Keeping little secrets...

So remember how I told you about my photobooth?  I shared like a massive amount of fun pics from the day that we received on a CD from Cheesy Photobooths.  It was definitely a huge hit of the wedding that kept the guests busy, entertained, involved and having fun.  Well, what I neglected to tell you was that it was the one thing I kept secret from Mr Fix It during the wedding planning process.  Check out this super brief video:

You see, way back in January of 2009 (the month after we were engaged) when we first began to go over the budget, I shared with Mr Fix It that the one thing I really always wanted at a wedding was a photobooth (and a magician).  I had told friends about the idea in the years before we were engaged and even watched some of them take that idea and use it at their own weddings.  So now it was my turn.  I investigated a few companies and found several.  It's easy to find them nowadays as they are ever increasingly popular.  Back when I first came up with the idea, the faux-to-booth was not really popular yet as a budget conscience way to include this so I was all about the real thing - vintage style photobooth you actually get into.

One of the companies even offered a booth that shot pictures *AND* video!  So cool.  But that was like almost $1800 for 4 hours for that one.  And I knew I wanted a booth for at least 6 hours and I knew I couldn't afford that.  Well, Mr Fix It actually said we couldn't afford anything for a booth.  He told me, "Nope...not gonna be able to swing that one."

Well, I did a horrible thing.  I went ahead and rented one without telling him.  Isn't that so bad?  My friends would tease me saying that I was already starting off lying to my husband but I would justify it by telling them that I was the one paying for the entire wedding (he paid for the ring and the honeymoon and the house renovations) and that it was going to be a 'surprise' for him.  So I couldn't tell him if I wanted to surprise him with it, right? 

Anyway, flash forward 16 months to April 16th and our wedding day.  Mr Fix It still had no idea about the photobooth.  They showed up mid-afternoon while we were taking photos.  I didn't say anything to Mr Fix It about it at all....until we were getting ready for our grand entrance at the reception.  This is how it all went down:

Our grand entrance consisted of the guys entering from one side of the room, the girls entering from the opposite side and me and Mr Fix It entering from the middle of the room behind the fireplace.  So we sat on the fireplace hearth hiding from everyone while each of our bridal party was introduced.  While we were sitting there, we had a conversation that went like this:

Me:  So baby, what do you think about the photobooth?
Him:  Yeah, everybody loves it.  It's a huge hit.  But I am telling you right now, that if this is how we are starting off our marriage with regards to finances we're going to have a huge problem!
Me:  (acting all sweet and coy like) But honey, I swear I will *NEVER* do anything like this again!  I promise.  It's just that it's our wedding day and you know how much I wanted a photobooth.
Him:  I don't care, I said we couldn't afford it.  It's *our* money, not just yours.
Me:  I know and I swear I won't ever do it again.  I'll never make a large purchase without first consulting you.
Him:  Yeah, you better not.
Me:  I promise I won't.
Him:  The thing that bugs me the most is that if you would have just come to me and asked me about it again, you know that I would have told you to go ahead and rent it.

Yeah, really?  I highly doubt that!  Maybe he would have but I didn't want to take that chance.

In the end, it all worked out and it truly was like one of the biggest hits at our wedding.  Thankfully Mr Fix It didn't get any more upset than that brief conversation.  The funny thing was, for our grand entrance, which happened right after this conversation ended, our DJ introduced us by saying:  "If you think you've seen the best in ultimate fighting, just wait until the honeymoon's over!"

Share Time:  Was there anything that any of you brides (or your grooms) kept from you until the wedding day because they knew you wouldn't be thrilled about it?

Seriously Saturdays: Freaking out about the cake!

I am really on top of things when it comes to my wedding planning.  For the most part, I either have a perfect example of what I want for something or I have a great idea and vision with a good way to communicate my thoughts to my vendors. 

I knew that I am not a huge fan of your typical traditional white tiered wedding cake.  I mean, they're real pretty and all but my thought is, you've seen one wedding cake, you've seen them all.  UGH!  I seriously did not want your typical wedding cake at my event. 

