The Budget

The Budget
Today we sat down to make our ‘official’ wedding budget. Every wedding book and website we’ve looked at says that the first and most important part of planning a wedding is the budget. How many dollars for the venue, how much for transportation, and what to spend on invitations. We’ve done a lot of research and feel like we set some pretty realistic numbers to paper. Many, many numbers. It makes sense that having a framework to work within makes it a more efficient and manageable planning process. You want to budget your money carefully so that it gets appropriated to the right item in the intended amount. So that the event goes just as you planned it and anticipated. So that you maximize its’ potential to work for you. Yeah, for all these reasons budgeting is very important.
That got me thinking, if budgeting is so important how come we only do it with money? Money is replaceable. There will always be more. Sure it’s necessary to survive and of course we want to remain financially stable and be able to purchase the things we want and need. Naturally we all want to have more of it. But reality is that the amount of money we have is not predetermined or limited. We can always get more. We can always get a promotion, a second job, downsize, invest, save. We’ll always have some amount of money. And it matters somewhat but it certainly isn’t everything. Not to me at least.
So why don’t we budget things that are much more limited? Why don’t we take such care to budget our time? Time is in short supply. We can’t get more and there’s no going back. It’s interesting that we don’t put such a premium on how we spend it, the choices we make, what that says about us.
I’m sitting here thinking it’s kind of funny that I’m willing to spend ‘x’ amount of dollars on a DJ and that’s set in stone for some reason but you’d never hear me say I’ll only spend 10 hours per precious year of my life angry or sad or scared. We never say “life is so short and so important that I promise to myself that I’m only budgeting 40 hours per week for work. The rest I want to spend with my cherished loved ones.” We’d look at someone like they were crazy if they said “I’m not going to let this bother me right now. I’m choosing to be happy at this time because I’m only budgeted for 15 minutes of frustration per week and I want to save it for tomorrow’s conference call.” Maybe we should.
Now that everything I do has an impact on another person I care so much about I think I’m going to do a little time budgeting. In past years I won’t say I’ve ‘wasted’ time but going forward I’d like to be more aware of how I use my time to make sure I’m spending it the way I really want to. I want to be more conscious of how I spend my time, how we spend our time, and the decisions I make that take away time that would be better spent another way.
The wedding budget is complete. Time to work on the marriage budget.

The Dance

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE to dance at weddings.  I am totally the girl at the front of the electric slide who has 'extra moves' to complicate the dance,  who has to get "can-she-get-up?" low during the twist, and who thinks that every conga line is equal parts inventive and hilarious.  Nothing makes me happier than cutting it up with people I care about.  I've always said that the part of my wedding I'm looking forward to most is the dancing.  Dancing with my dad, dancing with my wife, and dancing with all of our friends and family.  And I still say that.  I'm in charge of the music at our wedding and you better believe there will be every stereotypical wedding song and then some played and I will be on the dance floor for every single one of them.   Every dance. 
But there's another dance.  A dance I'm doing now.  An unanticipated dance that's not quite as fun as the Macarena.  It's the ugly stepsister of the wedding dance, the wedding-planning dance.  The wedding-planning dance demands the precision of the tango, the energy of the jitterbug and the patience of waltz.  It's a very complicated, unpredictable set of steps and can only be executed by a true Lord of the Dance. 
One must have the stamina to get through the fast parts.  Phone calls, e-mails, research research research and more phone calls.  It requires endurance.  Perserverence. Patience with oneself.  Despite the rhythmic tick of the clock one must not be phased. Not break stride.  Not miss a step. Stay focused.  Keep going.  Keep googling.
And there are the slow parts.  Waiting.  Don't get too comfortable during these easier portions of the ritual.  That's when you lose the audience.  The lull.  That's when you lose momentum and the finale right around the corner becomes impossible.
And the big finish.  Always going on in the backround and carried out with a combination of furious precision and unprecedented complexity.  Navigating the crowd.  Foxtrotting between Mom's wishes and cousins' demands.  Moonwalking between college friends and work friends.  Lindy hopping through the cabbage patch of the guest lists trying not to step on anyone.  Trying not to misstep. Trying to be inclusive but realistic.  Delicate but firm.  Considerate of everyone but true to ourselves.  Doing  perfect grand plies between the wedding vision and the wedding budget. 
It's not a dance I love.  I've loved all dances in the past but this one is pretty complicated and this is the beginning of a very long song.  Hopefully we can not only pull off a show-stopping performance but maybe even enjoy ourselves a little!  And when things get stressful, if anyone has any insight on how to gracefully execute these moves, please teach me how to Dougie. 

choices

Alright.  This is attempt #1 at creating a blog.  As Nicole and I have recently gotten engaged, I thought it might be fun to document this little journey of wedding planning we're about to embark on.  So far the wedding planning process sounds like an incredible amount of choices.  Not my strong suit.  It's funny, I'd have guessed before that the most important choice one would make would be the one where you decide who to marry.  As it turns out, that choice is really just like pot.  It's a gateway choice.  It leads to thousands of other choices and before you know it the choices take over.  One minute you're in control, the next you're just a chooser.  It's everything.  And choosing on the weekends won't satisfy the need.  It creeps into the weekdays, the work hours, sometimes even before work.
I dont even remember life before choices now. 
Today we're going to look at rings.  This is our second trip and we've got some good ideas now.  I had no idea the options that were available.  (And by "options that were available" I mean "how much this is going to cost.")  But the fact that she's worth every penny doesnt hurt.  Wish us luck!