During these difficult economic times, planning a wedding isn’t easy.  I want my wedding to look beautiful and be memorable.  I just don’t want to go into debt to accomplish this.

Neither my boyfriend nor I are high powered attorneys, political appointees, MBA graduates, or any of the other typical 9-5ers here in the DC area, so we aren’t making the big bucks.  Trust me, a special education teacher and a researcher do not make enough to finance a wedding completely on their own around here.

Due to this nasty economic downturn, my mother was laid off from her job and my dad is struggling to pick up the slack.  They aren’t really in a place financially to help out, although I know they will when and where they are able.  When the future mother-in-law made her proclamation last Saturday that her son and I should get married, she did offer to help pay.  He is an only child after all, and this is her one chance to plan a wedding.  I knew she wouldn’t be bank rolling the whole affair since she’s been retired now for over 10 years.  However, I was a little disappointed when she explained to us that you can have a beautiful wedding for $5,000.  Not one to contradict my future mother-in-law I just looked at her son and shrugged.  I figure he and I can pick up the slack and manage about another $5,000 if we start saving this month.  I figured it completely doable.

Then… at dinner… my boyfriend and his mother began discussing ALL the family they would have to invite… a few people I had heard of, but most people I hadn’t.  OMG!   It sounded like they were reading the credits from a big budget Hollywood movie.  They made it sound as if the entire state of Alabama (where future-mother-in-law is from) was going to be coming to this wedding!  I only have FOUR family members I want to invite – mom, dad, sister, grandmother.  That’s it.  4.  They’re going to invite 20 times that number.  There goes the budget… How are we going to feed all of those people along with all our other dearly loved friends?!?  Needless to say I wasn’t looking at it as so doable now.

But then, I decided to take a deep breath.  It’s not the end of the world.  We’ll figure something out.  I also am kind of counting on his mom realizing that if she wants 250 people on the guest list, she’s going to have to help us figure out how to feed them all.  Maybe after the engagement, when we’ve looked at options for possible venues, vendors, and their costs we’ll be able to figure out how to make it work.  Or… I just might be able to talk him into eloping.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

In the meantime, if you’re in the same boat I’m in, check out the DIYBride website and read their article about How to Recession-Proof Your Wedding.   I know I’ll be trying my best to incorprorate some good finnacial planning into my wedding planning.

But, that just isn’t the case.  Truth be told, I’d be happy with a very small ceremony with just immediate family and our closest friends with a nice dinner and drinks afterward to celebrate.  I’d even consider elopement.  Nope… this wedding planning isn’t for me.  It is for him.  My boyfriend and I find ourselves deep in the gender role reversals of wedding planning.  He’s the one that wants the beautiful dream wedding… He’s the one that watches all those wedding shows on television… He’s the one that can’t imagine the day without his 75 closest relatives…

Now, I suppose this being the case it would make sense for me to have him do the majority of the planning while I sit back and take on the stereotypical man role of kind indifference.  However, I’m too type A for that.  I also don’t want that overwhelmed feeling of where to begin planning to hinder my happiness within days of making our engagement official.

So with that in mind, I am getting this process off the ground now.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love looking at wedding magazines and reading wedding planning blogs.  I like the idea of shopping for my dream wedding dress and taking on DIY projects to make the day special.  If I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t be doing all of this now.  But I also do NOT want a long engagement.  Anything over a year is too long for me.  So, I would like to have some type of binder with all types of possibly venues, caterers, photographers, projects, color themes, etc organized and ready to go when we are ready to make decisions so that a lot of the preliminary work is done.  It’ll be easier to narrow down because we’ll most likely be working with a small budget ($10K – $12K)  and will not have a lot of vendors to choose from that fit that budget.

This way, we can ride the happy engagement wave of emotion and begin making real decisions about the wedding rather quickly.

What do you think?  When did you really get into the planning process?  What did you find difficult in the beginning?  Do you find the recession hindering your choices and decisions?

First off, at 26 years old (a short month away from turning 27 and entering my late 20s), I have reached the time of my life in which just about EVERY person I know is getting engaged, married, or pregnant.  Facebook is constantly updating me on the major life milestones that my friends and acquaintances are happily reporting on and posting pictures of on my newsfeed.  I felt a bit relieved when I realized I was not the only person feeling a little overwhelmed with all of the glad tidings we were handing out when my boyfriend turned to me one Saturday morning and exclaimed, “My God, is EVERYONE getting married??”

Now, my boyfriend and I have discussed from time to time since about 3 weeks into our relationship about the idea of getting married.  We’ve known since the very beginning that we were meant to be together forever.  So, it’s not so unnatural for me to begin thinking about wedding planning.  The planning, however, was only haphazard and usually involved only the occasional comment to my boyfriend about some wedding I’d seen and what I’d liked about it.  It was he who, while with me at his elementary school reunion, commented that the venue would make an excellent wedding reception location.  So, initially I blame him for my interest in planning our wedding.

The second person to blame is his mother.  My boyfriend and I were at her house on Saturday so he could help her with planting a rose bush in her front yard.  After he was finished he decided to mow the lawn and so I decided to help his mother with learning how to use the digital camera we bought her for her birthday last month.  While on the computer, she pulled up her email and asked me to look at some wedding photos of some family member or friend whose daughter had recently got married.  They were beautiful photos and I enjoyed looking at them very much.  After the slideshow was over, she pulled out her own wedding album and told me many stories about all the people in attendance.  Anyone else catching on to what this lovely woman was trying to hint at?  Well, I didn’t quite get it at the time.  She was not deterred… she decided to be a bit more blunt…  After the boyfriend was finished mowing the lawn and all cleaned up we invited his mom along with us to dinner.  As I’m driving to the restaurant, she pipes up from the back seat, “I know it isn’t any of my business, but I think you two should really go ahead and get married and have a baby.”  Ha!  Well, that explains the wedding picture extravaganza.  She explained that she’d even be willing to help us pay for the wedding as well.  That certainly assuaged some of my boyfriend’s fears about how on earth we were going to pay for it.

So… I really think I’ve been given more than enough prompting to begin planning (even if there’s no ring yet).  I do think I’ll be keeping this blog anonymous for awhile.  I know my boyfriend is well aware of my interest in planning, but I think he’s feel I’d gone a bit far if he knew I was already contacting possible venues for pricing information and availability, let alone writing a blog about it.

So, with all that said… I again welcome you to my blog and hope you’ll find some interesting and helpful information and I hope to get interesting and helpful information in return!!