I know this may come a as a shock to some of you, but weddings are EXPENSIVE!! I know. I was shocked too! Unfortunately for me, I'm dirt poor. Even more unfortunately, so is my fiance, my parents, and my future parents-in-law (and no rich uncle's around to die and leave us lots of money either! So sad!!). Dirt -fricken- poor. And the economy being in the crapper hasn't helped any of us. So, that means we're holding off on the wedding for a few years while we try to get some mullah together.
One thing that has frustrated me so far in my wedding research is that every single wedding planning guide tells you that rule one (and step one) for any wedding is making a budget and staying within it. That's hard to do when, as far as I can tell, my budget is $0.00. (Another frustrating thing: every guide says that the "average wedding today" costs $26,000. Thankfully, I know from several testimonials that that number is utter BS here in the Midwest. Everyone I've spoken to thus far has pretty much done theirs for less than $10,000. In many cases, closer to $3000-6000.)
According to the world at large (at least in wedding planning), everything hinges off of everything else. You can't pick dresses or decorations until you choose your colors. You can't pick your colors until you've picked a date and looked at what flowers might be available at that time, or for that matter, what colors your venue might already have. You can't pick a date until you have a venue. You can't be sure of your guest list until you have a venue and a budget. And you can't pick a venue till you have a budget.
I was a bit frazzled when I left my parents' house after the first visit since our engagement. I knew money was tight, and that we'd likely have to wait a couple years before having it, but to walk away with no idea of how much we would have to work with was a bit overwhelming (I might have had my first tiny wedding planning breakdown on the ride home that night).
So, instead of starting with a budget, we're going to start with the most expensive (I think, anyway), and second most important item: the location! Neither Kenny nor I are particularly religious, so there will be no church involved, instead we're looking to have the ceremony and reception in the same place. An indoor place: outdoor weddings scare me. That's about as specific as we've gotten.
Trying to calm me down the day after talking with my parents' (and probably already getting sick of my constant wedding prattle), Kenny suggested we start our planning by looking at various venues. Once we'd gathered a list of likely suspects and their prices and guidelines we could then go back to my folks with that info and see where to go from there.
So far I've looked at one whole location: the Henry Doorley Zoo. I had originally suspected that this would be way too expensive of a venue to even consider, particularly since it would be the perfect place for us to get married. But, after reading in several "bargain wedding" guides that zoos were actually a "low cost alternative" to the usual culprits, I started getting my hopes up. Unfortunately, the guides were wrong again. The Omaha zoo would cost at -least- $2500, and likely a lot more than that. Oh well. I knew that idea was too good to be true. The next step will be calling around to the various halls and hotels in Omaha to get some price comparisons. Sounds like lots of fun.
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