Member- lovelyduckie
- 6 years ago
- Wedding: September 2013
So my boyfriend and I have been together almost 10 years now (10 years as of Dec. 13th, 2012). And I know what you’re thinking “WHOA NELLY!? That’s a long time!”, we started dating Freshmen year and continued all through college and after. So I don’t really count the first 4-5 years or so as potential engagment time because HEY it’s college 🙂 getting married was the last thing on my mind. After school we moved in together and got jobs, we got to a point where we had some savings and realized we could buy a house for similar to what we were paying for rent. So we did, when people would ask about buying a house before marriage we just said we had enough money for one or the other and didn’t want to let a great deal on a house slip away. But in all honesty we were both terrified of the costs of a wedding. At one point we discussed elopement to save money, and then use whatever we’d spend on a wedding for a GREAT 2 week honeymoon to Japan. I was really torn for a long time if all the money was worth it for the big day. On the one hand…it’s a lot of money and we knew not everything was going to be picture perfect, one lame relative could put a shadow over the whole thing…on the other hand, when I’m older I might want to look back and smile about that event with a nice old photo album on my lap…
I continued to be torn for years until I went to my friend’s wedding and had a blast. Not everything was perfect for her (her florist actually forgot about her wedding and they didn’t have flowers) but everyone hardly even noticed such a huge error and just had fun! So we started trying to come up with a budget, I even started researching costs before I was even engaged (bought and read that Bridal Bargains book). I didn’t want to announce an engagement to everyone with plans to have a wedding only to disappoint both moms by realizing we can’t afford it and elope anyway.
My boyfriend hinted at the timeframe he was going to pop the question and how he’d do it. He was going to take me out to a VERY nice dinner while we were on vacation and do it after. But I actually asked that he do something more creative that was free…me and my big mouth 🙂 so instead of getting a fancy dinner I earned myself a hike up my first mountain. Hahahaha, I was exhausted but I made it! And I’ve actually hiked up that mountain a few more times since then and gotten a bit more in shape. But it was very nice, I got a proposal on a beautiful day with my two dogs there to celebrate too! Not that they noticed…the only drawback is that I wouldn’t say I was looking quite as nice as I would have liked at the proposal moment, but lets face it, unless you’re VERY fit, no one looks their finest after a hike up a mountain in an underarmour shirt and sports bra. Outfits like that take your best bumps and make them look smaller and saggy, and cradle the bumps you’d rather not have noticed 🙂
And for anyone curious about our budget worries, it seems we’ll be able to have all the wedding costs for under $9,000 (maybe even at $8,000) at a venue in Concord, New Husband where we have the site for the whole day. I thought we’d have to get married on a Friday in January to afford the wedding we wanted, I’m very happy that I’ll be able to afford to get married on a Saturday in September in Concord, New Husband 🙂 September is actually the #1 month to get married during in my area.