For a friends very low key super tight budget wedding, she had planned on just buying a sheet cake from Costco.  But I suggested we buy several cheesecakes instead and cover them with freshly cut fruit of varying kinds...strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, etc.  The caterer tiered them at varying levels on a niceley covered table and she had a unique and presentable wedding cake option.  Me and my future sis-in-laws cut up the fruit and placed them on the cakes and Mr Fix It even served the cake to the guests at the wedding. 

  

Source:  Personal photos

So when I decided to show Mr. Fix It some samples of some 'whimsical' cakes I was hoping we could try to replicate at our wedding, I was super excited when he jumped on board and fell in love with a few of them! 

Source:  Rancho Las Lomas web site

Source:  Sorry, didn't save it from years ago :(

But these were still not quite what we felt was the 'over the top' feeling we wanted to shock our guests with.  Now mind you, we still wanted something classy looking.  It couldn't be a cake wreck (as much as I love that site, I don't want to become a future sad image over there).

We were over the moon when our caterer informed us that our cake was included in the package price he quoted us.  Seriously!  Who gets a cake included in an already phenomenal catering deal?  Mind you, I was a bit concerned when I found out that the 'baker' they use is a girl who works out of her home and makes cakes as a side job for our caterer and a few other companies.  I started to see my dreams of an amazing cake dissapear.  But then I found these images that she had created for some of the caterer's other weddings:

Source:  La Finestra Catering

At least, I felt like she was somewhat capable now.  So one day, while browsing through some web sites, I came across two unbelievable cakes that were seriously exactly what I was looking for.  And when I showed them to the fiance, he flipped out!  Here's what we sent our caterer asking him to see what additional charges the baker would charge us to make a cake like this with a 'good' tasting marshmallow fondant:

 Our absolute favorite!

 

A much simpler looking possibility but still very cool:

                      

Never gonna happen unless we're millionaires:

I mean, yes, these are some serious cakes, but they aren't horribly impossible.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to shape them correctly and then concocting a stand that can support them...which my Mr. Fix It even offered to do for the caterer!

So when he came back telling me that it would be an additional $1,000 for us to have that first cake for our 200 guests, I almost fell off my chair!  I could seriously make that cake myself if I took a few weeks to practice.  Seriously!?!  Is he kidding me?

Now we're spending a pretty penny on our wedding but we never planned to spend more than maybe $300.00 for the upgrades to our cake since it is included in our catering package.

Now, we are totally rethinking our entire idea for the cake.  This is the one part of my wedding that I am absolutely not excited about and getting more and more frustrated with as it seems to be turning into a huge nightmare and let down over and over again.  Stay tuned next week for the follow up to our cake nightmare.

Is that your budget or are you just happy to see me?

Yeah, that's right...I said it.  Our budget has gotten out of control in Mr. Fix It's opinion.  But a quick bit of background:

I came up with a budget quite a while ago right before we were officially engaged.  Once I had the official proposal and after we visited many venues and narrowed it down to our few choices, I showed my budget to Mr. Fix It.  He flipped out.  He said that I needed to stick to a budget of $25,000 for 200 guests and that was it.  Well, I reluctantly said I agreed...though I really didn't.  Afterall, I was the one paying for pretty much the entire wedding!  And as I mentioned before, I didn't have to go into debt to do so. 

A few weeks later I began showing him some things for invitations and other ideas.  He didn't like most of them and said some of them even looked 'cheap.'  To which I responded "Well, if you want me to stick to $25,000 then some stuff is going to have to be cheap!"  To that he agreed to bump our budget up to $27,000.  (Wow, that extra $2,000 was going to do a lot for what I was going for - sort of.)

