Budget

Apr 2011

Ask Team Practical: Disappearing Guests and Vendor Expectations

Ya'll, it's Friday. Amazing spring-is-finally-here Friday (we're having a heat wave in San Francisco, which is so rare here that the whole city practically grinds to a halt and we all eat outdoors nonstop). But that's not the only reason to rejoice! It's also Ask Team Practical Friday with Alyssa, and she is rocking it out today with three questions (I love when she does three questions). Plus, I'm answering questions too (and not just by sneaking in sentences when I edit, like I usually do). So let's get on this.

My wedding is long over, but there's one thing about the otherwise fantastic day that still bothers me. I briefly saw several people before the ceremony who seemed to disappear before the reception started, and I never had time to chat with them or thank them for coming. When I asked my mother later about one family in particular, she said that they were under the impression that they were only invited to the ceremony. What?!? The ceremony and reception were in the same room, and the invitation said "Reception immediately following."

I've since learned that a number of people left immediately after the ceremony. I didn't really notice not seeing most of them, but I do remember thinking that there were a lot of empty tables at the reception. I'm totally confused. Did I somehow make a mistake when writing my invitations? Is it common for some guests to leave after the ceremony? Did I just have a really boring reception? I've been torturing myself for months with thoughts that my guests think I was rude enough to only invite them to the ceremony. Some of those who left are people I had really hoped to see and celebrate with. Also, we had so much leftover food and cake, which means that we spent far more money than we needed to. I'm hoping that you'll have some insight into where I went wrong, so that the wedding undergraduates out there can learn from my mistake. Also, I want to finally stop worrying about this. Thanks!

-Worried About A Cold Reception in Kentucky

Dear WAACRIK,

You're lucky, because you get two answers for your question! One from Meg and one from Alyssa. You win. Maybe because you have a fun sign-off to your letter. Achem (get on that people!)

Alyssa:

Sweetie,

I'm at a loss here. I realize that etiquette rules are not always as clear as they may have once appeared, but "Reception immediately following" is pretty darn clear. I can only think of a couple of reasons for your disappearing guests.

1. Your guests are liar-liar-pants-on-fires. They had other plans that day and are too chicken to tell you or admit it to your mother.

2. Your guests are morons.

To find out, your only recourse would be to actually get ahold of the people who left and ask them what was up. You can either say, " I didn't get a chance to see you at my reception, did you have fun?" or "HEY. Why'd you bail on my reception, yo?" But what kind of answer would satisfy you? The kind where they go back in time and go to your wedding reception? So. Right. Maybe don't ask.

Just remember the good times that you did have. And that you didn't commit any breach of etiquette or make a mistake. Your guests did come to your ceremony and saw the most important part of a wedding. They missed out on an amazing time and that's their fault, the losers. And now I'm going to kick this to Meg, because she knows a thing or two about this.

Meg:

My dear WAACRIK,

I'm going to clue you into a closely held secret of wedding planning: some wedding guests are dicks. It has nothing to do with you, or your kick-ass wedding, or the clarity of your invitation. Some people just don't get that weddings are important, don't care, and can't be bothered.

How do I know this? Well. We had some wedding no-shows. Here is the sum up: we had people who skipped the ceremony and just showed for the free food and booze. (Unluckily for them we were taking pictures at the entrance when they walked in, so they had to walk right by us to get in. So, awkward for them, but kind of hilarious for us.) We had people who skipped the whole thing because they "had a day" (seriously). We had people who went to the reception, ate as fast as they could, and then stood up and announced (announced!) that they were leaving. Excellent.

You know what that means? That means some people are *ss-hats. In some cases we learned things about our friendships that we were not sure we wanted to know (which oddly, was ok, because we learned that other friends are so much more awesome than we'd ever imagined). In other cases we learned that some of our friends are sh*tacular at weddings, but are still awesome at being our friends, and we're ok with that. In some cases we learned who was lacking in social graces. But in no case did we learn that our wedding was boring, or we were bad hosts, or even that we shouldn't have invited these people. Because with something as big as a wedding (or a family, or a circle of friends), things just go wrong.

