CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
2004-04-23 - 8:41 a.m.
days until our wedding!
If you've been reading the main journal you know that as all brides and grooms have been in the past, we've been plagued by the nastiness of wedding budgeting. Nastiness meaning, "holy fucking shit, how the hell are we going to pay for this damn thing?" And by the way, when I start referring to our wedding, our first day as husband and wife, the first day of the rest of our lives, our blissful day of love as "this fucking wedding" ... I think we have a problem.
All of my life, I have dreamed of my wedding. Whether I was making Ken and Barbie act it out, or I was picturing my sophomore crush in a tux, or when Holly and I went through that phase (if you can call our entire friendship a phase) of buying bride magazines (when we had no boyfriends at all) and making our 'dream wedding books' ala monica of friends, I was dreaming about my wedding.
A few things have changed since I have actually began planning it. Things have gotten smaller, less elaborate, and unfortunately more stress filled. I am not sad about downsizing certain aspects of the wedding at all. Even if our budget was handed to us in the form of a personal check from Bill Gates, I would probably still keep things pretty much the same. I just don't see a need in spending 20 grand on one day.
That said, we have changed our honeymoon plans. This is a touchy subject with me, because I like the 'ooh' factor. I like LOVE it when we tell people we are going to fly into Paris, stay a few days, take the train to Venice, stay a few days and then end our trip in Rome for a few days. I love the idea of that trip as well. But as time went on, I started having some nagging thoughts. The first being that this trip is a big ass trip... there are a lot of components, things to worry about. I don't particularly want to worry about that shit as well as plan a wedding. I just about had a damn coronary worrying about the New York trip and dealing with Christmas... this is so much bigger than that. The second thought was the whole language thing, not knowing the first thing about the things we wanted to see, how we would get around while we were in these cities etc. Not to mention I didn't have the first clue how much money we should bring. The conversion rate isn't exactly favorable right now, and are things comparitively priced?
The last and most important thing was something a few people, and a few articles had pointed out. The honeymoon will be a time of regrouping, we'll probably be exhausted from all the stuff we've been dealing with in the time prior (making sure everything is ok, the emotions, the sensory overload with such a big wedding etc.) that we'll probably want to relax. I don't know how relaxing cramming as much tourist shit as we can into each day is. I needed a damn vacation when we got back from New York, it's just exhausting. Oh yeah, and it'll be winter there, not exactly the easiest trip to bring minimal luggage for you know?
So now, we are thinking of the caribbean. We are also considering London, but we are strongly considering Jamaica, or Barbados, or even the Bahamas. I personally am vying for Jamaica because of the 'adult only, all inclusive' packages I've found. 8 nights in a deluxe room with a king size bed, view of the ocean, private beaches, 4 on site restaurants, and activities up the wazoo for 3 grand for both of us. The only money we'd need is for shopping. A lot of the packages are actually under 3 grand... we won't make any decisions until we research it more, but as a good friend of mine pointed out "the point of a honeymoon is quality time for you and your new husband. What way would you prefer to spend it? Being a tourist or lying on the beach in the sun?" I so totally would rather lay in the sun. Paradise, isn't that what it's supposed to be about anyway?