Too Few, Too Many, or Just Right?

I'm talking guests here, people. Although there are about 125 people on our invite list, we've been guesstimating that only about 70 adults and 5 children would actually attend - and that's the number of people we've budgeted for. Now, I come from the 'more is more' camp when it comes to party attendees. In fact, I've been known to invite way more people into my home than could possibly fit comfortably, and just let them work it out for themselves with the help of everyone's good friend, vodka. So I've been secretly hoping that we'd have more, even *way* more, wedding guests than we've budgeted for. In my mind, that makes for a better party, even though it also makes for a sadder wallet.

image via Ronski Polski

My worst worst worst fear is that only, say, 50 people show up to the wedding and then we've spent beaucoup money on a party that will fizzle early because there aren't enough people there to keep up the energy. (Why it's not my worst fear that 125 people show up and then we're $10,000 over budget, I have no idea.)

image via Savage Chickens

Our social circle is much more on the small and intimate side, plus a smaller guest list is all we can afford. Furthermore, we've chosen a ceremony space that can only seat about 30-40, with standing room only for everyone else. With those calculations, it would stand to reason that 50 guests is too few, 125 is too many, and 75 is just right. But I can't shake the feeling that a few more than 75 guests would be just right-er.

So imagine my pleasant surprise as I've heard whisperings that some guests may be attending who we hadn't thought would be able to come.  And again when we considered adding a few extra invites for  some people who we've grown closer to since we initially made our guest list at the end of 2010.  It's impossible to predict those final RSVP numbers given that many of our guests would be coming in from out of town, but it looks like I might get at least a tiny bit of my 'more is more' wish after all.  

How did you decide your "just right" number of wedding guests?  And did you feel the pull to let that number creep upward?

Keeping It All Organized

Many moons ago a document was forged, upon which was painstakingly penned a list of all tasks, known and imagined, in order that peace and tranquility might be obtained by those soon to be betrothed.

Translation:  We made a wedding to-do list on Google Docs. 

Why Google Docs?  One word: convenience.  It's super easy to share and edit the list together because it's accessible from anywhere.  Interestingly, Mr. FW doesn't like the "spreadsheet" layout I prefer.  His primary complaints (and I agree with them, just not enough to change anything) are that the list extends beyond the width of the screen and that adding a lot of info into one cell increases the size of all the cells in that row.  So he chooses to maintain a separate Google Doc with all the same info, just in list form. 

I prefer the spreadsheet because I like to color-code the boxes as we're working on things so I can quickly see what's finished (blue), in-progress (yellow), and not yet started (white).  If you're following along closely here, you'll notice that we were kicking ass in January, slowed down but were still active in February, really lost our mojo in March, and were completely helpless in April.  May's been a little better, but not much.  Thank goodness it's so easy to cut and paste tasks to reassign them to a later month.  Not that I ever do that.  Nuh uh...  not me.  (And please don't worry - I pulled these screenshots over a month ago, so some of this actually has happened since then!) 

We also use Google Docs to track all of our budgeting and spending.  Theoretically this is wonderful because either of us could add our expenses to the list.  Practically speaking, I'm the one who updates this list with my own purchases plus the receipts given to me by Mr. FW.  I love that I can access my documents from work or home or anywhere else.  So when I'm on my lunch break and feeling overwhelmed with worry that I didn't account for the $8 glue sticks I bought last week, I can quickly log on and reassure myself that every.little.thing has indeed been tracked.

Speaking of Google organizational tools, I can't neglect to mention Gmail.  I dearly, dearly love it for its labels, folders, archiving, search features, and the ability to Gchat with people in real time.  By my estimation, it is far and away the best email system out there. 

The only other "organization" system I've used is some well-labeled computer folders in which I store inspiration pictures I come across online.  No one else has these folders, right?  :-)  These were a lifesaver during the past few years as we were casually planning the wedding, but now you can see that many of these folders haven't had anything added to them in the past six or seven months (and apparently I haven't thought about wedding makeup since September of 2009!).

At some point I tried to put together a wedding binder so that I could have hard copies of my absolute favorite ideas plus any contracts we'd signed, thinking that I'd take it with me to all my vendor meetings and such.  But it's still sitting on our bookshelf, unused and completely empty.  We have electronic copies of all our contracts, and having inspiration images on the computer alone hasn't been a problem for me.  Given what an internet junkie I am, I guess it makes sense that all my organizational tools are online.  Might not be for everyone, but it works for me!

