Let's Get Real

Ok I'm getting real with you. I am STRESSED OUT. Saturday is the one month mark. And I still haven't gotten my dress altered. (Insert Freak Out Here)

Why? Um because I didn't have shoes, a bra, or crinoline. I just purchased shoes and a bra this week, but I still don't have a crinoline. I have been looking for them used but no luck - I am trying not to shell out the money for a new one. Also, I am borderline plus size (top of normal sizes or bottom of plus-sizes) and that makes it hard. I could cry over this... but there's no getting my dress altered without it, since a crinoline can alter the length of your dress up a bit.

I am also freaking out about boarding our dogs and about finding a bolero... oh and about actually being able to make an appointment to pick out tuxes (we haven't) but that's another story.

And last but not least, I am freaking out about my reception dress. Since we don't have a formal reception I knew I'd change, but had no luck with short white dresses being under $100. I branched out to black and white, and found this one:

It's perfect, right? The only thing is, I'm not sure about the shape. I'm a very curvy girl and shifts don't tend to look awesome on me. Andddd it's not in any stores near me. (View the dress here, Macy's.)

Then I found this one, which looked grey but upon further inspection was a black and white print:

This wrap-like shape looks great on me. But it's more plain, more blah. It's also not in any stores near me. I would wear it more often after the wedding than the above one, but it just doesn't scream "statement" like the first. (View the dress here, Macy's.)

I really wish I had the money to order both, try them on, then return one. Darn it! What do you all think? Especially those of you who know my body shape.

I really wish I had girlfriends or my Mom here to calm me down.

Making the Best of a Poop Day

Mr Pug used the wedding to distract me and get me out of the house today. We went to the south side to try on a crinoline that was for sale on craigslist. Unfortunately, it was too small, but we were not deterred! We headed up to Shane Co with our gift card in hand to pick out his ring.

And pick out a ring we did! We wanted white gold (not a fan of tungsten or titanium) and they were all quite pricey. Silly me though we could get a white gold ring for $200! The one we picked was one of the least expensive. I know Mr P liked another white gold one that was over $700. I told him we could try to finance it, but he said he'd rather get a less expensive one that he liked, and upgrade in the future if he wants to. I agreed, since then if he does decide to upgrade for say, our 5 year anniversary, he can use his first one for backup, vacations, etc.

I wish we had the money to get him an expensive ring he is all melty & ga-ga over, but he does really like the ring we got.

After tax it was $347. It is white gold with the beading on the edges. Detail:

He got sized and his ring will be ready on Tuesday! Not bad for $147 after our gift card. Once we make sure the size is right, I'll get an inscription engraved for him.

I also talked to them about getting my rings soldered. I brought them all and showed him the fit on me, because I was concerned they'd be a bit snug once soldered. He agreed and suggested that when I take them to get soldered, I have them all upped 1/4 size. They said it would only take a few days, but I'll probably do it a week before the wedding at least, justtttt in case.

We went to a celebratory lunch and then I decided my day of fun was over. Time to sit on the couch and wish this icky day away! At least now I have a happy memory for 1/30 - picking out my fiance's ring with him!

Were you surprised at the prices of men's rings? How did you and your fiance pick his ring - together, or one of you alone?

Let Me Eat Cake, Yo!

Since our lovely changes to the wedding I haven't discussed our cake situation. Our changes brought financial difficultly, and we weren't sure what to do about cake/dessert in general. Our package at Buca included tiramisu or cheesecake, so that was an easy possibility. But, we still wanted our delicious Holy Cow, Cupcakes! cuppies. (Remember our tasting? MAPLE BACON?) The only issue was cost. Funds are tighter than ever now that we are getting zero help.

That's when my friend Laura stepped in - and said she'd do our cake for us as a wedding gift! We know first hand that her cakes are amazing. She makes a cake called "AYFKM Cake" (Are you -- kidding me?) and has brought it to some of our pug get-togethers. (Yes, she has a pug too!) For our get-together around my birthday last year, she made this cake:

Best part? Ok there are two. The pugs on the cake are cookies, and are decorated to look like my pugs Dixie, Sophie, and Harley! The other- it is red velvet! A two-layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and white chocolate shavings on top of the icing between the layers. She gave this to us to take home and we ate it for like, weeks.

