The B Word

I love stock images. 

Budget.

It’s not a very fun word, is it? Budget is that friend that discourages you from spending $300 on a pair of jeans, ordering a round of shots at the bar, or splurging on a lamp from Pottery Barn. She’ll also insist on taking transit home instead of splitting a cab. Budget is responsible.

Budget and I have a tumultuous relationship. I like to have fun (read: spend money frivolously), but I also drive great satisfaction from saving and watching my investments grow.

Lately, I prefer to do more saving than spending. I chalk it up to my fiancé. He is the original spendthrift in our relationship, and since shacking up I’ve adopted many of his wallet friendly ways.

Peter budgets EVERYTHING – from spending money to monthly transportation to groceries. And when he runs out of his monthly spending money, instead of heading to the bank to take out more, he utters a powerful sentence.

“I can’t afford that.”

Me? I avoided that phrase for YEARS. I did not want to admit to my friends, and more importantly myself, that there was (and still is) a limit to my disposable income. I was afraid of what other people would think. Weird, right? Instead of admitting my limited funds, I made up excuses, or swallowed the expense with a credit card.

All of that changed a few years ago after a conversation with my friend Jason. We both were sick of our overspending, and decided to stop lying to ourselves about our spending habits. It was time to take charge of our finances and start telling the truth – I can’t afford that.

It was freeing and I haven’t looked back. As for the fear of judgemental friends? That was completely unfounded. People get it and move on.

Over the past few years Peter and I have saved our pennies, invested our funds, and accumulated zero debt. That’s right – we are debt free, and that’s including credit cards. We don’t want to jeopardize our debt free status by throwing a wedding we cannot afford. Plus, we want to have some cash leftover to splurge on a pretty sweet honeymoon and after that, invest in a home (or condo). 

So! What is our magical budget for a party of 128 people? I’ve mapped out our rough estimates below.

$2800 (venue)

$5000 (food)

$ 1000 (bride and groom clothing)

$ 1500 (alcohol)

$4, 700 (photography, makeup, hair, other expenses)

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$15,000

I must admit, I was hesitant to share our proposed budget. What if people thought it was not “spendthrifty” enough? What if people thought we were cheap? What if people looked at our budget and thought, “LOL yeah RIGHT. They will be spending WAAAAY more than that.”

At the end of the day, it’s our budget, it’s what we can afford and we are sticking to it. Now, off to look at some venues.  

Everything You Need to Know About Compiling a Wedding Guest List

An HOUR into our engagement, I was asked if we had set a date. I’ll let that settle in. AN HOUR.

I nervously laughed it off, quick to realize my new reality -- fielding wedding related questions to which I had absolutely no answers.

Fast-forward a month. Still no wedding plans, but we did polish off the third season of Orange is the New Black. Priorities, ya know? After bidding farewell to Tasty, Crazy Eyes and Red, we embarked on our first wedding related task – compiling a guest list.

 This excited me because:

a)    The whole “Holy Shit! We’re actually getting married!” feeling kicked in.

b)   It required basic math skills. YAY FOR BASIC MATH!

c)    With realistic numbers we could start researching venues and creating our budget.

Peter and I gave ourselves a couple of hours to compile our respective lists and met in our office* to discuss. What did we come up with and how? I’ve mapped it out below. It worked for us and hey, maybe it’ll work for you too.

OUR WEDDING OUR GUESTS 

Some wedding blogs suggest that parents create half the guest list. LOLOLOLOL. Our parents haven't asked if they can invite their friends and I doubt they will. But! If your parents are relentless in their quest to expand your guest list, I suggest showing them a $23,000 catering bill for a wedding of less than 130 people. They will (probably) change their tune. 

ADULTS ONLY CEREMONY AND RECEPTION

No kids? No problem! 

Okay I lied. We are inviting two children – Peter’s niece and nephew.

They’re 6 and 8 (read: old enough to behave…I’m looking at you, crying baby!) and we absolutely love and adore them.

Aside from the niece and nephew, going the “adults only” route not only saves us cash, but gives our friends with kids a great excuse to hire a babysitter and LET LOOSE!

When we say “adults only” we mean legal drinking age (in Ontario that’s 19).

NO +1 UNLESS YOU’RE IN A SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP 

What is our definition of a “serious relationship”? Dating someone for more than two years.

 FAMILY

When it came to family, the list was non-negotiable. We chose to invite most of our Aunts, Uncles and adult cousins. 

PEEPS

(If you’re under 30 “peeps” means friends. It’s vernacular I JUST CAN’T DROP!)

The friend’s list was a bit trickier, but after asking ourselves the following questions, we were able to whittle down our guest list number.

Do we both know this person? Meeting them once doesn’t count.

Otherwise known as our “No Strangers” rule. We both want to recognize everyone in our photos.

Do we both enjoy this person’s company?

This is obvious. If someone makes us uncomfortable, we do not want him or her at our wedding.

When was the last time we spoke to this person IRL?

If it’s been longer than three years, it’s safe to say the person would not meet our next requirement.  

Where do we see our relationship with this person 5 years down the road? 10 years down the road?

This was tough. Friendships evolve and change overtime, and we are so lucky to have so many amazing people in our lives. We really had to think long and hard over this one.

After all of that we arrived at our magic number which is... drumroll please.... 128. And you know what? We want every single one of those people to celebrate our big day with us.  

So! Armed with our guest list, we were ready to tackle our next challenge – the budget.

*When you live in a 425 square foot apartment, your bed also serves as your living room, office, and sometimes dining room.