We set a date for our wedding only 7 months out.. not too much time to plan. 2 months later after TONS of work trying to figure things out, we have a pretty major change of plans. We live in Santa Monica so we decided to get married at our church, Saint Monica, because we love it there. Little did we know how expensive it would be to find a recpetion place nearby. Orginally the costs (120-185 pp) of local hotels totally freaked us out. So we rented a house in the Palisades but our guest list has grown from 30 to like 50 and so now I have to cancel the house and start ALL OVER AGAIN and we only have 5 months to go now. I also thought all the DIY stuff would be fun but it is such a pain for us. Bringing in rentals to a house and lighting and decorations and sound .. so hard to figure out so now we are back to square one looking at hotel packages in the previously mentioned range. Also, I was going to have the family stay at the original house but we can't afford to have the reception at a hotel AND pay to rent them a house so now we have to tell them to get hotels. What a mess. I feel like I screwed up with getting that house and also maybe even screwed up deciding to get married here since it is so expensive!