No, not "woe is me, I shall never marry" but more "woe is me, I wanted to elope, and instead I have to plan all this and I'm cheap." I looked at the budget today. First off, budget implies that we a) have a set amount of money we're willing to spend and b) have a plan. Technically speaking, we do have a set amount of money we can spend--when we run out of money in our combined savings accounts. That's a whole lot more than we will spend (no, don't ask how much money we have or how much we've spend, because it's not your business). As for a plan...well...
I think what really frustrates/terrifies me is that I look at what has been spent so far, and I don't see much on that list. Admittedly, the hotel and airfare for the honeymoon are included in that (yes, we're even taking a proper honeymoon, leaving the day we get actually for real married!). What terrifies me, though--besides the fact that food and wine/beer and rings and my visas and table/chair/linen/whatever else rentals aren't on that list--is that everything we've gotten so far has been insanely cheap. Terrifyingly cheap, really.
My dress was at the upper end of what I was willing to spend, but then I was hoping to out-cheap Luther's $20 wedding dress (note: it was gorgeous and perfect for her and didn't look cheap). I was also hoping to not buy mine at David's Bridal, but I couldn't find anything I liked anywhere else. Sadly the cost may rise more, for I think I'll have to get it altered down a bit (yay, but more money). As long as that doesn't affect the pockets--yes, it has pockets!--I don't mind too much. For those who wish to see the dress, it's here, and it's red. I will be peeved if guests wear red themselves (white and black, the traditional no-nos, totally awesome in my book).
The venue is shockingly cheap. Being wine club members knocked a bit off the price, but still, it's insane how little Alan charges to rent out his winery, especially when it's a Saturday and he has to close it down to the public (hmm, I think he's doing that). Plus, Lisa is totally awesome and will do a great job tending bar and helping us out when she can. BIIIIG tip (and even with that, still dirt cheap).
The invites were cheap enough, though we got shafted on postage. VistaPrint's stuff isn't the highest quality, the nicest looking, or traditional (big whoop), but given how much traditional invites cost (as low as $1 per invite--if you assemble it all yourself!), I was gonna be damned before I spent that much. And these are plenty nice, and fairly appropriate for the "come to our reception, we're getting married two days after that, and you're not invited" invite. Hey, at least I'm nice enough to put postage on everyone's RSVP cards. True, if you live in the US, they're postcards, but at least we're paying the postage. Initially, RSVP was going to be email only.
The single best part of money that we've spent so far is on our honeymoon. The afternoon we get married (I don't have a judge yet...still working on that one), Adam and I will board a plane in our finery with carry-on luggage only (again, I'm cheap--it's also faster when you arrive), and jet down to San Francisco. We'll have a rental car waiting for us (not a convertible, sadly, since December in the Bay Area is, uh...yeah), and we'll wend our way north, leaving S.F. behind us and putting all of Napa (and Sonoma) at our feet for 4 days. We've got a great room in what looks to be a wonderful B&B in downtown Napa, with 25 restaurants and 19 tasting rooms within walking distance. We'll hire a driver for our rental car one day to take us around a bunch of vineyards, and really, I don't know what we'll do with the rest of our time. Well, I do know, but I don't like to think about that many hangovers this far in advance. We might go back into S.F. one day and go to the zoo, or show Adam around, but I've managed to never drive in Cali, and I don't like driving in any major cities, since I have no patience and no GPS. Well, I guess I did drive in Death Valley, but if I saw 100 cars on the road in DEVA in 5 weeks, I'd be shocked.
There is one other rather bright spot in all this wedding planning. Well, besides actually getting married, of course. After vast amounts of research, struggle, frustration, and nearly spending a crap-ton of money on a lawyer, we finally discovered that if Adam only wants to come to the states to get married, but will be leaving shortly thereafter, he does not need a special visa. At least that's what the US Embassy in London says on their website (they, like the British embassies and consulates, don't answer email or phone queries, but instead direct you to non-govermental businesses who charge money to be not very helpful). I found enough info on that to make me confident that I'm correct. This saves us a lot of money for the moment, as visa are not even remotely cheap for those who wish to immigrate. However, I still need to go through the visa process. I'm hoping I only need 2 different visas over the next couple of years, not 3 (since we're getting married here in the States, not in the UK), but I'm not holding my breath.
Right, hopefully that at least partially satisfies those who have been frustrated by my long silence. That is, after all, what I've been spending most of my time on. But I can promise, when I write my next review, it will be of the (really awful, very truly horrid) book Twilight. So quite frankly, if you think Stephanie Myer knows how to write, I wouldn't read that post. Because she sucks.
