Weddingbee boards

For better or worse (Ha Ha!), FH and I live in NYC. I am orginally from NJ and I left for a reason...and also, where I'm from and where my mom lives is not far enough outside NYC for costs to be dramatically less. FH is from Maine, and while Maine is nice and can generally be cheaper than NYC, the preliminary venues I've researched that I could see myself going to are still clocking in not much below NY, and that's not including the cost of two or three (or four, because I am a control freak :)) times I'll have to go up there to meet with vendors, etc. We have talked about the Hudson Valley as a possible location, as well as smaller venues around Manhattan and Brooklyn. We have discussed having a max 80 people. I've asked for quotes, etc, from several places we mutually agreed are strong contenders, and even for the most barebones wedding (not including the honeymoon, or any nice-to-haves like a shuttle bus from the hotel where most pple will be staying to the wedding venue, or a brunch the next day), it would run minimum $20,000. Which I am aware is a steal for NY. However, FH is not happy about it at all. When we talked about a wedding budget around the holidays, I thought $10-15,000 was reasonable for a wedding of this size, but obv a number that wasn't based on any research. My mom sounds like she is willing to pay for most of the wedding, with my godfather chipping in, and although I have not yet talked to her about that number, it sounds like she is willing to contribute in the neighborhood of $15,000. I will also add that I am an only child. If our wedding costs zero in at about $20,000, that leaves $5,000 plus honeymoon we would have to cover. I think that's great, but he is not comfortable shelling out that much money. He says he'd rather put $20,000 toward a house (which by the way, we agreed that in about 5 years, we'd look into buying), but this wouldn't even cover a whole down payment in NYC. So we looked at inviting/having fewer people, and the smallest number we could get away with is 50 people. I priced out everything in front of him based on a venue in the Hudson Valley that gave me a quote for 50 people, and it still came in around $17,000, not counting honeymoon.

He kind of accepted it, but he doesn't want to part with his money (and he has at least 3-4 times more than me saved up). I started a saving account at the end of last year just for the wedding, but he thinks it's a waste of money to spend $5,000 on a wedding (and for my mom to spend $15,000 on our wedding). I've read many sites and suggestions about how to cut costs, but unless we DIY EVERYTHING besides what the caterer provides and pay our semi-talented friends to do things like DJ and take photos (which I'm not entirely comfortable with), we're not going to cut a whole lot of costs. I've started asking for vendor recs from friends who have recently gotten married, but most of their vendors are out of our budget. And as much as I love DIY, I don't want to be getting up at the crack of dawn on my wedding day to arrange flowers and set tables (many of the venues we are looking at will likely have both weekend days booked or do not allow any day before set up). I don't think we've reached an impasse, but I'm also not sure what else to do. Any words of advice?? I've only been engaged for a week and a half and I'm already stressin'!

Hilsy - I'm def coming Friday and am looking forward to it!