The man I love and I made dinner for my mom to talk about wedding stuff. I was hoping after the wine, his grandmother’s brisket, and the brownie she would be in a good mood and benevolently pledge $250 for flowers. After dinner, though, she looked like she was about to fall asleep. I had made color-coded excel sheets of the top three locations with breakdowns of elements and costs. She seemed unmoved. And then she came back from the bathroom and announced that she had a small saving’s bond she could cash in and she wished it was more. I almost cried. My single mom worked very hard to put my brother and I through high school and college. But since then, I have been on my own. It has been a long time since someone leant a hand. Having her support on this means so much to me—I felt like a child and a daughter, in the best possible way.
Category: budget
On wedding budgets in LA
Yes, it seems it is even worse than I thought. I have a friend: she’s an awesome producer. She produced her own wedding, and if anyone can bring in great production value for less, she can. So I always imagined her wedding as the extra, super crafty budget wedding. Here’s how much I imagined she spent: $12,000. I just asked her how much she spent: $25,000. In LA, the budget wedding is $25,000. Mother of god.
On the budget
What is the right amount of money to spend on a wedding? We are lucky: right now I have a job, the man I love has a job. When we had an initial talk about a future imaginary wedding (!), he said his parents would probably help us out a bit. To be honest, if it was just up to me, I would be ok with city hall. All planning of my perfectly beautiful imaginary wedding aside, if we were just married and I got to be his wife, that would be all good. I’d do it today, with total joy. After all, I already got to have a lovely wedding celebration, or three. But I think it is something that he wants; I think it something his family would enjoy—and mine, too.
Photo by Ben Chrisman
The descent into madness, stage by stage:
1) I started to wonder how much a wedding would cost at my fantasy location. So I started a budget. A rather detailed budget. I came to the conclusion that it would be around $25,000 for 150 people, in case you are curious. Of course, there are many ways to economize this hefty sum, but who needs to worry about economy? It’s an imaginary wedding! In this spirit, I created a couple of extra line items.
2) I thought about the rehearsal dinner and the morning after brunch. Inspiration struck. I wrote down some ideas. And then I saved them in a folder.
3) I took a day trip with my mother, coincidentally to this very place. Since my imaginary location is a historic building, I took a tour. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined, and not too big (a fear). I loved learning about the history and seeing old, very inspiring photos. As the tour guide talked, I started to lay out the tables in my head. Before we left the ballroom, I had to ask him if he would let me take a good look at the bar. Flowers? Or candles?
4) My mom and I played mini golf near the location. What a great weekend wedding activity, I thought to myself…
Photo via bunkosquad@Flickr