I Was Destined to Elope

I’m sure many gals claim this, but I never envisioned myself having a wedding—or, the typical wedding anyway. If I did picture it, which happened rarely, I imagined a tiny ceremony on a beach or maybe even a wild trip to Vegas where we would recite vows in front of an Elvis impersonator (after all, I had a massive crush on the King for years).

So, when my Peruvian fiancé proposed to me in the garden next to the National Cathedral (even though he claims not to be very religious), I began researching destination wedding venues, citing off prices for beachside ceremonies in Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, and emailing him postcard-perfect photos of the azure waters and white-sand beaches of the Caribbean, partially obstructed by a beaming bride and groom. I told him that we could have a small wedding. Maybe 30 people, tops? He replied that he’d rather have the opportunity to celebrate our love and the giant step we are taking with our families and friends; however, he wasn’t completely against my idea.

“Why don’t you make a list of the 30 people you would invite?” He recommended, slyly.

I sat there with my laptop, typing names into Excel—parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, family friends, high school friends, college friends, post-college friends—scattered across the country from Los Angeles, California to Veazy, Maine. I tried cutting the list down. How could I not invite these people who had watched me grow from infant to early 30s, who had loved me even through my angry, depressed goth phase in high school? As the list teetered off around the 80s (just for my side) I decided he might be right.

So, here I am, the newest addition to DCNearlyweds.com, thrilled to be blogging about the ups and downs of planning a wedding. As you may have deduced from my pseudonym, I live in the Cathedral Heights neighborhood in D.C. Our wedding will take place in this area in September, but I need to leave some substance for my upcoming blogs! In the meantime, I’m just happy I decided not to elope.

$21,814

That is the average cost of a wedding in 2008! It has gone down from around $28,000, which means brides are being more budget conscious.

Find out more about the average cost of weddings in your area by checking out Cost of Wedding. For example, in Arlington where I live this is what came up:

"On average, couples that live in Arlington, VA spend between $38,246 and $63,744 for their wedding. This does not include cost for a honeymoon or engagement ring.

Wedding cost or average spent based on spending of other brides and grooms not wedding vendor prices. Spending and prices can vary widely. You should investigate all options and choose products and services that best meet your needs."

They have a neat breakdown based on the different services one needs or wants like a wedding coordinator, photographer, and DJ.

I wanted a really unique and fantastic venue. All the ones in the DC area that I wanted were way over my budget. Mr. Charleston grew up in WV so we started looking there for more cost effective venues so that we could have the size wedding we wanted for 1/2 the cost. Here is what the website quoted:

"On average, couples that live in Charleston, WV spend between $15,451 and $25,752 for their wedding. This does not include cost for a honeymoon or engagement ring."

Now, I know people have to travel to get there, but even if we had the wedding in the DC area, we had friends and family coming from the Philippines, England, Seattle, California, Las Vegas and all over the East Coast. Only about 1/4 of our guests are coming from the Dc area. In the end this worked out for our budget and for the size and type of wedding we're having. After the cost of the honeymoon, rings, and the entire wedding including the price of all the vendors, supplies, and miscellaneous items we have managed to stay under budget!

This obviously doesn't mean that every bride in the great DC metro area should start running for the hills to get away from high prices. We sacrificed the convenience of getting married in DC in exchange for a bigger wedding with a lot of the small details that we really wanted. Some of my dearest friends got married in DC and sacrificed the size of the wedding in order to have it in a popular venue in the area.

In the end, its about having a fun celebration with your new hubby and your best friends and family. We found a venue and have been able to plan a wedding for half the cost and we are able to have even more friends and family there. To us, having the most important people in our lives at our wedding is worth the drive:-)

Have you had to make compromises in terms of where you had your wedding and what you had at your wedding? How strict was your budget?