my baby. 

(Ok crazy cat-lady is gone.  Just had to get that out of my system.)