Monumental Love: Budget Breakdown

I'm sure you can imagine posting something like this isn't very easy.  Money already is awkward to discuss, but now I'm sharing how much we spent on the most expensive day of our lives.  I'm not ashamed of our final number, but I also understand that this is something that people have a lot of opinions about - and those opinions and priorities can be very different from my own - so it's definitely scary to put out there.  But I also really appreciated knowing upfront how much things cost going into wedding planning (and I love compiling numbers), so we're going through with this post.  Please be gentle?

I'd like to start off with a few comments and clarifications to make myself feel better before we get into the nitty gritty numbers.

• The final total is high.  I realize that, and I'm not trying to pass this off as necessary or a smart use of this much money.  You might think I'm dumb or frivolous or wasteful, and believe me, I could definitely see your side of it.  But the fact of the matter is that these are the true numbers, we were able to fund it without going into debt, we had the wedding of our dreams, and I would defend (nearly) every single purchase that we made.  However, I don't want this to be a defensive post.  I want it to be helpful.  If you are having a similar wedding, this might help you plan a budget.  If your wedding is different than ours, I hope it's a testament to how quickly all of these costs add up, even when you feel like you're doing all the right research and making smart decisions.  
• We didn't start with a set budget in mind.  Would we have spent less if there had been a "do not pass" number at the beginning? Most likely.  Actually, the projected total cost was a bit lower (~10%, if I'm remembering correctly) a few months out from the wedding.  But in that home stretch, the cost did start ballooning.  Guest list creep meant the catering bill went up, finalizing the day-of timeline meant a few extra hours of photo and video, we decided to not do favors so we added on some more passed apps, and so on.  So that all sounds really bad.  That's the kind of stuff you're not supposed to do.  So what happened?  Well, by that point I had a clear picture of the funds available to spend on the wedding (contributions/gifts from family and personal savings included), so I was able to work the wedding budget to fit that at the time.  I mention this now so I can just touch shortly on it for each category below, but those "add on" expenses were very conscious and deliberate.  I went back and forth with my vendors on how much it would cost to have this versus that, and tried to make the smartest choices for our situation.  So our number went up, but it didn't just snowball at the end for no good reason.  I felt like I was in control of every decision, made trade-offs where necessary, and I understood every cost that we were billed for, so that made it all easier to swallow.  
• We had 220 guests.  Not like that's an excuse or anything, but I just wanted to make sure that was clear.  The number in attendance was on the high side, and it obviously increased our costs.  But I also wanted to mention that the road to 220 was paved with lots of give and take.  Meaning I gave in to my parents' request for additional guests on the list, and thus took contributions to the food and beverage budget because of that.  I felt like it was a fair compromise and it worked out well for our situation.  At the end of the day, I was happy to be able to include the people that my parents wanted there, without it putting an additional strain on my own wallet. 

And without further ado, let's get into this.

Date: Saturday, May 31, 2014
Location: New Orleans, LA
Number of Guests: 220
Type: Catholic ceremony with a semi-formal, evening, downtown cocktail reception

A Bee's Life: Pyramid Edition

The "Bee's Life" series has always been my favorite - these posts were so helpful to me when I was in the application process, and I just like hearing everyone's stories.  If you're thinking of applying, I highly recommend reading all of the posts in this series to see what advice other advice the blogger bees have for you!  

How did I find Weddingbee?

My account before I became a blogger goes back three years, and I think I was lurking a bit before then as well.  I know that I found the Ring Board first, while trying to learn more about specs and costs and styles of engagement rings when Sphinx and I first started discussing those.  I made my way over to blog and started following there, around the time the Fairy Tale Gen was starting up. And I've been hooked ever since!  

It meant so much to be able to carry these little guys!/Photo by Eau Claire Photographics

Monumental Love: Everywhere Else Reviews

Today's post is significantly less involved than my local reviews, but including my "other" vendors seemed like it might be helpful to brides as well.  Really there's only one "out of town" vendor and the rest are just online stores, but I would still recommend any of these to you if you're on the hunt for a good store to purchase from.

Engagement Photos - Concept Photography

Photo by Concept Photography

Traveling to Florida to take our engagement pictures at Disney World is still hands down one of my favorite wedding decisions.  Working with Sara and Jason was just a ton of fun, and I absolutely love the photos we received.  I still follow Concept Photography on Facebook, and I'm consistently blown away by every single picture they post.  They're located in Florida but travel all over, so if you like their style, I would highly recommend getting in touch!

Monumental Love: New Orleans Reviews

Woah, sorry for the radio silence there, y'all.  I put "vendor reviews" as the next thing to knock out on my list, and it's definitely a topic that's more tedious and not as fun to write, so here we are a few weeks later.  And wrapping up my journey here on the Bee isn't that fun either, so I guess I'm subconsciously delaying that a bit too.  But now we're back on track and I figured it would be more manageable if I split the reviews up.  Today's post will focus on the New Orleans-based wedding vendors we used, and next time I'll share "everything else."  Sorry for the length, and the fact that it only applies to a small percentage of readers, but I wanted to make sure I was thorough

I decided to use the same rubric as Mrs. Turkey to rank my vendors (highly recommend, recommend, recommend with reservations, and do not recommend), but honestly you're going to see that most of these are raves.  All of my vendors were fantastic to work with, I have no regrets with who I chose, so I had to get really critical in my assessment here.  Hopefully my explanations of each are helpful in deciding if a certain vendor is the right choice for you.  As always, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message if you've got any specific questions.

Makeup by Amanda - Highly Recommend

Amanda is a part time makeup artist, but she definitely has all the skills and equipment to be the real deal.  She worked all day long doing makeup on myself, my bridesmaids, our moms, and a few extra family members.  We had airbrush foundation and false eyelashes for a reasonable price.  I remember she had to redo my eyelashes because some powder got on the falsies, and even though it took a little bit longer, I appreciated the extra attention to detail.  In my humble opinion, I think everyone looked amazing and if you'd like to contact her, just shoot me a message and I'll send you her email.

Photo by Eau Claire Photographics