As of today, I know almost exactly how much I am spending on this wedding.  And let's just say, that while I am not at the figure the honey asked me to stay at, I am in fact at the figure of the budget I originally showed him.  :)  So here's the final breakdown:

I don't personally mind talking about money but I know some people are put off by this or are easily offended and form many a personal opinion regarding such issues.  So rather than giving a breakdown by specific dollar amounts, I will simply say that my budget is pretty firm at $36,000 for 200 guests.  I will give you the breakdown by percentages and would love to hear how you fellow brides compare with your own expenses as far as what you put the most money towards or what your priorities were for spending.  That way, a $5,000 bride can share that she spent 20% of her budget on the photography because that was like the end all be all of her big day for her.  :)

Venue:    18%  (Rancho Las Lomas - post coming very soon)  This was like the one thing I absolutely had to have on wedding day.  Mr. Fix It caved a bit on this one for me as he thought it was too much money even though he loved it, too.  Unfortunately, the 18% is strictly the rental fee of the venue and does not include anything else...with just the venue, the guests would be standing around with no place to sit, no decor (other than it's gorgeous natural surroundings) and no food!

Catering:  34%  I threw in the cost of all the rental items in this figure.  They include tables, chivari chairs, dinner/serving wear and glasses, satin linens in aqua/turquoise and cranberry, amalfi benches for the cocktail area, ceremony chairs, cocktail tables, space heaters, etc.  Because we booked on a Friday (off peak day) we were able to bring in an outside caterer.  This was the only way we could afford the venue because their exclusive caterer on Saturdays quoted us $24,000 for only 180 guests with way less included than what our caterer is offering.  Our final figure works out to about $60.00 per person for a buffet meal (each guests gets tri-tip AND chicken entree w/salad, rolls, and 3 additional sides).  Also included in our catering was the cake, fruit and cheese/cracker display, two hot appetizers for cocktail hour, a chocolate fountain, unlimited soda and punch/lemonade, coffee service after the cake cutting, champagne and cider toast, 20 kids meals, 5 vendor meals and two bartenders for 8 hours for the cash bar.  While we were amazed at the deal we got compared to the five or six other catering companies we'd contacted, we are a little concerned about this caterer being familiar with our venue.  The venue truly is a blank slate as the kitchen has counters and a sink with unfiltered water, but no fridges, no ovens, no stoves, no microwaves...nothing!  The caterer will need to handle all of this.

Florist:  7%  I love my florist!  I am meeting with her in a few weeks for our first design meeting and will share all the lovely details with you.  She is providng me a combination of high and low centerpieces for 20 tables, 7 cocktail table centerpieces, my bouquet, bouquets for 6 bridesmaids, boutonniere's for 12 men, 3 corsages, ceremony aisle decoration, flower girl wand, toss petals for ceremony, cake table decor, etc.  She is known for being able to provide amazing florals for weddings in the OC for less than $3,000.  May seem like a lot to some of you but believe me, some florists I contacted wanted you to spend a minimum of $4,000 before they'd even book you!

Photographer:  4.5%  Love my photographer...he gave me a phenomenal deal.  No prints or albums...I just wanted the high resolution images to be able to do with as I please.  I'm getting him and a 2nd photographer for 8 hours.

Videographer:  5%  Love my videographer as well...a key important vendor in my opinion.  He knows what he's talking about and will send me ridiculously long e-mail responses to my fears and requests to let me know that he plans on doing a great job on our big day!  He is offering 10 hours of service and not promising but hoping to bring along a 2nd shooter and some 'extras.'

DJ:  4%  He was the DJ at a friend's wedding.  He and his business partner were perfect for me.  He is super duper detail oriented and professional and his side kick is super funny and energetic and knows how to get people dancing and entertain them.  So I was thrilled to meet with them.  They have an insane web site that allows us to log in and create our online playlists from their vast music library filling in things like what songs we want for the processional, recessional, first dance, bouquet toss, etc.  Included in our contract is the ceremony songs and audio setup of speakers and mics for the officiant, groom, vocalist, etc, cocktail hour music, reception music and emcee services.  I am also getting about 18 perimeter uplights for the reception room, pinspot lighting on the cake table, and a custom GOBO light of our names and date (that I will be designing soon) to display on the fireplace above our sweetheart table.