But fundamentally? People skipping your reception and making idiotic excuses (or your ceremony, for that matter) doesn't mean a d*mn thing about you, or how clear you were in your invitations, or how awesome your wedding was. So I absolutely refuse to allow you to spend one more second worrying about that. Go back and look at an awesome wedding picture. Something like this:

{Me dancing at our wedding! By One Love Photo! Forget jerky wedding guests!}

And remember how it felt, and let the rest go. The end.

*************

I am considering asking my caterer if she would be willing to barter her services. Not all of them, just perhaps a reduction in the cost in exchange for free labor on my part. Continue reading Ask Team Practical: Disappearing Guests and Vendor Expectations

Posted in: Ask Team Practical, Budget, Planning, Planning | 266 Comments »

Feb 2011

Wedding Budgets & The APW Book

Hello All!

So now that I've FINALLY gotten to tell you that I'm writing the book, I can ask you guys to weigh in on it. Actually, I sort of cheated and did already back here (because I really wanted your input and I couldn't tell you why), but now we can talk about it for real. Obviously, Team Practical is all over the pages, in spirit and in quotes, giving advice to future brides, but I want more specific input from you guys in some areas.

Like budgets, because budgets are a total b*tch.

Most wedding books give you a break down on what you should spend on budgets (5% on favors? Really?) which are total nonsense, because obviously there are as many ways to do budgets as there are people. That said, I don't want to stick future brides with a SWAG budget,* so I need to give them some details.

So that's where you come in. I'm hoping to give four examples of real life budgets in the book, that break roughly along the following lines:

Under $5,000
Around $15,000 in Manhattan
Around $15,000 in Manhattan, Kansas (by which I obviously mean big city and not big city)
Around $25,000

If you'd be willing to share your budget with me, email budget at apracticalwedding dot com, with the rough amount of your budget and the location of the wedding in the email title. If I pick your budget to go in the book, I'll get back to you with forms to sign, and if I don't pick your budget (it really is not you, it's me) then I'll make out with you on the book tour anyway. Deal? Deal!

And now that we've brought it up, let's dish. What was the best thing you learned about money while planning your wedding? And, rather specifically, what did you learn about who pays? If your parents helped pay, how did that work? If you paid for all of it, how did that work? What advice would you pass on? Because for serious, I'm going to use whatever you say to help me figure out exactly what needs to go in this chapter, which pretty much means you're all in the Library of Congress. But we knew that when I got the book deal, right?

Ok, and now I'm all excited about the book! And you about guys!

Wiggle!

Meg

*To quote the excellent Sarah: "SWAG = seriously wild a** guess. I think that what it's called when you Google 'how much does a DJ cost?' 'how much does a live band cost?'"

Posted in: Budget | 185 Comments »

Jan 2011

Wedding Graduates: Cindy & Matt

Later this week, we thought we'd dive into the how-to-pick-a-date wedding dilemma. But to get started, we thought we'd talk about the ways that an off-season wedding can be rad. One of the most fantastic ways to not sell the family farm to have a wedding is, of course, to pick a slightly less popular time for your wedding. It turns out that those times can have unexpected gifts. I've written about the wonderful things about having a morning wedding, and today Cindy is here to write about the joys of the winter wedding. Both David and I have parents with anniversaries in December, and our families are huge fans of the winter wedding (my mom will tell you, "The church was still decorated for Christmas. Amazing decorations for free! Do it!") So I'm thrilled that Cindy is here to share her winter-wedding-empowerment. You'll remember her from her post about how you WILL remember your wedding, her inspiring Reclaiming Wife, and her post about choosing to stay mostly at home. And now she's here, doing winter weddings. Here we go:

I always pictured myself an autumn bride, but, because of the nature of Matt's work (he owns a lighting production company), we had two months to choose from: August or January. I chose January because I did not want to be a sweaty bride, and it turned out to be so wildly awesome, I'm glad it ended up happening this way!

