So far, wedding planning has been fun and positive, with only a few hiccups. I've heard about brides getting burned out and I've even given advice to others, but didn't think it would happend to me. Wrong! Today, something happened. I'm not sure what exactly, but I think everything just has been building and it just slammed both FI and I in the face. We both felt it today.
We're down to 5 months and still have sooo much to plan, we have a super tight budget so decision-making is difficult, and FI is dealing with some groomsmen issues b/c 1 is having a baby the week of the wedding, and 3 have another major event going on the day before and they live out of state, so getting here ontime will be a challenge (and it's too late to change the date - we debated that).
So my FI was getting very stressed about his groomsmen and I was getting stressed over the money issue and the fact that our guest list has climbed to 200 again (after cutting it back to 165!) and . . . . well, I'm sure you guys know the feeling. So today, wedding planning became NOT fun anymore. I was in tears. FI came over after work and we talked about it - turns out he had cried earlier today too, which is not normal for him. We realized that we had to make some difficult decisions. We had two options: (1) borrow money and go into debt (which we agreed not to do in the beginning), or (2) cut the guest list again, just do finger foods instead of a full meal, and cut the DJ/dancing. It was one of the hardest things we had to do, but we decided to make the cuts.
We worked on the guest list and this time, we got it down to 140. We're going to do an afternoon ceremony followed by fingerfoods and fellowship. We'll definitely use the church fellowship hall, not a separate venue, to save on costs.
We might still have a first dance or something b/c we can play music from the sound system, but we may or may not be able to do a full dance floor.
I feel a lot better b/c the burden of possible debt and all the extra details that comes with added guests, has been lifted, but it was very hard to cut some of our guests b/c we have a lot of friends and family. In the end, our closest friends/family will be there and we can afford it. Cutting the list was one of the hardest things we had to do, but I'm thankful that the Lord gave us the strength to work together as a team and get it done. Now we can sleep peacefully, thank you Lord!