What kinds of stuff have you needed to organize, and what tools get the job done for you?

How Long Can I Put It Off?

Fact:  We are five and a half months out from our wedding and I don't have a dress.

Fact:  Every time I think about wedding dresses, I feel like I want to cry (and I don't mean happy cry.)

Now that I've set the stage, let's get to the backstory.  I like to think of myself as a somewhat fashion-conscious person, but I am by no means an avid shopper or a fashionista.  Let's just chalk that up to being a plus-size girl for nearly my entire life.  So this dress thing is hard, hard, hard and I am seriously not excited about it.  (Kid you not, I am choking back tears as I'm typing this.)  I thought that waiting until I was at the six month mark would kick in some sense of urgency that could potentially turn into excitement, but it just hasn't.  Not to be dramatic, but I feel paralyzed - not willing to do what I probably should do and not sure what I want to do instead. 

Here are the problems I've identified so far.  Number one: I want really badly to love every gorgeous inch of me, but I'm seriously unhappy with my upper arms.  And though there are many things a wedding dress can tuck, lift, camouflage, or enhance, upper arms are not generally one of them.  So I kinda want to wear some sort of elbow-length jacket with my dress so that I can highlight my favorite assets, but I don't want to look overly modest.  (Not that there's anything wrong with modesty, of course.  It's just not what I'm going for.)

image via Traditional Wedding Dress

Number two:  I have a really hard time picturing myself in a white gown on my wedding day.  In fact, when I was a teenager I told my mom that if I ever got married I wanted to wear something hot pink and patterned.  My adult self doesn't find that aesthetic quite as appealing any more, but I do find myself drawn to gray-hued designer dresses.  The problem with those dresses is twofold: the sizes and the price.  If I opted to go with a non-white gown that's not a wedding dress, I have an intense fear that I'll just end up looking like like a charicature of a bride rather than myself as a bride.

image via Wedsmack

Number three:  Dress shopping is not convenient for me, and I'm really busy these days.  I can't just make an appointment at any ol' bridal salon and expect to try on a bunch of dresses because plus-size inventory is significantly limited in almost all dress stores.  To that point, I called the Priscilla of Boston store in San Francisco the other day to ask whether they have plus size samples in their stores.  The nice lady told me that almost all of their dresses can be ordered in sizes up to 32 (I think), but the largest samples they carry in their store are a size 14.  She suggested that by leaving the zipper open they could probably "get me into" some of the dresses so I'll have a sense of what a dress will look like on me "before I order it."  What are the chances I'm going to fall in love with a dress if I'm stuffed into it like a bridal sausage?  And am I crazy for thinking that I would never, ever, EVER buy a wedding dress that I couldn't try on first?  I mean, you can't return those things.  So if it comes in and it doesn't look good on me, I'm totally screwed!  That makes me anxious just thinking about it. 

dress by Allure Bridals

And while I'm on this soapbox - for those places that do offer larger sizes in their dresses, would it kill them to show pictures of actual plus-size women in these dresses on their website?  (And don't try to fool me by just using a model that has curves.  That's nice, and they're beautiful, but what I want is "can't fit into a size 14 sample dress" representation, please.) 

Oh, and while I'm making requests for representation, here's another thought: How about some non-White models?  It can't be as hard as all that, can it? 

image of real bride via Allure Brides

'kay, I think I'm done with this point. Moving on...

Number four:  I'm cheap and wedding dresses aren't.  Our budget currently stands at $1600 for ALL apparel and accessories for BOTH of us. I can always use my own money to go over that amount, but ideally I'd stay within budget because it doesn't really mesh with my values to spend a lot of money on a dress I'll wear for a day. The only potential way around this would be to re-sell my dress after the wedding, which I'm totally fine with. But even with that option, I still can't afford to pony up the kind of money needed to buy most of the dresses I see advertised out there.

dress by Monique Lhuillier ($$$$ = $7000-$20,000)

 

To be honest there are probably way more reasons than the ones I've written about here, but I'll spare you from this becoming any more of a downward spiral than it already is! I think I've made my point abudantly clear - for a million and one reasons, I've put off figuring out that whole wedding dress thing and now I'm feeling really stuck.  What do I do?  