See how excited I am!?

We haven't decided what she's making yet. It will depend on the number of RSVP's, etc. We will do either cupcakes or a small cake for the Buca dinner. If it works out that our friend will host an after-party, we might do a second sheet cake (like the pictures) for the party.

Part of the reason I love cupcakes is that I'm not a fan of the overly-decorated cakes you see everywhere. I think fondant tastes nasty. I think designs and flowers are overkill. I like a plain buttercream cake. Old school.

I searched "plain buttercream wedding cake" and this came up. SERIOUSLY?

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Something more like the one below- simply decorated and nothing over-the-top. Just... take off the flowers and put some pugs on top, k thanx.

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However, Laura has a cupcake tower, and I'd love to do cupcakes at the Buca dinner too. This would probably be an easier option for Laura as well- and we could still do a small cake on top to save for our 1 year anniversary! (Or one month, let's be honest.)

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Yes, our colors are green, black, and white. But when you're not having a true reception - and the inside of the restaurant you're having dinner at is CRAZY with red & white checkered tablecloths- you have to let go a bit. So I did, I let go. I think I could, in fact, embrace it with checkered red and white cupcake liners and red sprinkles. It goes with the fun Italian atmosphere inside the restaurant.

My only problem? I want my Holy Cow, Cupcakes! Maple Bacon screams my name, and of course, their Cookie Dough cuppies have a place in my heart. Solution! Our Indiana backyard celebration this summer. We can get an array of cupcakes and set them out at the party instead of a cake or other dessert. Brilliant! Then we can even be more creative, since I'll be doing themes/colors for the summer celebrations. Summer = bright colors right? I can't wait!

What lucky breaks helped you out when you needed it most? What are your likes and dislikes you discovered while looking at cakes? Are you buttercream all the way or a fondant groupie?

My last day as a commoner...

...because tomorrow, I become famous.

Ok, not really. But tomorrow I go to a studio to record my radio commercial for Shane Company Jewelers!!!!

I wrote a comment through their website's "contact us" feature. I had gotten kind of mad about all the Distinctive Diamonds commercials I heard... well, maybe I should back up and tell you my ring shopping stories first.

After a few shorts months with Mr P I already was looking at rings, since for the first time, I was with someone I could see myself marrying! For Christmas 2007, he got me a Promise Ring from Helzberg Diamonds. Whenever I was near there, I'd stop in, get it cleaned, and oogle their rings. When Mr Pug and I started talking seriously about marriage and rings, I asked questions when I was getting it cleaned (in the summer of 2008). The ring I liked was at a set price- and the stone couldn't be changed. You couldn't decide your own diamond? But what if you want a brilliant colorless stone, but don't mind inclusions? Or if you have a gold setting and can go a little more to the warm tones in the color scale? I was turned off by this and moved on.

We looked at a few more places. I was kind of naggy and annoying. After a dinner, I made him go into Distinctive Diamonds. They were very nice and had great diamonds and settings available. I put it out of my mind. Then one day - October 30, 2008 - we were driving somewhere and a Shane Company commercial came on the radio. And I was naggy, and said something like "we need to goooooo!" and Mr P said something like "not today" and I said something like "you always sayyyy thattttt!" And you know what? He turned the car in the direction of Shane Co! And boy am I glad he did - he actually bought the ring that day!

I was deciding between my setting and the setting below. I illustrated it for you with a 2 carat diamond because, why not?

The saleslady asked me which setting I wanted to try with a diamond first. I picked mine to try first and she put away this one- her trickery worked, and helped me pick out my dream setting.

Here it is, with my promise ring peeking out below!

