Being a Bride on a Budget

When Mr. Palm Tree and I first decided to get married, we briefly discussed the money aspect. I say 'briefly' because it wasn't really a new topic: we essentially applied the same theory to our wedding planning that we try to apply to daily life: be as reasonable as possible because we, quite simply, do not have a lot of money.

The idea of setting a legitimate budget for a wedding has always intrigued me. I read about girls and couples who have a hard budget of insert amount here - we'll go with $25,000 for the purpose of this post. How in the freaking world do people HAVE $25,000 set aside to spend on a singular event? It makes me do the cartoon head-shake thing.

source | Fun Tidbit: The Palm Trees are totally My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic FANATICS. 

We realized pretty early on in our relationship that if we tried to wait until we could "afford" a wedding, we'd be about 60 - if we were lucky. We settled for waiting until we were done with (or close to done with, as was Mr. PT's case) school and had somewhat of a settled life before entering this stage of our lives. The money we'd figure out as we'd go: if we couldn't afford something, it wouldn't happen. Simple.

This isn't to say that we don't have help; each of Mr. Palm Tree's parents have agreed to contribute a hard cash amount (and I'm sure that when all is said and done, said contribution will be more than just that amount). Other than that, however, it's up to us. No trust funds, no wedding funds, no rich relatives hiding in the background just dying to throw money at two lovebirds. . .just reality. Mr. Palm Tree sums it up best when he says that the goal is to have fun and do as much as possible without feeling like we have to cut every.single.corner or that we're skimping on things. This is how we live every day life, you know? For the two of us, it was about having enough money to do what we wanted. This doesn't mean we splurge all over the place and make it rain everywhere - puhleeze. This DOES mean that we put a chunk of money forth to have our wedding be what we want it to be - even if some people might throw the "but do you need it?" argument at us. 

And so, we make it work. We sat down early in our planning and made a spreadsheet on Google Docs detailing everything. We're up-to-date on payments for all of our vendors; in fact, some are completely paid off, which is a HUGE relief. Our guest list is on the larger side - 237 individuals total - and looking at the total amount is sharp-intake-of-breath-inducing, undoubtedly, but it's not heart-attack-inducing or even mild-stroke-inducing. It is what it is, and we can handle it. We have to stick to our budgets (instead of doing what I am so guilty of doing, which is creating a budget and then saying 'mer, whatever' for whatever reason and blowing it all to pieces) and we have to save, but it's worth it.

Some might argue that it's not worth it. That we should wait until we can afford it. That it's not the right time. But we both agree that if we had the 'wait until we can afford it' mindset, we'd likely never be able to afford it. After all, there is always going to be something pressing in life: student loans, car payments, monthly bills (cell phone, rent, electric, cable, etc.), groceries. . .payments are pretty much a constant. In my opinion, there's no time like the present - especially when it comes to a wedding.

To my fellow Budgeting Brides-to-Be: how are you budgeting? Do you have a set amount or are you just making sure to be reasonable every step of the way?