Busy as a Bee

Well, Mrs Snowpea TOTALLY inspired me to make a wedding planning blurb book.








I am fortunate that all of my Weddingbee posts were originally written in Blogger, so it was a fairly painless process to upload all of my posts. I took out some of the things that really weren't specific to my wedding, fixed the layouts so that they weren't all the same, uploaded it and five days later it arrived in the mail.


I can not even begin to express how glad I am to have this. All the work I did for our wedding is now forever saved in a beautiful book designed by me :).

Will you be keeping any of your planning materials as mementos of your wedding?

Keeping it all organized

Back when I was first engaged (ok...why lie...it was at least a month before we got engaged :)), I purchased a wedding planning book. I had done some research in the bookstores and I had experience as a planner myself, so I knew what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, the most perfect book for me, was also spiral bound. So I bought it, demolished it and put it in a 3-ring binder. Over the months, my binder became stuffed with inspiration photos, business cards, informational articles, invitation mock-ups, vendor contracts in mid-contract, etc. I always had the notion of someday making it all 'perfect' and organized, but the reality was, I didn't have time to figure it all out, and I knew where everything was, so when I needed information, I just went to it.





A few days before the wedding, I pulled out the final contract for every vendor and put them in a separate binder with tabs. I printed a spreadsheet of what needed to be done between that day and the wedding as well as a spreadsheet of our vendors and put them in the front and back cover.

This is what it looked like when I handed it over to my Day-of-Coordinator:





Today, I finally went through both binders and shredded/tossed everything. But I decided to post these pictures because I think sometimes we forget that we are all human and we try way too hard to be the best. bride. ever (with the perfectly-organized-from-day-one planner to boot)...which just ends up stressing us out in the end.

If you are sitting at home stressing out over your bridal notebook that is anything but organized, go right ahead and stop worrying about it. In the end, you can just pull what you need together and no one will ever have to know that your ceremony musician contract was stuck between some inspirational pictures of hair styles and a muffin wrapper from a cake tasting.

Tip from Real Simple Weddings

Last week, Mrs Onion blogged about the Real Simple Weddings book that just came out. I was able to get a copy and have just finished pouring through it.



I highly recommend this book if you are at the beginning of your planning for your wedding. The information in it is mostly the same as what you see in most wedding magazines...I mean, let's face it, there are only so many ways to say the same thing.


BUT, there are ust enough new, fresh ideas and ways of looking at things that I think the book itself, although a bit pricey, is definitely worth looking through.


So far, my favorite tidbit is about a company in Philadephia, Well Spun Wedding, that can create a custom wedding DVD for you from footage shot of your wedding by friends and/or family for around $500.


Ladies, this is amazing information and I fully intend to do more investigative research on the process.

What magazines/books have you found to have the freshest inspiration/ideas for your wedding?

FINALLY, we have a budget

So...many, many moons ago, I posted about our non-existent wedding budget that had originally started out around $5,000 when we were joking around, hovered around $20,000 for a while and ended up around $30,000.

We had a very complex vendor spreadsheet with all of our payments (cash and credit) that we worked with for most of the planning. However, in addition to the vendor spreadsheet, I had about a bazillion little receipts for everything from postage stamps to craft supplies to misc food items we needed the day of the wedding that I just got around to adding to the spreadsheet.

So, FINALLY, I have pulled it all together and figured out what our wedding actually cost.

Submitted By: Mrs Corn
City: Newport, RI
Budget: $30,000 + $10,000 from Mr Corn’s parents
# of Guests: 120

Wedding Day Expenses:

Ceremony/Reception Site Fees: $3,550 Fort Adams State Park, Newport, RI
Caterer/Food/Drink: $16,171 (includes full clambake, full bar, upgraded floor length linens, and all dinnerware) McGrath Clambakes
Service Charge/Gratuities: $505 (grat. for band members, parking attendants, DOC & asst)
Bridal Gown/Alterations: $120 (All total, it was $1,120-but my parents paid $1,000 towards it)
Bridal Accessories: $554 (including shoes, back up shoes, jewelry, and rehearsal dinner outfit+shoes)
Groom’s Attire: $0 (Mr Corn already owned his tux)
Stationery/Postage: $1,032 (including STDs, invites, thank you cards, programs, newsletters, escort cards, and four sets of stamps)
Photography: $2,863
Videography: $0
Ceremony Music: $905 (string trio)
Reception Music: $3,990 (The Belltones, the most awesomest band evah!)
Flowers: $341
Decorations/Centerpieces: $186
Favors: $96
Cake: $555
Officiant: FREE (my sister is a pastor)
Coordinator: $700
Hair/Makeup: $1,380 (for MOB, three bridesmaids and bride…plus 2 trials and a facial)
Wedding Party Gifts: $800
Transportation: $0 (paid for by Mr Corn’s parents)
Hotels: $650 (for the condo we rented to get ready in since we weren’t at home)
Dance Lessons: $225
Rentals: $5,831 (includes two sets of chairs for ceremony and reception, reception tent and the bazillion things that go with it like exit signs and fire extinguishers)
Artillery Company: $425 (includes 4 man cannon crew and authentic Revere Cannon)
Misc: $169 (for taking my mom and sister to lunch, and breakfast and lunch for me and my gals the day of the wedding)

Nonwedding Day Expenses:

Wedding bands: $3,000
Rehearsal dinner: paid for by Mr Corn’s parents
Honeymoon: Mr Corn won’t tell me :) but I know that all of our airfare and most of our hotels were scored with Marriott points and US Air miles!

WEDDING DAY TOTAL: $41,048
COST PER PERSON: $342
NONWEDDING DAY TOTAL: $3,000 (but realistically, probably around $20,000)
GRAND TOTAL: $44,048...or $61,048 if the number above is accurate.

Not bad considering that Mr Corn and I figured we would spend around $30,000 for the wedding and if you take out the gift from his parent's we personally spent $31,048. However, I never in my wildest imagination thought that I would have a wedding that was that expensive.

So I got to thinking...could I have had a pared down, but still great wedding that was me?

ABSOLUTELY!!

Here is where we could have saved (these are approximations):

1) Had our wedding in a hotel on a beach so we wouldn't have had to set up a tent, chairs, tables, etc. Save: $6,881
2) Served clambake-like food, but without the lobster and without the full clambake. Save: $8,371
3) Cut the event coordinator. Save: $825 (fee plus grat.)
4) Done our own makeup. Save: $900
5) No fort = no Artillery company. Save: $425
7) Hired a DJ instead of a full band. Save $2,800
8) Spend $250 instead of $800 on attendant gifts for five attendants. Save: $550

By cutting and/or adjusting those things, we could have had a great wedding for $20,296.

Alternatively, if I had hired someone else to custom make all of our wedding invitations and had a floral budget to cover centerpieces and the like, we also could have had a $55,000 wedding, so we did save on some things!

I am proud to say, there is not one thing I would change about my wedding day. And although we spent a significant amount on our wedding, it is important to note that we did not go into debt to do it. This was greatly aided by some help from Mr Corn's parents, the fact that we both had no debt going into it and the fact that we are both a bit older; which meant we could afford some of the things that we wouldn't have been able to even just five years ago.

So hopefully this will prove to be valuable information to someone out there. :) Best of luck on those budgets!!

What I did on my Christmas Vacation...

...otherwise more aptly titled, "The things we do for love".

You see...Mr Corn and his cousin share the same New Year's Eve birthday. Thirteen years ago, when Mr Corn turned 21, he made a promise to his cousin that he would take her to do anything she wanted, which included going anywhere in the United States 1st Class, when she turned 21.

Fast forward to this year and she decided she wanted to be home in Sunnyvale, CA but that she wanted to go skydiving.

Well, Mr Corn is a bit of a wuss when it comes to anything involving thrills; the man won't even go on a kiddie roller coaster not to mention hurl himself out of a plane. So his fearless, albeit slightly insane, wife went in his place.

It was the thrill of a lifetime, but I will be honest, I have no need to ever go again!

What is something you have done for your significant other that they couldn't/wouldn't do themselves?