The Dreaded "B" Word

Duh duh duh!  BUDGET!

Initially Brian and I had intended to stay within a $25K budget.  However, after visiting The Charles Hotel and a lot of the local venues in the city, we quickly realized that we would have to amend that budget.  I think if Brian and I were truly committed to staying within that budget, we could have made it work.  We toyed with having the wedding in the winter around the January - March timeframe but, alas, the life of an accountant would have made that impossible.  That would have been the busiest time at work for me where I'd be lucky to even have the Friday before the wedding off so that was quickly nixed.  We also could have had our wedding outside the city but that would totally not have been "me".

So we've since bumped up our budget to $35K and this is only for the Western part of the wedding.  Since we're also holding a Chinese reception and tea ceremony, we've also added about $5K for that.  Fortunately, my parents will be paying for that portion of it as a wedding present to Brian and myself.  However, we may be pitching in a bit here and there - such as my qi pao and cheongsam which I'll probably be getting made in China.

Here are the details of our budget that we created a few months ago.  Along the way since then, we've had to reallocate funds to accommodate unexpected expenses.  For example, I was under the impression that flowers would not be that important and we would be having the bare minimum in florals and have DIY centerpieces.  But then Brian seemed pretty sad that we wouldn't have real flowers and then I found Bumble Bee Landing and fell in love with her work and one thing led to another and then we had a florist.  And then Brian's mom had only request - to have a videographer.  And that's how we found David Bettencourt.  I was going to DIY the invitations with my gocco that I bought two years ago just so I could use for my wedding (no lie) but then I found MaeMae Paperie and fell in love again. I need to stop falling in love with wedding vendors.  It's an issue.  But all these things caused us to change our budget somewhat.  However, we've still stayed within our original plan....just allocated differently.  See the link to our actual Google Budget Spreadsheet.

Of course with all this talk of budgets and weddings, a part of me realizes that I'm being pretty blase with throwing all these figures.  I am very aware of the fact that this is a LOT of money...and I know it's just for one day.  There's no real reason except that I know how much fun weddings are and I know how much this one day can mean for not Brian and myself, but for my friends and family.  I'm the first child in my family to get married and my entire family is excited about it.  My grandmother giggles everytime we talk about Chinese traditions, my aunts get fired up about which are lucky days and unlucky days, and my cousins and I pore over wedding magazines together.  I hope for my friends that it's a night for friends who live thousands of miles apart to come together for one night and party like the old days.  But for me, I selfishly want this day so I can see Brian at the end of the altar.  I can almost feel the butterflies now as I imagine the look on his face as I walk towards him.  I don't need to spend a lot of money to get that moment but I would also pay anything to get that moment.