We figured this timing would work great because January is typically a slow season in the industry but little did we know the political event of the century and the Ravens/Steelers championship game would be happening that very same weekend. Oh, and we'd have a cold snap with temperatures down in the single digits.

Oh well, the show must go on!

Matt spent the entire week before our wedding working 16-hour days getting shows ready for inaugural events. Then, we found out the NFL Eastern conference championship game (whatever you call it) was on our wedding day and our hometown was in it! Oh, and then Matt got sick the day of our rehearsal dinner because he was overworked and was sick on the day of our wedding! Did he care? Nope. He put on his tux and met me at the altar sucking on a Ricola.

Lesson learned? Plan all you want, right down to the tiniest detail thinking you've got it in the clear but something will always go a little awry. Does it matter? H*ll no, because your friends and family love you and they will BE THERE.

Your overworked, sick fiance? He will BE THERE, and you'll get married and it will be awesome.

So, with that little bit of background, here are some major bonuses for winter weddings:

Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Cindy & Matt

Posted in: Budget, Planning, Planning, Wedding Graduates | 45 Comments »

Sep 2010

APW Wedding Budgets – Cold Hard Numbers

Ok. I'm going to do something exciting and terrifying today. We're going to talk about money, specifically wedding budgets. I know! I've been avoiding the topic of real life wedding budgets with actual numbers for, ohhhh, two and a half years now. But I got this comment on Monday, after I said that while APW-ers could talk about parenting and sex without batting an eye or raising a voice, but we'd never been able to discuss wedding budgets calmly:

I know what you mean… the topic of money comes up and everybody starts feeling bad about themselves for one reason or another… but, I wish there was a way for us to become good enough listeners to have discussions about money without freaking out because I know that for me, money was the biggest stressor when planning our wedding. I think that one of the reasons I was so stressed was that I felt completely in the dark. The only people who talked about money and weddings online were people who were spending SO MUCH MONEY and people who were devoted to spending nothing at all. I feel like the majority of us, folks who aren’t millionaires, but do plan to spend more dough on our wedding than we’ve spent on almost anything before (whether that amount is 5k or 50k) were left to figure it all out for ourselves.

Reading the discussions in APW comment threads has really helped me to step out of my own shoes and see lots of different things from other people’s perspectives and I wonder if we’re not incapable of doing the same thing when it comes to money (although I know how hard that would be). I know it would have helped me.

And, well, I just couldn't not take on the challenge. I love a challenge. It's a character flaw.

So this is how we're going to do this. We're going to lay out cold, hard wedding numbers.... anonymously. You don't have to be anonymous, but I'd encourage you to be, and here is why: People are more honest about money when they are anonymous. When you're anonymous, you tend to not try to brag about how much you spent, or how little you spent, or how smartly you spent. And that kind of bragging and reverse bragging is what takes wedding budget conversations down. Plus, when no one knows who you are, you're less likely to get in a fight with someone about how bad you think their spending choices were. As if you should be judging anyway, achem. Continue reading APW Wedding Budgets – Cold Hard Numbers

Posted in: Ask Meg, Budget, Meg's Thoughts, Weddings | 491 Comments »

Jul 2010

Ask Meg: F*ck The Economy (Get Married Now)

I got this letter in my email... about a second ago, and I had to answer it NOW. The media has been drumming a constant tune of, "In this economy people are waiting to get married." And as the recession drones on and on (oh, I'm sorry, 'the recovery') someone needs to step in with a big can of sane. And um, I'm nominating myself? So here is reader Rowenna's question:

How do you know when you're ready to get married? In the online wedding community, most of the women seem to be on a similar track - they've been proposed to, and they can start planning their wedding right away. My experience is very different than that. My boyfriend and I have been ready to get married for at least a year. We've been discussing it for a long time. We know we want to get married, we know we want to start our life together, and we are so ready for that. But we're not engaged. We're not planning a wedding. We decided that we would start actually planning the wedding once we were in a good life position. We wanted to wait until we had secure jobs and were in a good position to move in together. Unfortunately, things have not worked out well. I am in graduate school in one city, and my boyfriend lives almost an hour away. We expected things to "work out" much sooner, but several job opportunities fell through for my boyfriend. He currently has a temporary job, which has the possibility of becoming a permanent position, but the problem is the uncertainty. How can you plan a future when you have no idea where your future is going?

