Yesterday was such a wonderful, beautiful day. On Wednesday, I was ready to cancel my whole wedding and elope!! Weddings are meant to be a celebration of God's love for us and for the gift of marriage, not a multi-million dollar business!! We all know that weddings have gotten increasingly extravagant over the past several years. You can turn on the TV at almost any time and catch a show like Bridezillas or, my personal favorite, Say Yes to the Dress and watch brides spend oodles of money on their "dream" wedding. On one SYTTD (yes, I just abbreviated) episode, I saw a bride choose a $25,000 dollar dress!!!! I was thinking, I am not even making that much PER YEAR!
But this is not a rant about other people's weddings. This is a rant about MY wedding.
I don't want to spend a ton of money on our wedding day. First of all, we don't have a ton of money! Blake is finishing grad school and I'm in my last year of the education program and I can't even have a job this coming year because of my internship!! So, we are having to be smart spenders and make the most of the money we have. Anyway, some things quickly fell into place - the site is free thanks to my lifelong membership (!), our photographer is incredible, and my AMAZING dress was a STEAL!! So, I was feeling goooooood about our budget.
Until I started calling caterers. Eleven dollars a person... FOR BRUNCH?! I should just buy everybody a breakfast combo from Chik-fil-A!!! That's just way more than I can spend right now. Maybe I should have prepared myself better for the estimates I was getting, but... geez Louise! It was overwhelming. I almost cried. I wanted to elope.
And then my cousin/maid of honor calls and says, "You should have a waffle bar!!" and started giving me all sorts of good ideas on how we REALLY can do-it-ourselves AND make it look & feel like a lavish wedding. I am not even going to TELL you all of the amazing ideas we have because I want all of our guests to be surprised at how savvy we are! My sweet fiance confirmed all of these ideas and got on board with helping me envision the best way to make our wedding truly a CELEBRATION and not a burden!!
So, all this to say... I am so thankful. I am thankful for my friends who have sent me emails and texts with ideas and encouragement. I'm thankful for friends who are lending their services pro bono and for friends and family members who are biting at the bit to lend a hand. THIS is what MY wedding is supposed to be like.
They say it takes a village to raise a child.... well, it also takes a village to help build up young couples. I don't want to have to pay thousands of dollars for strangers to help me impress my friends and families (I am not calling anyone out who has spent a lot on their wedding! This is just MY heart!). I want to include my friends and family in the details... not to overwork them or put a strain on them. I would never want to do that! But, my friends and family are incredible... they are willing to help and excited at the thought of helping make the start of my marriage a memorable one!
I'm excited about planning this wedding and even MORE excited about marrying Blake! He has been so kind and patient through the past four weeks. We are moving right along... planning as much as we can now so that we can relax a bit during the school semester. He is involved in every decision and has an input in everything... I love it! And... when I get stressed, we just go to Belk and look at George Foreman grills and towels... it makes me happy. :)
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