Stationery:  5.4%  I found a company that creates custom designed invitations and wedding related stationery who is amazing.  The designer, Stacia, has worked with me and my many revisions to come up with our personal invitations.  We will use the design on the invites to create ceremony seating cards (10), menu cards (5), place cards (200), table markers (20), programs (200) etc.  Also included in this budget item are my DIY STD's, stamps, thank you cards, escort card/favor boxes, guestbook, favor tags (200), etc.  My sister helped me out with the DIY items so this was a mix of both professional and DIY projects.

Attire:  5%  This includes my gown, shoes, jewelry, alterations, the groom's ring, my daughter's dress/shoes, and garters.  Mom helped offset the cost of my gown by paying 2/3 of it for me (not included) and my honey offered to pay for my professional hair and makeup artist for me and my daughter as a wedding day gift.

Photobooth:  3%  This was a must for me and part of the reason Mr. Fix It doesn't know that our budget has gone over a bit...it's a surprise for him (and the guests) and also is incorporated into my guest book which I will be posting about soon. 

Wedding Day Coordinator:  2.8%  Another must for me and also another thing Mr. Fix It didn't know I snuck into the budget.  She brings two assistants and runs the rehearsal the day before and the entire wedding the day of.  She deals with the vendors, runs the ceremony, sets up all my favors and extras

Valet:  1.8%  Required by our venue and actually kind of needed.  Turns out Mr. Fix It knows the owner of the required valet company (a former customer of Mr. Fix It's).  They bartered for half the service so I paid half and Mr. Fix It paid the other half in services.

Cocktail hour entertainment:  1%  We hired a magician to stroll around the guests at our cocktail hour and entertain them with card tricks, slight of hand tricks, etc.  See my previous post about how we found Jeff Ezell and how cool he is!

If you are still reading this, you may notice there is about 9 % of my budget missing.  This amount was spent on various miscellaneous things including but not limited to:  marriage license, dance lessons, flat screen tv rental for slideshow, gifts for wedding party, memorial candles/vases, votive candles and decor, favors, officiant's fee, OOT boxes/items, cake topper, kids favors, flip flops (see future post), and web site. 

Not included in *my* budget is the rehearsal dinner (being paid by groom's parents), honeymoon (being paid by groom), my engagement ring (obviously), and groom's tux (will be free).

There you have it - please don't slam me for basically spending a down payment on a house on our one day event.  The truth is, I never in a million years would have thought that I would be able to afford something like this on my own without maxing out credit cards but by the grace of God I am able to bring all of our family and friends together to celebrate the main purpose of all this craziness:  the love and union of me and Mr. Fix It and our families as we take the step into amazing phase of our lives...that's really what it's all about - not percentages or gowns or how nice your centerpiece is.

Seriously Saturdays (The Are you kidding me's? of wedding planning)

So I'm a huge Grey's Anatomy fan.  But even before the hype of some of their catch phrases, I think I was already using one of the word's that has shaped many a conversation in my life.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about, check this out:

Seriously!  I love that word.  I mean, how is it possible for someone to convey so much thought, attitude, frustration, support, anger, love, and genuine emotion with just the simple tone of a word?  Lovely. 

That said, I have found myself often discussing, dealing with, venting and just trying to understand the thoughts and reasoning behind some of the things people do and offer and say when it comes to my wedding planning process.  Are you with me on this girls?  Therefore, I introduce you to Seriously Saturdays...each Saturday I will post a brief thought or anecdote about something wedding related that just makes me say:

Seriously?

