Good Food, Good Booze and Good Music

As I mentioned in my previous post, a lot of my life has been consumed of late with work and wedding. Work is really boring, so I won’t go into that, but for those of you who are interested, wedding planning is coming along quite well.

As most of my friends know, I was not at ALL interested in having a wedding. I have never been a girl who dreams about my wedding day. I HAVE always dreamed about my honeymoon….which is going to be awesome, by the way…..but not my wedding day. Eloping sounded like the perfect option to me, but Fiancé’s and Family’s desires trumped mine. And that is ok, because Fiancé and I are going to have a really beautiful and fun wedding in the wine country. Good food, good music and good booze have been our motto, and so far it has worked for us.

For any bride-to-be out there, I can offer you three pieces of advice: 1) a beautiful wedding CAN be planned in less than a year (although it feels a bit rushed) and 2) DON’T buy into the bridal industry, and 3) decide what you part of the wedding is most important to you and spend your money on that.

Let me explain.

Point 1: A beautiful wedding can be planned in less than a year: There is simply NO need to devote 12-18 months of your life to plan a wedding (sorry Erica, if you are reading this!). Life is too short to worry about mundane details such as table assignments and RSVP cards. If you can devote one evening a week and one weekend day to meeting with caterers and florists and DJs, you should not have a problem booking vendors 6-8 months out.

Point 2: Don’t buy into the wedding industry: I cannot stress this enough. All the wedding books and websites offer all sorts of needless advice on how much to spend on flowers, how much to spend on your dress, when do send out your invitations, what sort of favors to give your guests, etc., and all I can say is…..make up your own rules. Plan your own budget and don’t exceed it. Don’t let vendors pressure you. I cannot tell you how many vendors TURNED US DOWN because they “couldn’t possibly” take on such a small and inexpensive wedding. Don’t let brochures and websites fool you into thinking that you are meeting with the BEST vendor and THEY make the rules. Meet with vendors, decide how much money you want to spend, and if their proposal goes over that amount, keep looking.

Fiancé and I talked to A LOT of vendors and we ended up choosing those who aren’t “fancy” and who aren’t “platinum wedding” vendors, but they all have a lot of integrity. We are receiving great customer service and no one is exceeding our budget. In fact, some of them are coming in under our budget.

Point 3: Decide what part of your wedding is most important to you and spend your money on that: Good Food, Good Music and Good Booze. Those were our top three priorities. Which is why I’m only having one bridesmaid and she is choosing her own dress. Which is also why we decided not to hire a professional photographer or videographer. Which is also why we are not giving favors. I really only want people drunk, well fed and dancing and I couldn't care less about anything else.

Just to plug our vendors…..for anyone who lives in the Bay Area and would like to plan a party or wedding in the wine country, give a quick call to our caterer, our florist, our rehearsal dinner location and our wedding venue.