Wedding Status Meeting

Mr. T and I actually had to schedule a status meeting this weekend to check in about our budget and guest list. I knew I wanted to discuss wedding stuff on Sunday, and he announced, "we'll meet between four and five," so we did. Well, I was doing laundry, actually, so we had to start late. Luckily he forgave me, although I did get some flak about being tardy while I was hanging my laundry. I found the exercise of having a scheduled meeting very productive...much more productive than talking to Mr. T while he's watching television, which doesn't lead to the highest retention rate.

We had to increase our budget by about $3000, thanks to our increased expectations about my dress, our rehearsal dinner, and a few other things. Luckily, we are still right on track in terms of our savings, so that's good. I'm glad I have all this budget training from my job...it keeps me honest on our spreadsheet.

Speaking of which, the spreadsheet I got off indiebride.com kicks ass. Clearly someone who knows and loves Excel created it. Unfortunately, while I can get by in Excel, I'm no master, and editing some of the formulas is proving troublesome. I'll figure it out, though, or I'll just MacGuyver it for my needs. The spreadsheet includes a tab for the guest list, with drop down menus indicating type of guest--his family, her family, guest/spouse, or attendant. Then it gives you a count and the percentage for each type of guest. It also gives you a count for the total number of invitations needed (though we're inviting about 100, we only need around 60 invitations). This spreadsheet practically does your laundry for you. I'm in love!

One tough decision we had to make was cutting a few of our guests, or at least putting them on our "B" list. I hate that. I wish we could just invite everyone. It makes me feel icky to decide that I haven't hung out with this or that person enough in the last few years, so they're off the list. However, unless we win the lottery soon, I have a feeling these types of decisions will confront us again and again. Sigh.