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.
Showing posts with label Indiebride. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indiebride. Show all posts
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday, March 24, 2008
Crazy Bride Spreadsheet
I found a budget spreadsheet through Indiebride that makes me look like a poseur. It has a tracking sheet for how much you need to save, accounting for how much you started with and how many months you have left to save, with formulas calculating the total with each deposit or payment entry. That's just the first tab.
The second tab has the wedding budget, with every line item accounted for (I had forgotten all about postage!). There's an "estimated" column and and "actual" column and a "money spent to date" column and all sorts of other columns.
The next tab is for misc. ideas, as far as I can tell.
Then there's the tab to keep track of vendor contact info.
After that are the guest list tabs, the seating chart tab, the floorplan tab (yes, she really created a floorplan using Excel, here's a screen capture below), the to-do list tab, the legal changes tab, the flowers tab, and the gift tracker tab.
Why do all that work to come up with some lame-ass spreadsheet when some detail-oriented bride has already done the work for me? I showed it to Mr. T last night and said, "you thought I was crazy..."
Last night I was reworking our budget in the beautiful new spreadsheet and reluctantly came to the conclusion that we need to increase it, at least until we book a venue and get more accurate costs for things. For example, I have no idea what to budget for alcohol. We were thinking of serving just beer, wine, and champagne, but Mr. T's coworker suggested having a cash bar for other types of alcohol. Has anyone been to a wedding with a cash bar? Did you think it was tacky? This way I could have them make a signature drink for the evening, like a pumpkin martini. Otherwise there's no way we can pony up for hard alcohol--we know how you all like to drink! ;-)
I did a funny thing with the postage, where I was calculating it without putting in the decimal point, so I ended up with like $3600 for postage. I was having a mini heart attack until Mr. T figured out my mistake. I know it's hard to believe, but I took (and passed) college-level Calculus! Well, it's been awhile since then, apparently!
The second tab has the wedding budget, with every line item accounted for (I had forgotten all about postage!). There's an "estimated" column and and "actual" column and a "money spent to date" column and all sorts of other columns.
The next tab is for misc. ideas, as far as I can tell.
Then there's the tab to keep track of vendor contact info.
After that are the guest list tabs, the seating chart tab, the floorplan tab (yes, she really created a floorplan using Excel, here's a screen capture below), the to-do list tab, the legal changes tab, the flowers tab, and the gift tracker tab.
Why do all that work to come up with some lame-ass spreadsheet when some detail-oriented bride has already done the work for me? I showed it to Mr. T last night and said, "you thought I was crazy..."
Last night I was reworking our budget in the beautiful new spreadsheet and reluctantly came to the conclusion that we need to increase it, at least until we book a venue and get more accurate costs for things. For example, I have no idea what to budget for alcohol. We were thinking of serving just beer, wine, and champagne, but Mr. T's coworker suggested having a cash bar for other types of alcohol. Has anyone been to a wedding with a cash bar? Did you think it was tacky? This way I could have them make a signature drink for the evening, like a pumpkin martini. Otherwise there's no way we can pony up for hard alcohol--we know how you all like to drink! ;-)
I did a funny thing with the postage, where I was calculating it without putting in the decimal point, so I ended up with like $3600 for postage. I was having a mini heart attack until Mr. T figured out my mistake. I know it's hard to believe, but I took (and passed) college-level Calculus! Well, it's been awhile since then, apparently!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