The reason I was so glad we went to Shane Company, and why Mr Pug was happy to put money down that day (besides the great selection and service) was realizing the value we got. You see, we saved over $2,000 compared to a nearly identical setting and diamond at Distinctive Diamonds! Nearly the exact same .9 carat center diamond and halo setting... two grand saved. AND you can say nearly two grand saved if you count the price of my ring and the two bands we purchased. That made a big difference! Plus, Shane Co offers great incentives, like lifetime care, cleaning, fixing, etc., and even allow you to trade in your diamond for the amount you paid for it. So, should I ever want to upgrade in the future, I won't lose money. We were sold!

I heard the Distinctive Diamonds commercials saying they had the BEST value and would NOT be undersold, and got a little angry. I did some shouting at the radio ("LIESSS!") and sent the people at Shane Co my email. A while after I sent that comment I was contacted by a Shane Co representative. In return for taping the radio commercial (it's a "Dear Tom" letter to Tom Shane) they will be sending us a $200 gift card, which will surely help with the cost of Mr Pug's ring (which no, we have not gotten yet... so behind.)

I must be pretty jazzed about tomorrow since I forgot to wear my ring today! That hasn't happened at all since I stopped wearing it at night back in November and got my cool ring giraffe.

Also- a note about something Mr P and I learned while ring shopping. We saved a bunch by doing a .9 carat center stone. It's a big jump in price from .9 to 1 carat... that wasn't worth it for me to be able to say it was one carat. I find it to be the perfect size!

I haven't shared these stories with anyone, really. I don't usually offer the information that we shopped around together. Were you surprised by your ring, or did you shop with your soon-to-be-hubby? Did you both (or did he) shop around or find it on the first try? Any great shopping stories?

I should also add that this is not a compensated post. Yes I am getting a gift card for doing the commercial, but this post was my idea, solely to share my experience with all of you, and has not been compensated.

They're Leaving Me!

That's right, folks. My invitations are leaving me today! They're sitting in a big box ready for the mailman to come take them off my desk.

The past few days were a lot of work! If you are planning to at all DIY your invites- even just assembling them- it takes time. Lots of it.

I ended up going to FedEx to print my labels and maps. I'm really glad I did- I learned about the difference between laser and inkjet printers. Inkjets are ink in the sense you'd imagine- and that's why when it hits the paper, it can bleed a bit or smudge. If water hits it, it will definitely run. A laser printer uses a powder ink that sets. It looks much sharper and won't run or smudge. I was so happy I went with FedEx printing! It was a splurge at .59 cents a sheet, but worth it. I had a feeling trying to print them on my own would be more frustration and time that I didn't have.

I used my paper cutter to cut the labels and maps all morning Sunday. Then I spent the night rounding the corners of the RSVPs, invitations, and map inserts. I started assembling but, because we didn't have stamps, I had to wait until Monday to finish them. Monday I stamped the RSVP postcards (postcards saved me .15 cents in postage per RSVP!) Last night after stamping, I was ready to stuff and stamp the main envelopes.

So the labels went closer to the bottom, they were not the exact same from one envelope to another as you can see by the stack, but they won't know that!

Here's the finished stack.

I then had a minor stamp emergency. I had Mr Pug pick up 115 stamps of each. When I was done, I had 4 regular stamps left, and 5 postcard stamps. I was afraid that in my stamp-then-stuff assembly line, I had forgotten to include an RSVP postcard in one envelope! Since they were the thickest/heaviest stock, I felt for them in all the invitations, and per my inquisitive feeling skills, they all had one. What I am thinking is that one RSVP card will be without a stamp- they were sort of clinging to one another in their pile while I was stamping them, it's a definite possibility. Or perhaps the post office goofed up and either gave us and extra stamp or shorted us one. Less likely, but a possibility nonetheless. In any case, I just hope the stamp-less RSVP card doesn't go to the wrong person, like Mr P's upper-class aunt who thinks we are doing ourselves "a major disservice by not registering for china" and that our Sandals honeymoon is like "ordering lobster from Houlihan's." I'm not sure she'll find Dixie on our RSVP postcards as entertaining as we do, either!

