Managing my budget

I originally planned to have a wedding for $10,000...yeah that is so not going to happen. I am currently working very hard on keeping it below $15000.

With my 3 major expenses being variable costs depended on the number guests that attend it will be awhile before I will know exactly what I will spend so I've decided to play it conservative and budget on 200 attending (There are 230 possible guests but 30 are children which I plan to negotiate pricing on).

I can see how easy it would be to spend $20,000+, as I'm really don't have a lot of expenses; wearing my sister's dress, mother-in-law to be is sewing the bridesmaid gowns and groomsmen vests, my mister's cousin is a professional photographer and has offered to do the pictures for free, and my best friend and I are baking the cake(s) and doing a lot of DIY decor.

And technically of the $15000 budget my parent's have offered to pay for the food, which will probably be around 1/3rd of it, and since I live in Manitoba where pre-wedding socials are very common I will be throwing one of those a few months prior to the wedding date and my goal is to raise enough money to pay for the alcohol. So that only leaves my mister and I with approximately $7500 to look after which is still below the original $10000 budget.

I just wish I could actually have the wedding I want and pay that amount I want!

Well here's to a year of penny pinching planning! Luckily I'm an accountant by trade so I hope I can manager a simple budget.

Shoes for the Guys

My mister does not have great feet. He wears custom orthotics and does stretches every morning because his arches are too tight and he will be in pain otherwise.

Because of this his favorite footwear are New Balance Runners...stylish they are not but they work for his feet and I don't have to listen to him complain so I'm good.

But these are not appropriate footwear for the wedding day, or so I thought, until my best friend found out that they have a casual/retro line of shoes that look a lot like Converse shoes, which I do think are completely acceptable for wedding day footwear.

Personally I like these:

But I could be convinced that these are better:

{via New Balance Toronto}

We'll see what works for him and his four groomsmen but when I told him and his best friend that New Balance was still an option today, they were very excited. Nothing like catering to my husband to be...hello married life.

I'm a little behind but I don't care

It's almost weekly that I see a new 'real wedding' featured on one of the blogs I read with the color combination of Yellow and Gray but regardless of the fact that my wedding will be a year from now I have decided to go with this color combo myself. I think it's gorgeous and lets be honest, just because this combo will be pretty common by my date in the wedding blog world it will not be so in my city. I don't live in California or New York where fashion moves quickly. I live in the province of Manitoba and purple seems to be a staple for many weddings in the last decade, or at least at the ones I've attended or been a bridesmaid for, so I think I'm safe.

{via With This Ring}

Dilemma #1 - To invite or Not to invite

It's been over a month and a half since I've been engaged and yet I haven't managed to blog regularly. Something I did not think was going to be a problem for me since I've managed to write about all the things I would do when I finally got engaged for so long. I think what it is, is a writer's overload. I didn't know where to start since I have so many things on the go.

I've booked the venue, Great Woods Park, I have a dress, and solidified a date, June 18th 2011.

But alas, my first dilemma...who makes it onto the guest list.

{via someecards}

First, I come from a large family, a large and close family, so I knew going into this that I would not be having one of those "less then a 100 guests" weddings. I didn't, however, expect to exceed 250 possible guests but I did.

Second, I took for granted my mister's smaller family would mean a smaller guest list on his side, and so did he. Currently we are at 70 adults & 11 children for him.

Third, I work in a relatively small office of 25 people. 25 people that I actually like and consider friends for the most part. Unfortunately 25 + guests brings the list up another 50 which I just can not justify as I'm trying to maintain a reasonable budget and my venue, as well as the food & alcohol, is a variable cost based on the number of guests rather then a fixed cost like many other sites would have been.

Since I can't cut out our families from the guest lists and we were pretty particular about who counted as close friends, I'm stuck putting my colleagues on a waiting list. I've decided to invite my three employers, as well as 4 other women + their significant others that I work closely with but everyone else is in limbo. I'm currently still holding out hope that I will either figure something out in my budget or I'll find out that more then the average 30% of invitees will decline and I'll have room.

I am struggling with the idea of a B-list of guests though. Is that poor etiquette? I won't be sending out invites until a few months before the wedding date so I have time to decide but it is one that is bothering me.

And who knows, maybe none of these people actually care if they are invited and I'm just stressing myself out for nothing!

I have a dress

Previously I mentioned that my sister offered to let me wear her wedding dress.

{My sister & brother-in-law}

This weekend my sister was visiting and I was able to try on her dress. I was initially worried that it might not fit the bodice as we are not the same size (she has a wider back but smaller breasts then me), as well as the length as I am almost 4" taller then her and want to wear heals while she wore flip flops.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it fits the bodice and I have room to loose some weight if I want (since it looks like I have a back bum I think its more of a must then a 'want') and although the dress is shorter on me in my heals only the toes peek out so I might not even bother altering the length as it doesn't look bad.

I've talked with my 'future' mother-in-law and she is going to track down material and pattern to make me a little jacket with a high collar, which will make the dress look a little different then when my sister wore it.

Let's get it started!

So my first step, before I can decide on anything specific, is to secure a location so K and I are planning on a little road trip this Sunday. We'll hit up a few of the venues I mentioned previously but she came up with one that I didn't even think of...Christmas Tree Farms! They have large, clean barns and lots of space.

I said yes, and then I cried.

Yesterday we decided to go for breakfast, just the two of us, after he got back from the gym. When we were in the car he turns to me and says that we were going to take a little bit of a detour as he had a surprise for me. He then pulled out a scarf from his pocket and told me to blindfold myself so I would not see where we were going. (Of course my first thought is OMG he's going to propose! My second thought...shut up, you always think he's going to propose.)

When we arrive at the location and he opens the car door I can hear the train and the noises of the market, I was 99.99% sure we were at the Forks Market. (And of course I think OMG he is totally going to propose, he's going to take me to the top of the tower that we had our first kiss and propose. My next thought...shut up, you always think he's going to propose.)

He guides me to his destination, up an elevator, and takes off my blindfold. I'm right with the destination, we are at the forks at the top of the tower. He then asks if I remember what happened here and I say of course, it was where we had our first kiss. He then kissed me again and pulls out a ring box. Bending down on one knee he asks me to be his wife and I say Yes!!!! Yes, yes, yes. And then as I'm hugging him I start to cry.

To add to how awesome he is, he never actually went to the gym before we left. He drove to the forks to make sure the tower was in operation and not closed. He even left with his gym bag and came back and took a shower like he usually does. I didn't suspect a thing. I love that he's such a planner.

So now I can plan my wedding with out looking like the crazy girl.

BEST EASTER EVERY!!!!!