Somewhere Between Greedy and Guilty

Disclaimer: This is a money-related post.  I will try my best not to offend, but I'd also like to be honest.  Bear with me :)

Lately, I've been experiencing a good bit of guilt about our wedding.  Not only are we spending a lot of money on things I would usually find frivolous, we're also asking our guests to spend money on presents, on top of all of their travel expenses.  This makes me feel as though I come across like this:

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I wouldn't go as far as to say that I had a humble upbringing.  Especially when I compare my parents' background to that of Mr. Lion's parents, who came to this country with very little, I feel incredibly fortunate.  My parents were comfortable, but not nearly wealthy.  Even if my parents had been well-off, I think Sister Lioness and I would still be raised with the same morals and values when it came to money.  My parents prioritized travel and education, but they were pretty thrifty with everything else.  As soon as I was old enough to work, I did.  My parents were more than happy to give me everything I needed, but if I wanted something, I worked for it and bought it myself.  This taught me to spend conservatively and carefully consider every purchase.

I now have an internal conflict brewing between the usual scrutiny that takes place over purchases and the more liberal spending I've been doing with our wedding.  This makes me feel guilty/sad/awkward/bad.  Like this:

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We're spending $20,000 on our wedding, which, according to Cost of Wedding, is below the average cost of an Atlanta wedding.  But to me, it seems like a fortune.  My car was $8,600 when I bought it at age 16.  Mr. Lion and I do not own our home.  I've just never spent that much money on one thing!  So when I look at all those zeros in our budget, I feel a little overwhelmed.

I know what you're thinking: "Sooo don't spend that much money.  Tah dah!  Problem solved!"  Well, the issue is that I want certain things for our wedding...certain things that end up adding up to about $20,000.

When we first got engaged, my parents offered to contribute $8,000.  Anything beyond that was up to us.  Could we have a wedding for $8,000?  Of course!  I've seen some beautiful weddings that end up costing even less than that!  But, it's not what we wanted.  We made a list of everything we wanted, we researched to determine approximately what those things would cost, and the figure we ended up with was $20,000.  After the $8,000 contribution from my parents, we were left with a $12,000 contribution from our own savings.  Given our 20-month engagement, we decided that saving this amount was doable.  Doable, but still not necessary ethical in my mind.

After over a year of wedding planning (and wedding purchasing), I still have moments where I feel incredibly guilty for the amount of money I'm spending.  For example, when we decided to have cupcakes at our wedding, we decided to top those cupcakes with little pinwheels.

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Cute, right?  And they match our whimsical theme, yes?  The only problem was that there was no way I was DIY-ing hundreds of these.  I don't have the patience of Mrs. Guinea Pig :) I found an Etsy seller who made pinwheels like these at a price that fit within our budget.  Still, I debated about buying them for an embarrassing amount of time.  It just seemed so silly to spend money on paper that would attach to a toothpick, stick into a cupcake for a couple of hours, then get thrown away.  After a ridiculous amount of discussion with many people, I finally sucked it up and bought them.

I feel the same way about wedding gifts.  Mr. Lion and I were thrilled to create gift registries.  We greedily ran through Bed Bath & Beyond with our registry gun, zapping everything in sight that we even slightly liked.  Then, our friends (who are also engaged) told us that they are not registering for their wedding.  "We've lived together for a few years already," they said.  "We've already built our home.  We already have everything we need."  Well, when you look at it that way, I suppose we have everything we need, too.  Sure, our kitchen is full of hand-me-downs from the 1970s (and not in the cool, retro kind of way), but everything works.  I was instantly transformed from greedy to guilty.

The guilt is something I'm continuing to work on.  The good news is that the people who will be attending our wedding would never even think about passing judgment on us or on our spending.  They love us, and they support us.  I take solace in the fact that this is only an internal conflict, not an external one.  I've been feeling better about my spending lately, but the idea of so many people spending money on us still makes me slightly uncomfortable.  It's new and foreign to me, but I'm sure that when the time comes, I'll just be happy to have received so much love from our guests!

Has anyone else felt this way about their wedding spending or their wedding gifting?

Too Cheap for a Cricut

Like so many Bees before me, I have swooned over the Cricut.  In my opinion, it's just the mother of all crafting tools.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Cricut allows you to "print" shapes.  It basically cuts out special shapes for you with the touch of a button.  They even make a special device for cakes.  The possibilities are endless, and it can certainly make for some very creative DIY invitations, menus, programs, etc.  Not to mention the fact that it makes it much easier to obtain the highly coveted "bracket."

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The only problem I had with a Cricut was the price.  Sure, you can usually find one secondhand.  You may even be able to find an awesome coupon.  I still had trouble justifying it.  As Mrs. Hot Wings mentioned previously, it's best to keep it simple.  Wedding purchases are so often one-time things.  We pay vendors so much money for just one day.  We spend so much money on a dress that we wear once.  I just couldn't bring myself to buy something like this knowing that I would probably never use it again.  Sure, I could make birthday cards for friends...but I know myself and I probably wouldn't.  Fortunately, I found an alternative.

