Wedding Planning in a Recession...

So, Mike gave me my engagement ring for Christmas. A little earlier, actually.  I am delighted with the ring, it's so beautiful and it fits perfectly. It should, seeing as I have spent the last year occasionally dropping hints...

"White gold, size 7, round cut."

He out did himself....

So, now I am planning away! I have my wedding gown (a picture of which I won't post here, because Mike reads my blog) and my colors picked out.

The colors were harder than I thought. I knew that I wanted black and ivory, but I had no clue about accent colors. Since we are trying to save money where we can, I 'm doing the invitations myself, along with the favors.

The colors I finally picked are shown above: I just love the blue!

I ordered the invitations, which come with reply cards, from Hobby Lobby.  What a bargain, too. 25 invites, reply cards and envelopes for each for $19.50!

I am going to replace the black ribbon with black and ivory damask!












I am looking at flower ideas. I'm also trying to decide whether or not I want to do the myself. I'm fairly crafty, and Hobby Lobby has real looking and feeling stems in a ton of colors and varieties!

I'm leaning toward this, but with maybe a few rose buds. Or, just as it is, but I can tie the bouquet in the tiffany blue ribbon...

The thing that is killing me, and Mike for that matter, are the prices of venues and catering!!!  HOLY COW!!!  Country clubs are expensive and I'm afraid the food will be ordinary, run of the mill hotel type food. Not to mention the fact that the all charge a cake cutting fee because we are providing our own cake.  SERIOUSLY???  The bar packages are high too!  Dittos on hotels.  Everything is so cookie cutter, too.

So that leaves other venues.

Like museums.

We checked one out today. It's kind of pricy, but it's unique and we can taylor the package to our needs. I don't want a champagne toast. Mike hates the stuff and I can do without it. We can toast with wine.  The linen package, which a balked at initially, turns out to be what other venues would consider to be premium! I'm talking pin tucked table cloths (in Ivory), satin chair covers (in black stripes) and napkins in Tiffany blue.  If I want runners, they are fine with me supplying my own, since theirs are $10 a table to rent...I can whip up damask runners in no time! (I love Hobby Lobby!)  Those are considered BASIC linens in this place! There are a few more areas we can cut, which will bring the rental to about $3500.

This seems like a lot, but this is a museum! The ballroom is HUGE, they supply the tables, chairs, catering kitchen, the bar package is $16.00 per person for a 4 hour bar that includes sodas (the other places we checked out charge EXTRA for sodas, even with a bar package!) This also includes a bartender, set up, take down, valet parking, dance floor (usually a separate rental)...and the event coordinator will run the show for me!  There is so much more involved with the package.

Best of all I can HIRE MY OWN CATERER!!!!!!  Tatiana, the events gal, has a list of recommended vendors, but we don't have to stick with them!

Here's a link to the museum:Czech Museum

So. That's that so far. We are going to look at a couple of other places, one of them is an Art Nouveau Bar:  Art Bar which is kind of cool. I love Art Nouveau and we both like bars...plus the place is already decorated...Tiffany everywhere!  That's going to be an evening appointment, because of their hours. I also need to make sure that we can have under 21's in of we rent the place out for the reception. That might be a deal breaker. We shall see.

March 2013 isn't that far off! It's already almost mid-January!

School kicks back in next week...14 credit hours! WooHoo!