Wedding Budgeting from a Personal Perspective: Part 1

Hello everyone. Vicki, a friend of mine is getting married soon, first of all, congratulations to her, I wish her and her fiancé the best of luck. Secondly, I have asked her to share with us her experiences as she goes through the wedding-planning process. Through a series of articles, she will share with us tips on keeping costs down, while getting the most of the experience. So without further delay, enjoy the 1st article in this very promising series of posts.

This series of articles is meant to chronicle my slow descent into insanity-otherwise known as wedding planning. As I give some tips about how to stretch your dollar when you get married, I'll tell you about my own experiences with the process so far, which may or may not be helpful to your own planning. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions!

First, a little about myself and my fiancé, Dan. Dan and I met through family. We are both Russian Jews, meaning we were born in Russia and Russian is our first language, but we are enthnically Jewish. However, neither of us is particularly religious, so while we are Jewish, we don't practice, but very much culturally Jewish. If you think that's not complicated enough, I am only half Jewish because my mother is a Russian Jew, but my father is completely ethnically Russian. This is all important background in understanding how we chose to have our wedding, and most importantly, why, by Jewish tradition, are trying to be as cheap as possible about it.

A little more background: Dan and I went to college together, and he graduated with a double-nerd degree in engineering and math. I did economics and Hebrew. Currently, he works as a computer programmer and I work in DC as an economist. He will be moving to DC and is in the interview process right now, one of the reasons we are trying to save money-rent in the city is EXTREMELY expensive. Dan proposed to me in Prague. And now, we are almost married-October 4 is our date.

After we first got engaged, I didn't want to do any planning at all. That would be my first piece of advice. Enjoy your engagement. Don't do anything for the first two weeks or so, and, throughout the process, remember that it's supposed to be fun. Then, slowly, after we got home from Prague, we began to piece everything together. It's very important that, as you decide to get married, you talk about financial perspectives. It's very fortunate that Dan and I are both cheap, or "frugally" minded, because we both come from families who view finances in a similar way. Budgeting is key, and we weren't looking to be too extravagant. We decided right off the bat that the most we wanted to spend was $10,000 on a wedding. We didn't pick it from any formula, but it was a number we were both comfortable with and one that would accomodate the amount of people we wanted.

I have to admit, I haven't gone along with everything Dan has wanted, but have tried to compromise as much as possible. He wanted an extremely small wedding, just close family members, and no fuss. We initially just wanted to sign off at a court house, because neither of us are too comfortable being in the center of attention for too long. However, in the Russian community, this is almost impossible, because all friends and family have to be invited due to cultural norms. I would council you to try to go your own way and not bend to family pressure, but I would be a hypocrite. After a week or so of fighting with my parents, I decided it would be easier to respect their wishes and to have a larger wedding. Granted, we only decided to invite people that were important to us, and most importantly, that we knew. Initially, our guest list was around 110.

Next up...how we started letting the basics fall into place