I've been hella absent around the Knot these days for many reasons (school and health stress playing a huge factor). Long story short, cash is very tight. We had a few grand tucked away for the wedding, a good part of it from his mom, but we were going to pull it off.
The last week of school, one of our cats took horribly ill. Our cats are our children, so needless to say we went full out trying to save her. We borrowed against the wedding savings (with his mom's blessing re her part), knowing insurance would only pay back a partial amount. Sadly, she didn't make it, and $1500 later, we had to put her down.
FI and i can't qualify for new credit right now and didn't really want to do that for the wedding anyway. No cash savings, no wedding.
Our wedding's a modest budget for our city ($9K for 90 guests), but I don't see us finding that by September. We were already talking of trimming the guests in half (luckily, no invites/STDs out yet for anyone we'd cut) before this.
I feel crappy. I was really looking forward to marrying him on my favourite day of the year, the same day as my favourite all-night arts event (our after party), and just marrying him in and of itself. It also seems like right as this is all going down, all of my friends are either eloping, moving their weddings up to this year, etc... So I've been hibernating.
It's decision time though for calling it off indefinitely and such, and I don't want to. It's ridiculous, but I'm scratching my head trying to find a way. I was hoping you genius Knotties could either help craft a solution or offer some wisdom. Best I can tell, the options are:
1) Postpone indefinitely/at least a year. This is the rational choice I guess, but my heart's been set on a fall wedding so it's literally now, or next year.
2) Give up the fall wedding so the postponement can be shorter - no guarantees though
3) Dramatically alter our wedding plans and make it work on a very modest budget.
We don't have an option for a house wedding and city hall here is HORRID. Like, godawful. Our venue has a $250 fee for ceremony on site (already paid via deposit) and no fee for the room for a party larger than 8, just food/booze costs ($60 pp incl. tax and tip). Our officiant's a third paid for via deposit. So's the photographer.
I've mulled cutting the guests to 25 people, just having a ceremony, having a ceremony and punch/cake reception.... I don't want to be tacky or rude, but I do want to marry him sooner rather than later. There are family issues at play for me (people who may not see next year) that pressure me.
I suppose if we cancel for now, I have more time to get in shape - already dreading engagement photos next month and frankly thinking of rescheduling them again. But I'm still depressed.
Thoughts? TL; DR cliff notes: drained our savings for an emergency - now stuck debating the options above.