Today's thought:  So when visiting venues we often asked when their peak season is...in an effort to receive  any discounts for 'off season' booking.  (see my post on venue interviews here)  We were originally told by one venue that their off season months are January through April.  Yea for us!  We want to book in April.  Then when we finally inquired about the pricing, they had a different venue rental fee for each one of those months!  And guess what?  The month of April was the highest of course.  :(

So the fiance told me it would be a good idea for us to consider getting married in March because they would let us book any weekend in March for $1,500 less than the several dates I asked about in April.  As silly as it sounds, March is a rain month in So Cal...April not so much (see previous post).  I stood my ground and the fiance agreed to let me book my date of April 16th.  But they told us if we booked the last Friday in March instead (just 3 weeks earlier) they would have given us the $1,500 discount.  SERIOUSLY!?! 

Have you had any experiences like this where it seems almost ridiculous how the wedding industry rapes us as brides? I mean, seriously!  (excuse the bad analogy)

What the heck does *budget* mean anyway?!?

So I am new to the blogosphere as my wedding planning has led me to the net and I came stumbling across sites like Get Married, Blogger.com, and many many blogger brides.  I love it all.  I love that in today's day and age we have a means to be able to support one another, share advice and tips, gain inspiration and feedback and just vent or shout with joy about all of our wedding planning. 

So many of these blogs have titles relating to the costs of the bride's budget...$2,000 Bride, the Broke A$$ Bride, a $10k Wedding, etc.  These are really great for those thousands of brides across the country that are on limited funds to plan the day of their dreams...especially with today's recessionary economy.  It's difficult to figure out how you are going to piece together the funds.  And when a girl (like me) sits in front of the boob-tube watching shows like Platinum Weddings it can be a bit devastating to realize that you can't afford to have a gorgeous orchid sitting on every guest's napkin or offer favors that cost $10 a pop!  Heck, my boss's own wedding included a check I wrote out to his florist for $25,000!  Most brides today don't have $250 for flowers. 

Source

But, then you have the girls like me...we are somewhere in between.  I have heard many times (and verified through a google search) that the average wedding costs anywhere between $20,000 and $35,000 depending on how recent the survey is.  But on the net, I don't seem to find many brides that are spending much more than $10k on their weddings - and it seems like that's if they're lucky.  One of my very own girlfriends just got engaged a couple months ago and her parents are only giving her $15,000 to plan her wedding.  She has a guest list of 250 people!  I told her that's just not gonna happen and she said realistically they're planning on 200 and will probably have to cut it down to 150.  Again, I don't see that happening at all...but I know it can be done.  I just don't know how these brides do it.

The very first thing I did when I got engaged (well, the first three things I did) were to visit venues, come up with a rough draft guest list and start plugging figures into a budget.  I guessed at some things like the costs of photography, flowers, videography, DJ's, etc.  But I also started browsing a lot of web sites for those type of services and tried to find styles and personalities I liked that I would consider contacting for a meeting.  I tried to see if they listed some basic pricing options on their web sites so I could most accurately plug those figures into my budget. 

Check out this web site that has 15 useful budget sheets

After our appointments at the venues we had some clear ideas of what the realistic costs were going to be.  That helped us narrow down our guest list from 300 to 200.  (Not an easy task since I want everyone and their mother at my wedding!) 

Source

Now the fun part was showing my budget to my fiance.  He gasped!  We have gone back and forth a little on the budget.  He has given in a little and raised his dollar figure but I have still gone over what he asked me to keep it at...but hey, I am paying for almost the entire thing myself and I am not having to go into debt to do so, so what's the big deal? (wink, wink)  Besides, I am sticking to the budget...it's just *my* budget, not his.

I consider myself a budget bride, but that doesn't mean I'm planning my wedding for under $10,000.  It simply means I have a budget and I'm trying to stick to it...because believe me, anyone can go way over their budget when it comes to weddings.  Right?  In a future post (soon), I'll share our exact dollar figure and the breakdown of all things budget related. 

But as a teaser and for my own poll related purposes, let me know ladies (if you don't mind sharing and don't get offended discussing money issues) what are your budgets set at?  Have you gone over them?  What are you doing to keep them in check?