huntingtonbeachbride's Pink wedding

And she was super excited about the flowers! We are thinking along the same lines now. The more we talked, the more she was saying "Oh, no, that will need to be bigger!" I have been trying to figure out how we could stretch our budget, because, here in California, everything is SUPER expensive. Having a guest list of almost 100, I was starting to stress out. My mom had given us a number, and then we are going to save up atleast $5,000. Then we got the great news that Mike's Aunt and Uncle are contributing, and then IF, and I do mean IF, we need to, there is always Mike's trust fund, but we really want to save that for after the wedding, and also to pay off Mike's school.

I have compromised. Moving the wedding from Southern California to Northern California (local) we will be saving money in vendor fee's, ceremony fee's, and most importantly travel fee's. The location we are most likely going to book is smaller, maximum guest capacity of 110, and has an intimate, rustic, charming feel to it. It is at a vineyard in the Livermore Wine Country. It is actually quite reasonably priced. Ceremony, reception, tray passed hors d'oerves, sit down dinner, premier alcohol package, champagne toast, and wedding cake came to about $10,600, which is about the cheapest I have found up here in our neck of the woods. I told FH that if we had a bigger backyard, we could have just had the ceremony and reception at our house and just save the money!

I AM STILL IN SHOCK AT HOW MUCH A WEDDING COSTS! IT'S LIKE, "WHOAH!"