If you ever felt paralyzed in the dress shopping process, how did you move past it? 

Unexpected Venue Choice

Whatever aversions I had to hotel ballroom weddings (and thanks to being in wedding blogland for a while, I had a lot) fizzled pretty quickly when we realized that their wedding 'packages' would mean a little less planning for us and a lot more convenience for our guests.  Those things are hard to definitively put a price on, but when we did the calculations as best we could we figured that having our ceremony and reception at a hotel (depending on the specific hotel, of course because I'm not talking the Ritz Carlton here) might cost us $1-2000 more than another venue.  And we decided that was worth it to us. 

When we went to visit the Parc 55 Hotel we were already impressed with some of their package perks (free suite for the wedding night, free hour of open bar, etc.).  We toured some of the typical ceremony spaces on the lower floors when, on a whim, I asked the coordinator whether they had any spaces with unbelievable views, even if the room wasn't technically an event space.  She led us up to the Club Lounge on the 30-somethingth floor.  The room is small and awkwardly laid out, not all of ours guests would be able to have a seat, and there are some elements of the room we would definitely need to camouflage. 

That said, ohmystars - the view!  Just... breathtaking!  We were there in the daytime, so with all the windows around the room there was a gorgeous view of downtown San Francisco and the bay.  Mr. FW and I were floored.  We stood there quietly staring out the windows together, soaking in our unspoken agreement that we really wanted to get married in that.very.spot.  We didn't need to see anything else, because we were clearly sold.  This was our venue!

In my mind I was trying to picture what those windows would look like at night, full of city lights.  Going back to the site many months later, here is what I found:

{Forgive the terrible quality.  But even with it, you can see the awesomeness, right?}

Ah-mazing!  We love, love, love it!  Of course, like any space, it has its challenges.  The view from the entry door is strange:

{ceremony location on the other side of this built-in marble table}

There are some cabinets, a tv, and a breakfast prep area that I'd like to conceal:

{Any idea how we could cover these?}

And... the thing I didn't give all that much thought to when we booked the place, the lighting:



{Oh hello strange lighting scheme, uninvited reflection, and washed-out city lights.}

If you notice in this picture, you can see that the lighting scheme consists of overhead recessed lighting (not on because it's bright) and several floor lamps (awkward for a ceremony, yeah?).  Also, and this is the dealbreaker for me, the lamplight is being reflected in the window!  Yes, in the window that would be our ceremony backdrop!  I want pictures of us in front of the city lights, not us in front of reflections of floor lamps.  So we're going to send some of these pictures to our photographers and ask for their input about how to tackle the lighting in the room. 

So that's the unique little space where we're going to hold the ceremony.  Then everyone will traipse downstairs to the ballroom, where we will use 2 of the 3 ballroom sections.  Here is one of the sections set up conference-style:

{let's just keep this set-up, shall we?}

As you can probably tell, I am not a person who is generally compelled by pictures of traditional hotel ballroom receptions.  I blame this almost entirely on blogland, but I also have to take some responsibility for it.  See, we're not having flowers.  And we're not going to use round tables.  We're not going to have a multi-tier wedding cake.  And we probably won't have a dj.  Ya know, all the things that are usually associated with hotel ballroom receptions.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with those things, of course.  We're just not going that route, which means that we are absurdly committed to finding ways to have a nontraditional wedding in a fairly traditional hotel setting.  The first step for us was choosing an offbeat ceremony location at the hotel.  The next step is to successfully decorate the ballroom in a way that conveys our laidback-chic DIY-craftastic style.  We have lot of ideas, but of course it's the execution that counts!

Did you include any hotels in your venue search - why or why not?  And if you've ever seen a nontraditionally-styled hotel wedding, what did it look like? 

The (Affordable) Venue Hunt

I don't know where this thought came from, but I'm acutely aware than when we first started looking at wedding venues in San Francisco I honestly believed that for $10,000 we could have a November wedding and get a conveniently-located city lights view and/or waterfront venue for no more than 100 people that would include site rental fees, equipment/furniture rentals, open bar, food, lighting, audio, dance floor, music, wedding day coordinator, decorations, and a photobooth (and those are just the requirements I can remember right now).

Let me just say for the record, I was W-R-O-N-G wrong.

