teenagers or kids, that is the question...

So, the biggest fight I've had with my mom (so far) about the wedding is that my fh and I don't want to invite kids. Here is the post I just left on weddingbee:

So, after incessant fighting with my mother I have given in to one of her demands-- technically we compromised, but now I have another problem. My fh and I did not want to invite kids to the wedding and our definition of a child is anyone under the age of 18. The compromise is that we will now allow teenagers at the wedding, which is apparently defined as anyone 13 or older.
So, here is the problem... How do I word that on an invitation??? What if one family has a 15 yr old, a 13 yr old, and a 10 yr old?? How do I now exclude one, but not the others? Not inviting kids was easy, address the envelope to the invited adults and put "adult reception immediately following ceremony" at the bottom of the invite. Now I have no idea what to do???

I need to order my invitations by the end of this month. Apparently, I have already hurt some family members feelings because my mother told people that we were not inviting kids. I don't know why she did that -- up until this point we'd only been TALKING about it, no decisions had been made. This is all very frustrating. Ugh.

odds and ends

Staying home sick sucks. Ugh. However, one good thing about it is that I've had lots of time to think. I'm feeling much better about the whole wedding thing. After some of the advice that I've gotten from the comments on my blog and from Weddingbee, I really think I am going to be able to pull this off. So, here is my brainstorm:

• If I get fresh daisy plants they can be placed next to the chairs along the aisle for the wedding and then they can be used as center pieces for my tables.
• Each bridesmaid can hold one yellow gerbera daisy with a ribbon.
• My bouquet will be simple with shasta daisies with ribbon tying them together.

So, I think that will cut down on my flower costs. Next item, make-up and hair:

• Unless I find a great deal, I've decided to do my own make-up
• I found a place in Pasadena that has affordable prices for eyelash extensions -- I think that I'd rather spend my money on something that will last at least through the honeymoon than on my make-up.
• I'm going with my mh to look for a hair salon/stylist close to the wedding site. Hopefully we can find someone/someplace that will work

I've already purchased 144 turquoise candle holders with votives for decorations. I'm thinking that I don't need to spend any money on extra "party favors" and that I can let the guests each take a votive home instead. I've always thought that most favors were a little silly, and the only favor my fh and I agree on would cost us over $230 and is a little silly -- rulers that say "love rules".

Okay, my medicine is starting to kick in so I gotta go now.

Who to invite?

My fh and I aren't big on inviting children to our wedding, and since we are on a tight budget, figure that it should be an adults only affair. However, my mom and my fmil disagree. My fmil hasn't been as vocal, but her first list of possible invitees included quite a few teenage family members. My mom, on the other hand, has been very vocal and has even hung-up on me when talking about. She has also had a case of selective amneisa -- forgetting things we have discussed and even imagining me saying things! I don't want to fight with my mother, afterall she is my mother and my parents are contributing the largest amount of money to our wedding. But I wanted that money to be able to cover more than just the food. At the rate we are going, the my fh and I are going to have to cover all costs excluding the food and location. This puts us way over our initial budget. My mom was so upset about the no children thing that she has added an extra $1000.00 to our budget to cover the cost of any teenagers. This is a very generous gesture, but she doesn't seem to understand that even with that extra money my fh and I can't afford the wedding decorations, flowers, and favors that people expect from us. At this point I have hired the cheapest photographer (one that offered a "digital only" package with no albums) and dj we could find. And, what about flowers? I looked at flowers online at Costco, but even their flowers are out of our budget. I love daisies, but they aren't popular right now, so I can't get real prices right now. Costco doesn't have daisies on their website. I am hoping that I can go to the flower district in downtown LA over spring break to look at flowers, but I don't think dasies are popular until the summer. I just want simple white shasta dasies with a few yellow gerbera daisies-- nothing fancy. Then there is wedding cake. I'm not a big fan of cake, and I really dislike the big and gawdy wedding cakes that everyone displays. So, I decided not to have wedding cake. This did NOT go over very well. So, now my moh has volunteered to make me a small and simple cake that we can cut just to make my mom and fmil happy. I'm letting her do it because I don't want to argue with anyone about it. If anyone asks me about the cake I can just say "it's taken care of". Our receptiong dinner includes a viennese sweet table, so I don't see why we have to feed everyone cake on top of that. Ugh. Ok, sorry for the rant. On the upside, I am even more exicted than ever about the honeymoon.

Jamaica Baby!

So, my fh just told me that he was able to upgrade our honeymoon in Jamaica from 6 nights to 7 nights and now we have a honeymoon suite with butler service and a private pool - and this is the best part -- it is actually costing us $15.00LESS than what had originally reserved! I knew there was a reason why I love that man!

Just getting started...

So, I'm sitting here on my couch perusing the usual wedding websites and blogs, when it suddenly occurs to me that just reading about the dilemmas of other brides isn't doing it for me anymore. I need to vent myself, and I am certain that my mh is getting sick of me calling with all of my troubles. My other bm's are sick of it too, I am sure. So, I've decided to start this online journal to help me through the next seven months or so.

About the title "The Road Less Traveled" - First, I love this poem, and though for some it may seem that planning a wedding isn't exactly the least traveled road, for me it has been a very long journey that took many paths off of the main road. I will be 35 by the time I get married, and though it is my first everything just feels so much different. We are both "settled". We both work in Education and we own a home in the OC. So, life is pretty good; however, our income is well below that of our student's parents and most of our friends. Most everyone we know is a college graduate, and most of them chose not to go into education -- most are in business, law, medicine, etc.. So, here we are trying to plan a wedding for family and friends, on a very small budget in the OC. The AVERAGE wedding here runs $35,000! That is six grand more than I made my first year teaching. Our wedding budget is $12,000, so let the games begin!