Celebrating love and preparing for the big day! Today is Friday, November 20, 2009

The OurWeddingDay.com Blog

Twice the Wedding Fun

Mar11

Do you know what’s crazier than planning one wedding? Planning two! And buying a house! And working! Sure, why not? Modern liberated women and all that.

We are indeed planning two weddings. Last week, my fellow Real Bride Blogger said that she was not happy about cutting her guest list. And I know how she feels. Jonathon and I started with a wish list of all the people we would love to invite to the wedding and came up with approximately 400 people. (Big families, lots of friends.) But with our $8,000 budget (yes I said it and I’ll break it all down for you soon), we couldn’t afford to have anything else if we came up with this many people to feed. We would spend $8,000 of food?! What about invitations, a dress, a tux, you know places to sit?

So, we decided to carefully decide on 60 of our nearest and dearest friends and family. It was hard, but we did it. And we started planning an eco-friendlier, lush, budget friendly wedding. And then, we remembered all those people who got left out and felt a pang of regret. But modern liberated women can have everything they want! Right? Well, yes with sacrifice.

We opted to throw a vow renewal on New Years Day (2 weeks post wedding). Now, it’s super informal at Mr. J’s family church (undecorated), with a potluck Southern Sunday after church style meal that our friends, family, and we cook for. The budget for that? $50 church fee.  The guest list? 400.

posted by Anonymous
Sat, 03/14/2009 - 1:17am

Wow that is a great alternative to fix the problem!! For our November 15th wedding we will only have 85 guests and we were already feeling bad for all those ones that would be left out. Great thought!!


posted by Rebecca Blackmon
Sat, 03/21/2009 - 11:21am

We are doing the same thing. We are having a destination wedding with just our immediate family and a few friends. We really wanted to share this with our friends and family who are unable to attend our out of the country wedding. We also spaced out two weeks from the official wedding date. It's a lot of work trying to organize two events and not confuse guests who are attending both.


posted by Anonymous
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 11:39pm

I truly understand where your comming from. We are doing the same by not having no children's and just having the closest freinds and family.


posted by Marianita
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 7:25am

True definition of C-R-A-Z-Y. Selling BOTH of our houses while working on qualifying for a new one PLUS looking for a job (me) not knowing where we are going to live PLUS having ill parents (his) and running back-and-forth between their house, his house and mine PLUS having a daughter (his) graduating from High School one month from the wedding. C-R-A-Z-Y! Ask me if I am feeling the stress!


posted by six kids?
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 12:59pm

six kids ( three each) from ages 4 to 12. Selling three properties( in a non existant real estate market) and having to move for a job transfer and find a new house and three different schools for all the kids and a job for me, All by June ( and plan the wedding with no help from my family)


posted by leeleegal2
Sun, 03/29/2009 - 4:53pm

We are doing something similar. Our budget is only $5000, and we decided to cut our list down from 150+ to 65. We're going to have our main wedding and reception, go on our honeymoon, and then when we get back, we are going to have a separate potluck reception (or "marriage celebration") at my church where only those who weren't invited or couldn't come to the actual wedding will be invited. This was my way of compromise for not having all of my loved ones there. Plus, my fiance and I go to college in an entirely different part of the state, and have lots of friends we'd like to celebrate with us, but won't fit on our list. Another of our engaged couple friends are in the same predicament, so we are going to have a joint party before the end of the semester for our friends and co-workers up here!


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