We are so frustrated right now, because we just want to be married, and yet we know it's the "smart" and "responsible" thing to wait until we know what's going on in our lives. It seems silly to get married without knowing what our future is... but I can't help but feel that no matter what happens, we know that we're going to get married - should we let those uncertainties about the future dictate our plans? And is it stupid to get married if there's a chance that we won't be able to move in together for another six months or so?

Should we just be patient, or should we just go ahead and get hitched, disregarding what other people will think or say? To be clear, neither money nor family support is a part of what's stalling our decision. Help!

Ok lady. You know how they say that life is what happens while you're busy making plans? That's actually true. As you wait and wait for the perfect moment, life is happening. Right now. So a few thoughts:

First, there is no perfect moment, ever. If you're waiting for everything to be 'right,' you could wait a long time. Second, the reason we get married is to tie our destiny to someone else. It's to vow to be with them for better or for worst - to stay with them when they are unemployed, to figure out how to make do when things get really tough. That's the power of the marriage vow. It's saying, "Even though I have no idea what the future will hold, I want to tie my life to yours anyway." When you're ready to make the promise, you're ready to get married. Period.

Sure. Maybe you wait till you can live together, maybe you work out some specific details. But you don't wait and wait for something vague on the horizon. Maybe it takes your husband a year to find a job he likes. Fine. That's a year you can spend married, supporting each other both literally and figuratively, or that's a year you can spend apart, waiting. But it's still going to take him the time it takes him to find a great job. Not getting married won't change that. And trust me, supporting each other is something I know a little about.

Most of us here grew up during a prolonged economic boom. We got used to the idea that marriage was more about economic better than economic worse. We got used to the idea that you get a good job, you get everything lined up, and then you get married. But that's not how life is anymore for many of us. We seem to have forgotten that when times get hard, that is the very best time to become a family. That is the very best time to combine forces and try to make it together. That's what our grandparents did, and our great grandparents did. They took each other in worse, and worked together to create better.

So for all of you, today, some inspiration. Here is your antidote to all the media stories of people waiting to get hitched till the great recession is over (whenever that is...)

Here is a tiny recession wedding, where the bride altered her mother's wedding dress. Continue reading Ask Meg: F*ck The Economy (Get Married Now)

Posted in: Ask Meg, Budget, Meg's Thoughts, The Day Itself, Uncategorized, Weddings | 192 Comments »

Apr 2010

Notes From The Board Room

I was in one of those Big Money, Big Wedding conversations this week. You know, the one's where words like Vera* are thrown around like nothing-doing.

When you're planning a practical wedding, and a Big Wedding conversation starts up, you sit there thinking, "Don't ask me questions, don't ask me questions, don't ask me questions." And then inevitably someone says, "Well, Meg, what are you wearing?" And you mutter, "Oh, a $250 vintage dress...." and then feel embarassed, or little annoyed, or slightly uncomfortable.

But when you're already married, and someone says, "I'm wearing Vera, what was your wedding dress like?" You throw your head back and say, "Oh, I wore this $250 vintage dress."**

And you feel like a total bad ass.

*Not that I have a problem with Vera, but I find the, "Oh, duh, Vera" conversations a little head spinny.

**Or homemade dress, or dress on sale, or self-catering, or fill in the blank.

Posted in: Budget, Meg's Thoughts, Personal Thoughts, Style, Weddings | 114 Comments »