Because I like being depressed?

I've decided I'm going to keep track of all my wedding expenses. In the three weeks since we've been engaged, I've already been dropping some major bills and I know it's only going to get much, much worse. So, I've decided to use my blog to keep track of how much a middle of the road wedding costs in Duluth, Minnesota. I'm comforting myself with all the points I'm racking up on my credit card rewards and the free Coach purse I'm going to treat myself to when this is all said and done. I suppose it would be fiscally responsible to take my rewards dough and invest it in the wedding itself, but that's not nearly as exciting. I live for excitement.

The first expense we encountered was the photographer. Did I mention she's awesome? And very professional? And I love pictures? And I want to always remember this day? And I'll get a copy of every photo she takes? And cds? And no copyright? And I love her? And she's going to be with us for twelve full hours on the wedding date, resulting in at least six hundred photographs? Okay, now that you know all of that...I paid her in full the first time we met, to take advantage of a 5% discount. I feel it's best to space out some of these expenses and stress about money a little bit now instead of A LOT next October. In total, the photographer cost $2,756.30. We met her at Enger Park today to do our engagement shoot, which is included in the cost above. It was fun and fast and I can't wait to see the pictures. Fortunately, I don't have to wait long because they are going to be ready for me to pick up during my lunch break on Friday. That's less than twenty-four hours. I realize I haven't even seen the actual pictures yet, but they say you get what you pay for and I'm inclined to agree with them already.

The next expense was the down payment for the reception at the Radisson, which was $500. Could have been worse. Again, it's $500 less to worry about in October since they'll just lop that off of the $800 room rental charge when the time comes.

The most recent expense was incurred today. Management made an appointment to show my apartment (again! because those last douchebags didn't show up! how long do they expect me to keep this place showable?) at 4pm, so I couldn't go home directly after pictures and I suggested we go to Michaels to check out wedding decorations. I knew without a doubt that I want to do a fall theme. We picked out six fall garlands which, let me tell you, was quite the challenge. They have at least thirty-five varieties of leaf garland and it was a bitch finding six that matched each other....and we're still going to have to yank off some cheesy berries and sprigs of dumb autumny crap.

While we were walking through the store, some autumny, non-cheesy berry wreathy things caught Nic's eye and he suggested we make them our centerpieces with a candle in the middle of each. I swear he's not gay. I swear. But they are going to make really pretty centerpieces and I doubt I ever would have come up with that on my own. We found twenty-four on the shelves and, since my calls to the Radisson catering department went unanswered, we have no idea how many people will be seated at each table and, consequently, how many tables we will need centerpieces for. With eight at a table, we would have been a little bit short. As we wandered around, trying to find an employee who could check if there were more hiding in the back, we noticed another customer who had eight of them in her basket. I considered stealing them when she wandered away for a minute, but I didn't want to be/wasn't drunk enough to be that girl who gets in a fight at Michaels. Instead, we waited patiently for them to put some leaves and a huge vase and a massive candle together on the Michaels counter and ponder it from three feet away for several minutes. We silently urged them on from afar. It's all we could do. Eventually they put the autumny wreaths back and we pounced on them. To be honest, by that point, I wanted to do the vase thing because it was gorgeous, but I shut my mouth because the autumny wreaths were relatively cheap and who the hell remembers the centerpieces a week later anyway? Only the bride. And the groom, in this case, because he had one hell of a time untangling those mofos so the cashier could scan each and every single one. He will never forget, but therapy might ease the pain.

The moral of the Michaels story is a total bill of $114.18. Not too bad, especially because I just remembered that $4.99 was for a Christmas ornament kit that I bought for Red and me. So, with tax factored in, that brings the wedding decorations total for today to $108.87.

The grand total thus far for the wedding is $3365.17. No cake, no dress, no tux, no food, no booze, no flowers. Ouch, yo.