Money, Money, Money

Yes, it's time. It's time to have the dreaded budget talk. It's crazy that I keep going back and forth about my wedding budget (Yes, I know that is terrible, I have to have a set budget). So let's get to it. I always thought I would have a $20,000 - $25,000 wedding budget and thought that was a good amount of money to have a great wedding, especially in Atlanta. Boy was I wrong. When I started my wedding venue search, I was so surprised by how much everything costs. But even then I was still feeling ok about the budget, we can do this. Maybe we will set aside an extra $3,000 - $5,000 for things we just had to have and that were special to each of us (Probably an entertainment portion for the FI and for me it's videography). But then this past week, the bottom let out for me. I received my sample catering menus and was literally blown away by the cost.

As I told you before, I am having about 150 guests and I wanted a sit down dinner. Do you wanna guess how much that costs in Atlanta? Ok, let me tell you. $10,000! Yes, $10,000 to feed 150 people. $67 dollar a person and that just to eat. Not to drink. Just to eat and have somebody serve you. Yes, it does include the food, glassware/drinkware, napkins, and the actual servers but still. That's crazy. So there goes half of my budget and it doesn't even include the bar! And yes, as a 20 something couple who loves to have a good time and entertain, having an open bar is important to us, but we are at $10,000 not including our bar or our VENUE fees. Yes, I did say venue fees. The majority of the places I am looking at have venue fees that are between $3,000 - $5000. And then you add the open bar, which is about $4000, and you are close to $20,000 to eat, drink and have somewhere to actually have the wedding at. That would be all great if there were not other parts of a wedding like, a wedding planner, photography, flowers, linens and decor, DJ, favors and um a wedding cake. So yea, the numbers are definitely starting to add up and I am not liking how they are looking.