Potential for Photography!

I am super psyched! Not just because our big wedding planning weekend is coming up, but also because there's a photographer in the mix! Oh yes, photography is back on the table and it is looking goo-ood!

So what happened? I keep finding myself on rolls lately with Google searches or reading the boards on WeddingBee. During one of these rolls, I was Googling for photographers local to Roanoke. I skipped past the typical companies that pop up and are high-priced (they start at $4k!) and soon stumbled upon an experience photojournalist who had relocated to Roanoke with his wife. He freelances on projects and appears to be building a wedding portfolio on the side. After looking through the two weddings he had on his site, I knew I had to contact him and find out his pricing. Imagine my surprise when he writes back that with a second shooter, a disk of edited images with printing rights, 4x6 print proofs, online hosting, and 6 hours of shooting it'll only cost us $1,500!!! My jaw hit the floor. I will do my damnedest to make room for such a deal in our budget (it may already fit in our budget, but more on that later). This sounded like too good of a deal, so I inquired to some of the other photography companies I had come across just to get actual numbers from them. The lowest I got back was $3,500 and that didn't include half of what this guy was offering. Stoked that I had found our photographer, I jumped on and emailed him straight away. Wouldn't you know it, we had an entire email conversation over a couple of hours last night. Talk about your quick responses!

As if all of this wasn't enough, he takes payments in three installments - 1/3 to book, 1/3 before or day of event, and 1/3 when he delivers the photos. Score! We were also able to set up a meeting with him during our crazy wedding planning weekend. He chose Mill Mountain Coffee as the meeting place (talking affordable photography while drinking delicious chai...uh, yes please!) and even though he's bringing the contract with him, he's giving us all the time we need to look it over and get our deposit in. He wants to use the meeting simply to get to know us and what our plans are for our wedding. Pinch me, I'm dreaming! I'm really hoping we all get along at the meeting, because that's the only bump I could see in this road right now. How amazing is it to go from looking at possibly nixing photography to possibly finding the photographer that fits our style and budget?

We've also had another awesome realization this week. There is the possibility of our invitations w/envelopes and RSVP cards costing us less than $80 (not including stamps)! CRAZY!

So here's where we stand:
Food - Plan A: Catering, seeming like less of an option, but still holding out for another go-round to see what they come up with at a lower price point now that they know the style of food we like. Plan B: local restaurants that cater, seeming more and more like a great option but will need to take into consideration hiring our own staff and getting event liquor license (started pricing and isn't too bad). Plan C: DIY, holding off on exploring this option until after the meetings.

Venue - Hoping to nail down a meeting with our long favorite option that has been under renovation. Just learned that the carpet is going to be purple (tell me it isn't beckoning me) and am really excited to see mock-ups of the interior and talk price. With any luck, we'll be able to lock it down!

Photography - pending any road bumps in the meeting, we may have our photographer!

Cake - Meetings scheduled with three bakers. I've been drooling since we picked out the cake and icing combinations we wanted to try.

Flowers - haven't started looking and am still considering going without. It seems so pointless to buy flowers that I will only hold while walking up and down the aisle as well as in photos. We'll see. I can be convinced either way at this point.

DJ - browsed briefly but haven't really started looking yet.

Invitations - pending picking a layout, finalizing wording, and locking down a venue, they're mostly done...so not really.

Dress - bought and at the shop!

We are so excited that after mid-month, we should have most of the wedding stuff locked down!

And here it is, your moment of zen:

My recently acquired Harley from Arkham Asylum (does a little dance)

Wedding Budgets: The Second Wind

When things get me down, I can usually find inspiration from my favorite artist of all time, Mr. Billy Joel (we'll ignore his drinking and womanizing for now). "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" seems very fitting for this situation involving the wedding budget. In the last post, I shared my feelings of defeat in being able to afford any other vendor besides a caterer fit within our budget. It really didn't take long for that breeze to blow in.

I realized that I didn't care what the food was, I was not happy with spending thousands of dollars on food which no one would remember, including us, and foregoing the photography and music to do so. This realization was freeing. With new motivation, I started researching DJs and photographers local to Roanoke. The thinking: get pricing, find favorites, and see what we had left after that for food. We already knew we weren't going to be able to afford high end stylish photography, so we knew it wouldn't break the bank. I stumbled across a former photojournalist who has started doing weddings. We both liked his style, so we have an inquiry in for his pricing and packages. (happy Crystal)

We've also looked at one or two websites for DJs. The websites aren't pretty. While they are awesome for letting us browse their collections online, boy is it a pain in the butt! Finding a DJ may end up being the more difficult vendor for us to nail down due to our own personal choices in music and songs we'd really like to hear during the reception.