You can absolutely have some of those elements for that cost, but you can't have all of them.  And trying to decide what to leave off the list felt to me like trying to decide which of my two front teeth I'd rather live without.

So instead of finding things to strike from our "want" list, we began by simply trying to minimize the costs of those things we saw as necessities for our ceremony and reception: site rental fees, food, and alcohol.  After seeing a few places and ruling out those that were too expensive, we were left with 4 options.

First up, The Box SF. 

all above images from The Box SF Yelp page

The overall style of this place was such a good fit for us.  It had that open and airy loft feel and big windows with cool views.  The long table is made from 300-year old antique village gate doors from China, and in person it is simply spectacular!  The size of the space, though, would definitely have limited our guest list to no more than 75 people and we'd have to leave the space in between the ceremony and reception so they could turn it over.  Also, it's located in a fairly gritty part of town.  With the public transportation options around there, our guests would definitely have to walk through several blocks of a less-than-splendorific locale in order to reach the place - and then do it not once, but twice if we had to come back for the reception.  The deal-breaker for us?  Lack of air conditioning.  Pack 75 people into this tiny space, and those pictures are for sure going to look like they were taken at a water park rather than a wedding. 

 

Next up, Blue Sky Rental Studios. 

above 3 pictures from the Blue Sky Rental Studios website

This place just looks cool, right?  And they're ridiculously affordable, in SF terms.  I didn't bring my camera here either, so I apologize.  ( Wasn't a blogger yet.  I'm better now, I swear.)  The building is located right next to a MUNI train line so it would be super easy for our guests to get here, and the neighborhood is not that bad.  All in all there was tons of space and they seemed really open to letting us do whatever we wanted with it.  There were a few scratch-your-head-in-wonder type moments, though.  First of all these studios are located inside a massive, massive building that houses what must be hundreds of other businesses.  Getting to their front door was an epic adventure (like, I'm pretty sure we passed a sweatshop on the way - no lie), and I wondered how in the world we'd come up with enough signage to direct our guests so that they wouldn't find themselves lost in an industrial warehouse.  On that note, the warehouse vibe is crazy cool but also kind of intimidating when you're trying to figure out how to disguise the random kitchenette or hanging cabinets, how to conceal the shower in the bathroom, or how to dampen the echo off all the concrete. 

Next in line, the Fort Mason Center Firehouse. 

above 2 images from the Firehouse website

photography by Robert Domondon Photography

picture found online via a website that no longer exists

As you can see, this place is pretty tiny as well.  But it was adorable, and so affordable!  Right on the water, secluded from the other buildings of the Fort Mason Center, and a lot of nearby parking.  It had several separate rooms so that we could create a lounge area or a photobooth area if we wanted to.  They allow you to use any caterer you want, including caterers who will let you buy your own alcohol for them to serve.  Major cost saver!  Loved loved loved the high ceilings.  It's such a blank slate that it would need a fair amount of DIY decoration to make it what we wanted, plus there are some weird, umm... architectural? features, such as the old water fountains attached the wall.   The size of the space means we would again have had to leave the space after the ceremony to turn it over for the reception, but at least this venue was in a great part of town for some sightseeing. 

Right down the way from the Firehouse is the Fort Mason Conference Center. 

above 4 images from the Conference Center website

I wish I had taken my camera to this space because we really, really liked it.  The rules for catering were the same as the Firehouse, making this another good deal.  At this space there were again several rooms available to us, all with windows looking out over the marina full of sailboats.  I haven't actually been on many sailboats in my life, but it seems romantical, no?  There was a room large enough for a wonderfully-intimate-but-not-overcrowded ceremony space, and then we could adjourn to a reception space large enough for all the tables plus a bar, photobooth, and dance floor.  Another small room was perfect for the caterers to set up in, and there were restrooms in this suite of rooms so that everything could be self-contained.  The price for all-day rental was higher than the Firehouse, but we wouldn't have to leave and come back, which would save us money on transportation for our guests.  Everything was a total blank slate, and they seemed really willing to work with us to allow us to create whatever vision we had in mind.

While we were here, we were looking at each other like, "this is it!"  Even after our appointment was over we hung around outside the building, peering in through the windows talking about where we would place everything and how great a location it is.  We were *this close* to ending our venue search...


Did you come close to picking a venue, only to change your mind?