Did you know that Michael's has some pretty awesome sales sometimes?  They do.  I waited for a sale and I waited for some coupons.  Finally, I received the news that all paper punches were 50%.  I also received a coupon for 50% off of one regularly priced item.

I found these items for 50% off:

Clockwise from top left: 2" tag punch, 1/4" heart punch, and fleur de lis embossed border punch

Using the tag punch and the heart punch (along with my mad embossing tools from earlier), I made these for our future invitations:

The little heart just makes me melt a little bit, if I do say so myself.

I also wanted to get a few circle punches, but I couldn't decide on what size circle to get.  Then I found a circle cutter, which kind of works like a compass (sorry if I just gave you terrible flashbacks of geometry class!) therefore allowing you to create circles of all different sizes.  This did not count as a "paper punch," so it was not 50% off.  Helloooo 50% off coupon!

And finally, I borrowed a straight up paper slicer from a friend.

{all personal photos}

Overall, I saved about $80.  Not too shabby!  What kinds of crafting tools have you invested in or avoided investing in?

OMG Shoes

I enjoy a good boutique sale like Rue La La or ideeli.  I get a kick out of special deals like Scoutmob or Living Social.  But I freeking love eBay.  Maybe it's the competitive side of me, but winning a good auction just makes my day.  It can be really hit or miss, but if you just so happen to stumble upon the treasure you were searching for, eBay can be absolutely thrilling.  It can certainly give a budget bride quite the sense of accomplishment.

I decided to venture over to eBay to do a little bit of wedding shoe searching.  I typed in "green" (one of our wedding colors), "7" (my shoe size), and two of my favorite words in the language of fashion:

Kate.  Spade.  She is absolutely one of my favorite designers, but when it comes to my everyday budget, she's on another playing field more appropriate for a special occasion...like a wedding!  I'm a big fan of the classic and sophisticated style that this designer brings to shoes, handbags, and jewelry.  Well, my eBay find wasn't exactly what I would call classic or sophisticated...but it was certainly more me!

{all personal photos}

I had struck gold.  Bright green and pool blue, our wedding colors exactly.  Fun and whimsical, our wedding style exactly.  The little gift bow seemed to say "to Miss Lioness with love."  I had to have them.  Best of all, they were $30 plus shipping!  I felt like that was a pretty good deal in general, but for Kate Spade it was just amazing.  They were in pretty good condition too...just a little scuff on the sole, though it was not nearly as bad as the seller had made it sound.  I bid, won, and waited patiently by my mailbox as I imagined myself twirling through our first dance in these dancin' shoes.

Have you found any bargain wedding items on eBay?  Or have you struck out?

With a Little Help from my Friends

One of the easiest ways this budget bride has saved money is by recruiting help wherever possible. Fortunately, I happen to have some pretty talented friends! I love the concept of a "friendor" because I feel that it makes a wedding more personal and intimate. On our wedding day, I'm most looking forward to being surrounded by the people we love. Why not have that feeling extend to our vendors, too?

The first friend I hired was Sister Lioness. Though Sister Lioness is currently studying Teaching ASL as a Foreign Language at Columbia (bee tee dubs, their mascot is a lion...woot!), she does some pretty sweet graphic design on the side. It's more of a hobby for her, but she kind of rocks at it. I don't know much about graphic design, but I do know that I'm a sucker for fonts. Choosing fonts happens to be Sister Lioness' favorite part of graphic design, so it's been great to have her artistic eye around! She's designed our invitation suite, and I plan to collaborate with her for other paper projects like programs and menus.  Here's a sample of her work, a little diddy she came up with to give to family and friends when she moved from Gainesville to NYC:

 Ugh.  So sorry I had to censor that!

My friend Kealoha used to be a make up artist. Though she has now chosen a different career path, she still does a few gigs on the side. A recent gig was our mutual friend's wedding. She did the make up for the bride, as well as all of the bridesmaids and the mothers. Best of all, she gifted this to the bride as her wedding present. Naturally, I asked her nicely to grant me the same favor and I was psyched when she gladly obliged...though not nearly as psyched as Mama Lioness was. What can I say?! The woman likes the be pampered!

 Personal photo: The artist on the right, with her lovely work to her left and further left...aaand the groom and I just chillin.

Next, we have my cousin Chris.  Chris is my age, and he and Mr. Lion became good buddies one day at Disney World.  It was only their first time meeting face-to-face, but by the end of the day they were yelling wookie noises back and forth to each other on Star Tours (male bonding is so strange, is it not?).  Chris happens to be an ordained minister in the state of California.  When two nonreligious lions started to put a ceremony together, there was only one name that came to mind.  Of course, Chris was happy to look into the requirements to transfer his ordainment to Georgia and we're all really looking forward to having him in such an important role on the big day.

Personal photo: Chris on HIS big day

Lastly, we have our friend Evan.  Evan is engaged to my PT school friend Christina, and together they form some of the greatest couple friends these Lions could ask for!  Evan also happens to be a wedding photographer...a good one too!  They recently moved to Jacksonville, but Evan still happily agreed to shoot our wedding.  And our engagement pictures.  And some random pictures for our OOT bags.  Here's a sample of his work, from a photoshoot he did for our graduation:

Source: Weddings by Evan Hampton

Have you recruited any friendors?