While we dive into the more fun vendors, we are not forgetting about the elephant that is food for the reception. Luckily, we have some awesome people who have been brainstorming other options for us to look into and one option has already come in waaaay under budget. Little to say we've scheduled a meeting with that vendor. :)

Right now, a whole lot of little pieces seem to be falling into place and are giving us happy-wedding-mojo. Boy do we need any kind of happy-mojo we can get these days.

On a side note, can I share how awesome these shoes are? If I could afford custom-made shoes, I would live at this site!

Wedding Budgets: You Don't Know Jack!

I, as many others, used to sit back while watching wedding shows and scoff at how brides couldn't spend within their budgets. Heck, I still do! I about lost it the other day while catching "Rich Bride, Poor Bride" when the couple had $40 or $50K to spend on the wedding, fought each other about what got cut and what didn't, and still went $24K over budget (and they shrugged it off as if it was nothing because daddy was paying)! My head about exploded.

It took me a while to wrap my head around spending a few thousand dollars on one day; family gathering, celebrating, etc. granted - I still couldn't rationalize spending, essentially a salary, on that one day. While I still would balk at even thinking about spending $20K, I could easily be talked into it.

Our budget is no where near those numbers, but it's a budget that makes us happy. We are not lavish people and we aren't foodies, so there really isn't much for us to spend our money on, right? Ha! We are quickly learning how fast vendors want to eat your entire budget. Tell them you have $x to spend on their service, and they fire back with proposals that come in at least $1K over your limit. That's without tips, unpredicted expenses, and unrealistic estimates on how much people will drink (yes, I'm talking about a caterer).

To be fair, we are just starting out with some of these conversations with vendors, so we have yet to see how willing they are to work within our budget and how well they listen to what we want. However, with the estimates for catering, I'm already trying to rack my brain for other, more cost-effective, options.

Money goes quick when you're planning a wedding. On paper, we already have expenses divided between "budgeted for" and "out of pocket" expenses. So our budget is more for day-of expenses and vendors: venue, officiant, food, beverage, cake. Even with limiting the money to the day-of vendors, we're still left trying to figure out creative ways to get around the expenses we can't fit into the budget, or may have to choose between: like photography and entertainment. Yes, photography, due to the size of the expense for just day-of shooting, is on the chopping block. *tear*

Just looking at our big picture budget right now (we haven't gotten into the details of out of town bags or decorations yet), it's very easy to see how couples go over budget for their wedding in just trying to provide the basics for themselves and their guests.

While we wait for the caterers to revise their proposal and be in denial about the $4/glass of soda expense ($480 for soda, tea, and water?!?!), we will distract ourselves by choosing the combinations of cake and icing that we'll be trying from three various bakers. *drool*

Even for Classic Coke in a glass bottle, $4 is a stretch!

Speaking of yummy cake - here is the inspiration for our current cake design idea. *evil grins*

Bond Cake, James Bond Cake

My Sweet Tooth is Tingling

Oh yes. Your friendly neighborhood bakers have started to be contacted to schedule tastings! This has been one of the highlights of wedding planning that I have really been looking forward to. As much fun as the tastings are going to be, talking about our options and narrowing down our flavor choices is going to be painful...unless we have something to help us through it.

I recently dabbled with making whoopie pies. I am now very tempted to make way too many whoopie pies to try different cake and filling combos.

Devil's food with mint?
Yellow cake with almon?
Red velvet with chocolate ganache?
Marble with buttercream?
Chocolate with marshmallow filling and crumbled graham cracker topping?

See? You're drooling already and are mentally going through your kitchen searching for a snack cake.

On top of those big decisions, we also need to figure out how we want the cake to look. Knowing us, our preferences run toward the geeky.

Weighted from Companion Cube by Jet City Cakes

Threadcakes entry from 2009 "The Red"

 

 

I tried tracking down more geeky sweets to share, but had a hard time getting the permalinks from the flash-based sites. So, instead, I will point you in the direction of some blog posts on one of my favorite sites, CakeWrecks.

Star Wars Sweets

Mario Mania

Back to the Future

Cartoon Cakes (TMNT, Futurama)

and one of may favs

Gamer Goodness

It's Heeeeeeeeeeeere

Not here-here, but in-the-shop here! My dress arrived at Amrhein's! Yay!

I was expecting to have to go in for my first fitting soon, so Douglas and I had been putting off a few other meetings until the dress came in. The lady on the phone kindly informed me that I can come in and put on my dress and enjoy it, but they won't do any alterations until August. Score! That means no worries about see-sawing between now and then.

It also means, my dress is in!!!!

Spurred on by that awesome message, Doug went ahead and scheduled a few of those appointments we were putting off. In 2 weeks, we're heading back up to Roanoke to meeting with the rabbi again, hopefully meet with our potential caterer, and any other little wedding things we find ourselves doing.


On a bitter-sweet note, we learned that we could get a great deal on an awesome venue! The bitter part is that even though it's a great deal, it would still eat up at least HALF of our budget just for food.

Did I mention that my dress was in? DRESS!!!!