Ted and Shay: Headaches, they were bound to happen

It's been smooth sailing up to this point with the planning. Since our budget is tiny we're trying to nail everything down that's going to cost us, and keep on track with our savings.

Getting our reception site to confirm has been trying my patience, but I actually made progress a few weeks ago and started to get it finalized, and then devastation reared it's ugly head. 

We're planning to close down the bar we met at and always hang out at, for the reception, but this particular bar is located in the middle of a certain, shall-remain-unnamed nightmare of a bar crawl that happens around the time of our wedding. Our contact at the bar is hesitant to close it down if the crawl is the same day of our wedding, but I'm having a hell of a time getting answers out of anyone.

We're T-minus 5 months till the wedding and reception location options are running out. Apparently October is a big month for weddings now a days and places are filling up quickly.  We don't want to just rent out any old place but our budget is slim.

Our options at this point are 1- do the whole damn thing in Ted's mom's backyard, but then we wouldn't be able to invite anyone other than the small group invited to the ceremony; 2-scramble to find another location and pick up a part-time job on the side to pay for the new expenses; 3- Vegas anyone?

I'm starting to twitch about the whole thing mainly because everything is resting on the reception. We haven't set the ceremony time because we don't know what time we can close the bar down for the reception. We haven't sent out save the dates for our reception guests because we don't know how many we can invite (already cut down the list from 500 to 300 and are willing to go lower, but not by much).  We haven't reserved a block of rooms at the hotel we are planning to use since it's close to the bar, and if we have to change the reception location who knows where it will be held and we don't want people cabbing super far. Our budget is just lingering out in limbo because we have no idea what the cost of the bar's catering, booze, etc will be.  Let the shay melt-down begin...

So, how long should we wait before scrapping the whole idea and coming up with a new plan? I've emailed all the details multiple times to this person we're working with, but haven't heard anything for a few weeks.  Suggestions?

Ted and Shay: The list: what got the ax

Right off the bat/post-panic-attack, Ted and I decided that the most important thing to us about getting married, was celebrating our union and love with our friends and family in a way that represents who we are, and on the cheap.

Wedding checklists are thorough, encompassing everything you could possibly need/want in your celebration, and exhausting. We took a list provided by a domesticated-maven-extrodinaire, and karate-chopped it until it looked liked a Ted-Shay party.

Here's what didn't make the cut:

Bridal Party
Professional DJ/Band
Sit-down dinner
Tux Rental
Wedding dress/alterations
Full open bar
Centerpieces
Rental cars
Rented Ceremony Venue
Rented Reception Venue
Wedding ring for me
European honeymoon
Invitations/printed materials

On the chopping block:

Decorations
Flowers
Rehearsal Dinner

Things we are willing to spend money on:

Photography: note some our amazing engagement photos, via the masters at LaceHanky (and featured on Rock 'n Roll Bride) vs. the photos on our "About Us" page... It's priceless for us to have photos where we're not making ridiculous faces, just ask our moms.

Greasy bar food nibblies: you won't get a sit-down din-din at our reception, but keep your eyes open for the mini-corndog volcano (can't find a picture of one, but Sarah J's magic-mathematician brain figured out how to engineer it the other night over swampy martinis)! It beats dried out chicken breasts any day of the week!

Lots of cake: one already decided on, an Elvis cake via Cake Eater Bakery. It's going to blow your mind!

Booze/beer/vino for our ceremony guests: if you're going to sit out the whole damn wedding day with us, you deserve a night full o'booze! We'll treat you right, even if you don't remember it the next day...

Annnd that's about it!

Keep an eye on this blog to find out how we do it, and by do it, I mean do-it-ourselves.

xoshayox



Ted and Shay: The Plan, pt 1

Time for sharing.

After getting engaged I was pretty confused about what we were supposed to do next. I’m a list person, pretty organized, and I love planning events, so a wedding sounded like an awesome project! However, I’m not one of those gals that started hatching my dream wedding plans in grade school.  I honestly never really thought of what I wanted it to be, which is kind of rad because I think our shin-dig will be a good mix of both Ted and me, which is what a wedding is supposed to be, right?

So to quell the confusion brewing in my head, I did the only thing a naive bride-to-be who cannot afford a wedding planner, would do: I bought a bridal magazine.

That glossy covered mag the size of a small town phone book opened with image after image of frosty white dreamy madness.  I went straight to the articles on budgets and planning, and in about 20 minutes flat I was having a severe panic attack!  Apparently the average wedding in MN costs around $38,000 and that’s small potatoes compared to other states! I barely make that amount of money in a year with my gross income.  There is no way in the fiery depths of hell we’re going to spend one of our salaries on a one day affair!

Ted came to the rescue, made me drop the magazine in the recycling, and then made me promise to never buy another one.   We had less than a year to plan and save, and we were going to make it happen, but in our own way.

Blogs and websites became my obsession.  The greatest D.I.Y. ideas are out there, and some of the worst as well.  The one major frustrating thing I’ve encountered is because of the mass amounts of free ideas floating around, people latch onto trends and before you know it, every single wedding photo you see has succulents as the flowers, typewriters as the guest books, mustaches on sticks for the photo opps, barnyard settings, and candy tables that put Willy Wonka's factory to shame.  I’m sure every bride wants to believe deep down inside that her wedding is as unique as she and her groom are, but the fact of the matter is, these D.I.Y. fiasco weddings all look the same.

I’m digging a hole for myself as I write this because I’m sure that our wedding will be as flawed as the rest, but we’re going to try to make this day the greatest party you’ve ever been to.  That’s our mission statement in a nutshell. I just hope all of my ideas aren't all over the blogosphere before our wedding. Me First!!

More to come…

xoshayox

www.tedshay.com