I boxed up our invites last night to take them to work today. You can see that we used the wedding ring stamp.

I had wanted the King and Queen of Hearts stamps:

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...but they were all out when Mr Pug hit the post office. He was quite smart to grab the ring ones instead of the flags or forever stamp! I just thought the king & queen had colors that would work better with our invitations. OH WELL... there are polar bears on our RSVP postcards, for goodness sake!

In case anyone wondered, here is our breakdown:

Invitation and RSVP postcard printing: $81.98.

Note: The breakdown of this price is weird. The invites I originally ordered were $77 for 150, and then two $2.49 upload fees. They re-did them for free and added in my RSVP postcards. This worked because they wanted to fix the issues in my invites, which meant reprinting, and then I had won a contest as well. Usually you can get a good amount of postcards free though. I had free 3-day shipping as well.

Label sheets (100 sheets): $11.99 (I used 29 sheets, so that would be $3.48 if I could sell what's left.)

Linen paper (100 sheets): $28.79 (I used 30 sheets, so that would be $8.64. We can use the rest for future resume distributions.)

Paper cutter: $0 towards invitations. I couldn't find it online to show you all, but it was Staples brand and a little over $30. I will use this for so much more though, so I'd prefer to just count the full paper product costs, and not count the paper cutter.

Printing: $36.62 (At .59 cents a sheet, times 58 pages, is $34.22 pre-tax. Not horrible for laser printing.)

Postage: $87.20 (THAT HURT. We'll probably have 5-10 leftovers but I wanted to be safe rather than sorry.)

Total Costs: $246.58

We have 110 ready to send, but about 5 more to go out later because of address changes, etc. Divide that by 115...

Cost per Invitation: $2.14

In itself, that isn't horrible. Things like the printing could have been worked out earlier - find a friend with a good printer willing to let me use it, or use a laser office computer. Also, having to buy 100 labels was a pain. (Anyone want to buy some label sheets? They work on inkjet OR laser printers!) But at the end of the day, postage was the worst. Each one cost us .72 cents in stamps alone. So they were only $1.42 to make. I can be happy with that!

Did you guys learn anything from my experience? I hope it helped a bit. If I had realized how much time this took I would have started a while ago. It also doesn't help that everything but the actual invites were purchased this week- we are down to oh $6 or so until I get paid on Friday! Spreading this out would have been less stressful on my time and wallet for sure.

Where will you be getting your invitations from? Are they more DIY or painless? And what is your per-invite budget?

(ps- I suppose I maybe should maybe include the invitation design fee which was like $30 or so, give or take $5, but that was FOREVER ago and since I re-did them and such, I didn't feel it was necessary. But just realize, if someone designs your invitations, you pay them!)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changesssss...

This is such a hard entry for me to write!

Thanksgiving was, well, a bust. I won't even go into the family drama but there were fights- about everything and anything, between the whole family and between just one or two people. Mr Pug was angered and made comments about how frustrating being around his family was, and that he wished we were just going to Vegas instead of having a big wedding that they would attend. FMIL pushed the issue, as if that was a good idea. Long story short, she told us she was not going to be giving us the monetary gift towards the wedding that she and her partner had promised. (I wrote about it on Weddingbee here since I wanted to vent but couldn't blog until I notified guests... just have to shout out for the support I got from the girls on there.)

Why the "take-back?" It's not clear. It's not that she doesn't "want to," but it seems to be about finances and personal issues. It's not right that she waited until 112 days before the wedding to tell us, after the STD's went out, and after some people had booked flights. Some things were said that made me upset but ultimately, Mr Pug and I had to and have to deal with this. Without the money we were promised, we knew we'd be unable to make ends meet for our wedding.

On his end, there was a lot of anger, frustration. Partly with his family and partly with the stress brought on by the wedding. On my end, there were lots of tears. And a lot of this:

I frantically searched for other options, VFW halls, Lions clubs, anything. I used my master spreadsheet for our reception venue to cut things. Even cutting the decorations and open bar wouldn't make it affordable. Part of it was frustrating though, because of that. Why should we have to pay the 20% and then sales tax on a meal? It makes sense I guess, but in our situation, it doesn't. Finally Mr Pug had an idea, that led to an idea, that led to an idea, and within a half an hour we had it figured out.

