Wedding
Setting the Date and Our Budget
You just got engaged, and your life just changed. Before, it was the question of "When is he going to propose?'" now the question is "When is the wedding?" Starting to plan your wedding can be very overwhelming. You will cry, stress, laugh, and all the emotions in between. Then when everything is over, you will want to go back to this time. So enjoy the craziness. I will be talking about my experience of planning my own wedding. I am no expert in this wedding world but planning a 500 guest wedding. I'd say I'm a pro.
I got engaged on April 29, 2017, at Disneyland in Anaheim. I was not expecting to get engaged there, I was thinking of an intimate setting, but I was definitely caught off guard. I also LOVE Disneyland, and my husband pulled it off with a photographer. It was also a nice experience to have a photoshoot around Disneyland. Our wedding day was July 7, 2018. So our engagement was a year and 2 months. At first, it was not my ideal date. I wanted to get married in May or October. Setting a date can be a make or break your budget.SETTING A DATE:Like I said before, I wanted a May wedding. I wanted May 4th or 5th. My thoughts were Disney-related and also because my husband wanted a Charro wedding. May the fourth be with you (get it) and May 5th because, well, Cinco de Mayo. That's when I realized that those wedding dates might interfere with the cost of flowers. Since the date is close to Mother's Day, the price of flowers goes up! It can be pretty significant, depending on the number of flowers needed and the type of flower. We just got engaged, and we already knew we had to invite everyone to the wedding, and I mean everyone. I also knew that I wanted to get married in a Catholic Church at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels or St. Vincent de Paul in Los Angeles. We looked at cost, church availability, and work holidays to finally come up with July 7 as our wedding date.
BUDGET:My husband was saving for a few years now, knowing he wanted to get married. I was also saving but with an idea to travel for 2 months in Europe (haha). I always wanted to get married in a small ceremony in Rome and then travel for a honeymoon, but that didn't end up being the case. This is where compromise and communication start. We sat down and talked about finances. Something that is always hard to talk about, especially when starting a marriage. We talked about our priorities. Which were, inviting our entire family, church wedding, the honeymoon (traveling what I wanted to do), and the rest were just luxuries (wants vs. needs). I looked into venues in Los Angeles that could accommodate 500 people. We decided to host our reception at Quiet Cannon in Montebello due to the size and accommodations. We ended up getting married at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Downtown Los Angeles, which, of course, fits more than 500 people. We ended up going to Cancun right after our wedding and then to Italy in March (It was cheaper that way !).We categorized what each of us would pay and also how much to save for our future home. We decided that our budget would not exceed $30,000, honeymoon included.We had my mother-in-law's wedding decorating business and therefore was a big help. Not everyone can say that. It was a blessing to get that help, which reduced costs due to good discounts because of her awesome network. That's why I had many things that we probably couldn't afford without his mom's business. I am a very organized person, and I had excel ( I deleted this on accident) sheets for everything, including budgeting. That helps me since I am a visual person, and pivot tables excite me. This helps see where you are at in your budget and if you need to cut out any wants. For example, I had Save the dates, wedding favors, and Christian Louboutin shoes in my budget. I looked at that and gave it a few days to see if I really needed those items. I came to the decision that I don't need Save the Dates and wedding favors. Also, I realized I probably won't wear these shoes again. Do I want to waste $700+ on a shoe I probably only wear that day? Nope, I rather spend $700 on my honeymoon or put it in my savings account, but if you want to, that's your wish, girl and buy the shoe! Do what makes you happy.
