Monday, January 23, 2012

Planning: And Now For Something Completely Different

Well, after my exciting little melt-down last week, we've started brainstorming for other ways to do this. Because in the end what we need is the officiant, the witnesses, and the two of us!

I forget how it even came up, but one of us said something like, "if only we had a really tiny guest list, we could do something like rent [neighborhood cafe] and give everyone a super amazing meal." And then we both stopped, looked at each other, and went, "Ohhhhhhh...."

It seemed like a huge weight was taken off my shoulders. A tiny wedding! What was my emotion when people said, "well, there were only 30 people at our wedding"? Envy. That was my emotion. A reception intimate enough that we could give toasts without a microphone, laugh together, spend meaningful time with everyone... That would be nice. REALLY nice.

And, because this IS a budget blog? Let's look at a budget breakdown.

Say we now only need brief use of a chapel, and we want to keep our food budget to $3000, INCLUDING sales tax (6.875%) and 15% gratuity. Assume 50 guests (rounding up), and say:

$3000 = 50X(1.06875) + 50X(.20) = 63.4375X, X = $47.29

This means we could arrange a pretty amazing prix-fixe menu and arrange for a couple or three glasses of wine apiece!

Stay tuned!

4 comments:

  1. Choosing to have a small wedding is a brave choice, just because of the flak you could possibly get from people who don't understand your choice. But in the end, you have to do what's right for YOU, and it's clear from both of your 'ohhhh!' moment that this is the right choice! I'm glad you've found a better solution!

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    1. Thanks! We're pretty psyched and we're looking into restaurants in the area. Unfortunately our favorite is booked for that night, but there are a lot of lovely options - I'll be calling today to arrange for a walk-throught of one of them!

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  2. Good for you guys for finding a solution! We also thought about celebrating it at a restaurant we really like, but it's small so we could only fit 30-40 people. Sadly, with my big family that meant we couldn't invite any of our friends, and we really wanted them there. And not inviting part of my family to invite some friends wasn't an option. SO a bigger wedding it is! I think we'll be around 50-60 in the end.

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    1. Oh, I completely understand. We're blessed in that our extended family isn't huge on either side, allowing us to invite everyone. We've cut "non-family" to the wedding party, and that's it. How are the food deliberations coming along?

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