Our New Plan:

We are still having our ceremony as planned. Dresses, makeup, flower bouquets, PHOTOGRAPHY, organ playing, wedding party (hopefully!), and the works. After that... nothing.

Now, technically, we are planning to take our family and friends to dinner. But it won't be fancy and it has to be SMALL. We're not really openly sharing this news about the dinner with everyone. Our closest family and friends who can afford to will come to the ceremony, and then after RSVP's come in we'll invite the people closest to us to come out to dinner. It will be somewhat intimate and fun. Best of all, after that, we are inviting EVERYONE to hit the bars with us.

We're also letting people know that we'll have two casual, backyard celebrations this summer: one in Indianapolis, and one in New Jersey. That way, everyone can be involved this summer, and we can still celebrate with our guests. And... I get to plan two fun casual summer parties!

We had this idea on Monday, and then sat on it for a little while. I talked it over with my Mom (aka Wonder Woman, aka my ROCK) and she drafted an email to send family to let them know the change ASAP. I then worked off that and emailed my friends a similar message. Mr Pug will notify his family and friends soon as well, though they are much less affected (effected? whatever) by it as most of them live here or within driving distance. At least then they'll know that most of them won't be attending any sort of meal after the ceremony with us, and maybe some of them can make plans to go out to dinner together or to congregate at someone's house to continue the celebration before the after-party.

It was hard to email my friends... I feel horrible. It feels NASTY to say "oh we're having an intimate dinner after with pretty much just close family and the wedding party" (which I feel like could read as "we're doing something and NOT inviting YOU!") I also feel badly for those who booked flights and now may want to reconsider attending the ceremony, and would prefer to attend one of the summer celebrations. But I guess I can't let myself worry. If people want to come, and people can afford to come, they will. To something. And it will be because they care - which is what matters.

So is this still Miss Pug's "pawfect" wedding? Yes and no. It's not what I dreamed of as a little girl. In fact I haven't read wedding blogs since Saturday, it's too upsetting. A post about "which toasting flutes should we pick!?" made me want to throw the computer in jealousy. But we refuse to go into debt over an event, and we don't want to start our marriage out in debt. We already have student loans! We made a decision, and I'm trying to look on the bright side of things (like, perhaps, a casually Tuscan backyard celebration in NJ with limonata and lemoncello? Oh this is getting good! More planning!)

Up next? My super-wonderful crazy amazing invitation & STD designer Laurel whipped up a new "invitation" for me in like, hours. I can't wait to show you all!

Please Hold...

Well all... Thanksgiving over. And it was not without drama. So much so, that things have drastically changed in our wedding planning. I'm going to be figuring things out with Mr Pug in the next day or so (don't worry- still getting married!!) and then will update you all. It's been an extremely tough few days, so thanks for your prayers and patience!

4 Months, Tears, & Venue Proposal Revisions

First of all, thank you guys so much for your great comments! I'm glad so many of you are willing to offer your thoughts. Mr Pug and I talked and of course, were in agreement about getting rid of the fruits and the projector (the projector was a last minute "why not" of his, and the fruits were since we wouldn't be able to do a dessert buffet.) We are sort of ambivalent about the champagne... I said, "Remember at that wedding, there wasn't a champagne toast!" And he said, "Um, yes there was." Which says to me 1. I was too drunk and 2. If I, crazy Pugzilla Bride Blogger, did not notice or care either way, others might not either. Also, thanks Katerina from GirlWithARing who said her parents really cared about it... we realized before setting anything in stone, we should probably talk to our parents in case something is super-important to them.

Realizing what an "average" budget in your area is seems to be a hot topic. Many of you commented on it, and I noticed it on the Weddingbee boards today here. WB member Snake posted this Cost of Wedding site, where you plug in your zip code and find out the average range of the cost to get married in that city or town, not including the ring or honeymoon.

