And the planning begins…
September 11, 2007
We have officially been engaged for 1 week and 1 day and already this wedding planning thing is a bit stressful. The good thing is that we aren’t overly picky about when we get married but we are however picky about where we want to do it. Living in the city of Chicago is great but it is also a very popular wedding spot and extremely expensive. I guess it is a good thing that Ben and I come from divorced families and have plenty of people (we hope) that are willing to chip in. Given that he is a student and I signed my life away on a condo we aren’t much help on the whole financial side of things.
On another note, we got my ring back from being sized which happened to be the longest 4 days of my life. Unfortunately, I think it is still too big. I just got off the phone with Tiffany and they agreed to size it again for free but since this isn’t my first sizing they can’t rush it. Given the fact that my left hand is very popular these days and all of a sudden Ben and I actually have a social life I just can stand to be without it for 7-10 days! It looks like I will be walking around with my left hand in a fist for a while.
If there is anyone out there actually reading this with genius cheap wedding ideas, please pass them along. I am all ears.
September 13, 2007 at 2:41 pm
get a wedding planner. seriously. they have deals up the wazoo. they can also give you better tips on where to look for stuff. and they take care of the crappy stuff (like making sure the caterers actually show up).
September 13, 2007 at 2:54 pm
But aren’t wedding planners fairly expensive?
September 13, 2007 at 4:56 pm
shop around. but from what i have been hearing/reading, the amount you end up spending having a wedding planner may be equiv to the amount you save with all their deals. so in total, you might not end up saving any moolah, but at least they help alleviate the stress. naturally, if you have friends in the catering/wedding festivities business who can get you the same deals, then well, i won’t go with a wedding planner
but if not…there are a couple of wedding planning blogs and whatnot. i’ll get those from a friend and email it to nosugrefneb 
my only other advice is try to choose a hotel. because than you are not paying for rental for a location, just the catering part. and if you want a specific location, check and see if they are public sites. public sites (aka zoos, botanical gardens, not-for-profit places) charge for rental BUT you can get some sort of tax-exempt from it so that somewhat reduces the price a little. i believe a friend of mine also got her invitations online but she went to paper stores in person to get a feel of the paper that she want as well as the printing stuff.