A Date and A Budget!

“They” say the first thing you should do before any planning, is set a date and a budget. Simple enough, right? Sure, if you have no one to invite… Sure, if your fiance is great with numbers… Sure, if you know how much it costs to set up and deliver a class-act wedding…

Did you know the average price tag on a wedding in the US is somewhere close to $30,000? Do a quick Google search- I’ll wait. Mr. Photo and I bought a house for $35K last year. Get real, people. This “average” is across the US – spanning all incomes. Since the vast majority of us are on a budget, let’s say $10,000 is high-end, and a number you could only dream of spending. I want to stay away from that number!

A date and a budget.

I am pretty busy this year with weddings I have already booked myself to cover, so we decided 2015 would be a much better time. We decided I would mark the whole month off that we chose, so I wouldn’t stress myself out between my wedding, and all of my clients’ weddings. Nobody wants a Bridezilla, right? Right!

I want a lot of local Maine foods and fruits at my wedding, so I had to plan around the food choices’ growing seasons. I also have family coming from out of state that I needed to consider. Flowers? Oh yeah, we are growing our own!

A date… and a budget……

Sometimes this isn’t the best place to start. Sometimes you need to know what flowers you want, or what food you desire, before you can set a date. There is no cookie-cutter check list for every bride.

August 16, 2015. Why? Mr. Photo is bad with dates and 8/16 seems fairly easy to remember for him. We changed our anniversary to 9/11 so he would “be able to remember it better”. That’s what I am dealing with, people. Ha!

Our budget? $5000. We are growing/raising our own foods and flowers and plan on having the shindig on family-owned land here in Maine. Let’s see how this goes…

Anyone want to take bets? What’s the over/under? Anyone…?