Ready for this? My hometown of Caldwell NJ has an average wedding cost of $41,918 and $69,863. Yes, seriously. Well, I guess to those of you in Beverly Hills CA ($57,216 and $95,361) would be jealous of that. (Yea that's right, I plugged in 90210!) Indianapolis IN comes in at $16,369 and $27,282, which I think is reasonable. With the $40+ a plate (for CHICKEN!) and thousands-of-dollars venue rental fees we found, I think that means a lot of Indianapolis weddings are smaller than our 200-guest goal. We had to venture north of the city to get a great cost ourselves.

Back to our proposal. I called my mom on the way home from work and had a good cry. I knew this all was coming- the 19%, the cost for drinks, etc.- but had to just cry about all the money we lost when I lost my job (and we had to spend all our savings to get by) or when we had the other money issues I haven't blogged about, and a leaky roof. I complained about the parents who give their kids 30 grand and say "have fun!" I lamented about not having people to talk to about this in my real life. She lets me vent and is so wonderful. She wishes she could help, but my Dad not having life insurance when he passed away really screwed her financially. (CALL YOUR PARENTS AND MAKE SURE THEY HAVE LIFE INSURANCE, NOT JUST FOR YOU, BUT FOR THE SURVIVING PARENT!) Her support really made me feel less gloomy though, and she told me to get in there and hug my wonderful fiance. Which I did!

Just after I went over the spreadsheet Mojito helped me make, Mr Pugs was playing X-Box Live and I was folding my mountains of laundry. And the phone rang. It was our venue's representative. She wanted to clarify a few things on our proposal which I had emailed her about. The first was that I had asked her about linens- and yes, they were included in the room rental cost, not left out accidentally. (YAY!) The other was the bar. (Gulp!)

We had come up with a few bar options we wanted priced, and had expected them all to be on the proposal. In her call she said that she could only put one in that program, but wanted to tell us our other details. What we had on our proposal was the most expensive option. The soda was included (I split it off in my spreadsheet) and it was all $7/person for the first hour, and $3.50/person for each additional hour. She said the other two options would be cheaper! First was the option to buy our own kegs and wine. Second would be to do a consumption bar, where we put any amount of money down, and then decided what drinks we would serve. If the money ran out, we could pay more money that night and keep it open.

Here are my thoughts about the options:

Host Bar Option:

This sounded like a good option, but I was having a hard time deciding how much wine and beer to estimate. I looked at the Real Simple and evite estimators and struggled with, "is this the right amount?" It would be different if we were buying them ourselves, but already paying an up-charge by buying through our venue, I thought consumption might be better. Plus- we'd still have to do the pay for soda versus no soda debate!

Consumption Bar Option:

This option is where we do a set amount. We can select which drinks are available (we'd do domestic beers ($2.75 each) and house wine or champagne ($5.00/glass) and maybe even a premium wine if that means Riesling! ($6.00/glass) Sodas could also be included then for $1.50 each- that way, we pay per soda ordered, not per person! This would be a good option for a couple wanting a signature drink- if we wanted to include, say, a Pugtini, we could make that available too and only pay for the ones ordered. Any other drinks would be available but for cash. I think a good amount to put down would be $2,500. Then, if we are getting close to hitting that mark, our coordinator finds us (or a parent if we designate them) and we can add more money to our consumption bar tab. Even if we go over the original bar cost we were quoted ($3,500) by adding more later in the night, that's money we didn't have to worry about paying in advance. That's what wedding gifts of cash are for!

Here's what our venue budget looks like:

The only thing different for total cost is the reduction of the bar cost to $2,500. Choice 1 eliminates fruits and projectors, and Choice 2 eliminates those plus champagne. I feel much better! We can also do a bit between Choices 1 & 2 by doing all sparkling grape juice.

When has something bad improved for you in wedding planning? And who do you go to for venting purposes besides your fiance?

ps... I'M GETTING MARRIED FOUR MONTHS FROM TODAY!!!!!!!!!! HOLY $(@*#!!!!!!!