Make-Believe Budget Land

How do you create a wedding budget?  No, seriously, how in the world do you decide how much to spend on your wedding when you have no idea how much weddings cost, how much you can afford to spend, or what needs to be included in the total?  Frankly, I have absolutely no freaking idea.  This budgeting tale of ours that I'm about to spin is by no means a "suggested method" of creating a wedding budget.  It's just the random, kinda messed up, pretty-useful-but-not-perfect way that we went about it. 

image via yesandyes.org

Back before I knew anything about the world of wedding blogs (and life was dark and dreary), I started the budget research in the same way I assume lots of other people do - I googled something like "wedding budget calculator."  Apparently, to effectively use those budget calculators you need to first know how much you want to spend.  Well, there was only one other person we'd known who'd gotten married in a quasi-similar location and we thought we had a general idea of how much that wedding cost (although we had no idea how "all-inclusive" or not that number was).  We then decided that number was much too high for us, so we reduced it by 1/3.  Based on what, you ask?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  We arbitrarily slashed a budget total amount by 1/3 because we wanted to.  Thus our entrance into Make Believe Land.

image via The Funny Pages

I took this make believe number and plugged it into the budget calculator, which yielded many smaller numbers attached to discrete categories (attire, accessories, jewelry, gifts, ceremony, reception, officiant, etc. etc.).  Again, with the whole not knowing what the hell our wedding was going to include thing, I made some totally arbitrary decisions to cut certain categories and move some of the money around.  In particular I focused on the two categories most important to us - photographer and ceremony/reception costs.  I allocated 75% of our make believe budget to these categories, figuring that I'd just magically be able to find photographers and venues that would work within those budgets and that there's no way we'd spend more than the additional 25% on all those other weddings costs (cuz, ya know, I'm gonna do everything myself...  And also I was living in Make Believe Land). 

image via musicchartheaven.com

Related to these arbitrary decisions I made, a controversial wedding budget topic I often see talked about is what exactly gets included in the budget.  Do you wanna include engagement ring(s), honeymoon, rehearsal dinner, other wedding weekend activities?  The list goes on and on.  In my particular Make Believe Land, it only felt necessary to include the *really big* wedding purchases - the ones where a lot of money would come due all at the same time.  I also had strong feelings about what should not go in the budget, namely things that other people might contribute to (like the honeymoon, because we'll have a honeymoon registry), things we didn't yet know what we'd do for it (like the rehearsal dinner or other wedding weekend activities), and things we would re-sell after the wedding (like candy buffet jars or linens).  In my mind, this is a totally reasonable way to approach our budget - 1) because we're having a long engagement so we have significant time to both save and spend money, 2) because smaller costs would just get rolled into our regular monthly credit card bills so we'd never really notice the difference, 3) because we could decide at a later date what we could afford for all the things we didn't include in the original budget, and 4) because money we spend and then re-coup later doesn't feel like money spent to me.

Unfortunately (for me), Mr. FW approaches budgeting very differently.  For him, budgets should account for every dollar spent on anything wedding-related - things that are outside the realm of our regular purchases.  He was not a fan of Ms. Ferris Wheel's Make Believe Budget, no-sir-ee.

 

Where does that leave our budget?  Good question, to which I have a less make believeish but equally fantastical response.  Right now our budget exists as what I might call a 3-tier system.  The first tier is the original budget I put together all those many months ago (venue/catering, photography, miscellaneous).  The second tier is less researched and less specific, and it consists of estimates for those bigger ticket items that should be covered by the miscellaneous category in the first tier but that we're not yet sure we'll actually be spending (photobooth, DJ, lighting, rehearsal dinner, honeymoon).  The third tier is the most frequently updated, where I'm keeping track of every single penny spent on anything remotely wedding-related no matter how small the purchase ($5 for photo printing, $2 for ribbon).   The hope is that, as our wedding date nears, we'll have an up-to-the-minute totaling of *all* our expenses from which we can base our decisions about those second tier items where we have some flexibility.

{3 tiers - these are full of goodies more palatable than budget items}

image via Rose Petals Cakery

For sure the final budget is not as pretty as the make believe budget, it's way more complicated than it probably needs to be, and it will likely change as time goes on...  but it's working for us.  For me, for now, that's enough.

Who else began with an idealized budget that morphed into something less attractive over time?