Holy 19%, Batman!

If I could tell any newly-engaged girl a tidbit to help her, I now know what it would be.

DON'T FORGET THE SERVICE CHARGE.

Looking at venues, we would do math in our heads, looking at either per person cost, or the minimum, etc. We knew that most places have an 18-20% service charge, but didn't really think about it. I guess in my head I maybe thought it wasn't that much? Well it totally blew our venue budget. Remember when we went over what we wanted at Palomino, and she said she'd type it up and send it to us, and then we could add/change/delete? I got that email. And it blew me away. I made it into a spreadsheet, which I am going to share with you in a minute.

Before you read on, I want you to note that it wasn't an easy decision to share this with you all. A lot of money to one person is nothing to another, and vice versa. Some of you have posted your budgets, or I've seen some on wedding sites, and a lot of the time I'm sort of judge-y. You know, like, "They think that's a budget wedding?" So I'm asking you to put yourselves in my shoes- remember the cost where we live, remember that we're paying for the wedding ourselves, and remember that we are very, very poor and this is a lot of money to us!

Okay, off soapbox. Onwards!

Here's the beginning of the excel document I made. I did this so I could add columns where I could then omit items and see where we stood. The total cost is for everything listed on the proposal.

Above are the food items. This could change depending on what people order, and most importantly, how many people come! We selected the fruit and strawberries thinking it would be nice, as not everyone loves cakes. They will be getting a dinner salad and rolls, meal with sides, garlic bread, drinks, and cupcakes- $840.00 more? For that they can stop at Arby's on the way home if they are honestly still hungry after the schmorgasboard. SORRY! Geez Louise that's more than we're paying for cake!

Below are the non-food details... not so bad! I LIKE OUR SUBTOTAL! That's just above where we were hoping to be.

Wait a second... there's more.

Yep you can't forget that SERVICE CHARGE! It was nearly 2k for us, and for more pricey areas/higher budgets, this could get expensive and quick. But that wasn't all...

About 3k above where we would feel comfortable. I calmed myself down and thought through the details. I was really upset that to have a cheaper bar, we'd need to pay $2 per person for soda. They get free water, coffee, lemonade, and iced tea, so chopping this was an option. (Soda comes with any open bar package, but we chose just domestic beer and house wine.) The fruits are definitely out, as well as the projector and screen. We thought it would be nice to show a slideshow during dinner, but for that cost, the $25 bar TV's showing our slideshow will be enough. Something to do while waiting for drinks!

I took these considerations and made a few choices.

Choice 1- All options except the fruit desserts and projector. This would run us $10,116.01.

Choice 2- Same as above, but also no soft drinks. This would run us $9,608.01

Choice 3- "Bare Minimum." Same as #2 but also no champagne toast, uplighting or ceiling swags. This would run us $9,036.51.

Choice 4- "Desperation." Same as #3 but also cut our decorative mirror monogram, candle-lit window, and our sweetheart table chargers. This would run us $8,849.82.

I emailed with two of my blog gals, Laura from With This Ring, I Thee Blog, and Stephanie from I Do at the Zoo. Stephanie was kind enough to send over her bar and food spreadsheets to compare! And Laura added columns detailing what she though would be necessary versus what could be cut. Here's the spreadsheet with her additions on the right:

Luckily, Laura is also crazy about excel. I'm sure you can't read this, just trust me, it's a magnificent document.

I feel confident that Mr Pug and I can make this work. We'll be cutting things for sure! What smaller things on my list would you cut? For example- would you be ok with lemonade, water, coffee, and tea? Would you prefer to see the tulle swags with twinkle lights go, or the green uplighting? Do you think the champagne toast is more important than soft drinks? Should it be all sparkling grape juice to save money? Would you be baffled if there wasn't a champagne toast?

Thanks for not judging, guys! And thanks Laura and Steph for listening! We're going over this tonight, will probably sleep on it for a while, and then have to give the final go-ahead from our proposal in early January. I'll letcha know!