Holiday greetings, money nerdlings!

I know things have been pretty quiet in the L$G world over the past couple of weeks. There’s a lot going on at the moment, but a major reason it’s been so quiet is actually a pretty good reason: I got married!

Now, you might think I could have been a good blogger and set up some posts to cover my absence from the keyboard, and you’d be right, except that I didn’t know I would be getting married until less than a week before we said “I do”.

You read that right. Even though we got “engaged” on Monday, November 20th, we managed to have a wonderful wedding on Sunday, November 26th. I learned so much in that week about myself and weddings in general that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share it with you all.

Hooked yet? Settle in, because I’m going to share all the delightful details with you over a series of posts I’m calling the My Wedding in a Week series. We’ll talk decisions, cost, and lessons learned. Enjoy!

Making the decision

Health problems in my family prompted my lovely boyfriend, Joe, and I to pull the wedding trigger at breakneck speed. We’d been dating for 7 years, so it wasn’t like this was completely unexpected, but we’ve always been that couple that took things slowly and steadily, so we caught a lot of people off-guard with this decision.

We had been talking about getting married soon for a few months, and had even gone ring shopping. Then, on that Monday, we were on the phone talking about how everyone from both our immediate families was coming into town for Thanksgiving and it hit us: why not get married while everyone was here? It sounded crazy, but we decided to go for it.

Despite it being so last-minute, as soon as we told people the news, everyone — EVERYONE — immediately asked what they could do to help. I’m going to tell you right up front that this wedding would never have been the success it was without the help and support of our families and friends. This will be a theme in these posts, and the whole process just solidified how important a network is and how you really never know who you know until you need help.

We told our parents and siblings first, since we had to make sure they all were okay with the date and time we were aiming for. Once we had them on board, we messaged our friends to let them know. Every local friend we told was able to make it. Score!

At this point, we kind of thought we’d done what we could attendee-wise. Thanksgiving is a tough time for people to travel last minute and it was going to be a Sunday wedding, which meant most people would need to be back at work on Monday.

However, to our surprise and delight, several members of Joe’s family moved mountains to get here and what we thought would be a 20-person gathering turned into a 40-person celebration.

The Venue

This is probably the biggest obstacle when planning a wedding at short notice. Most professional venues require pre-booking and deposits. Restaurants are great options for small, quick weddings, but you might have to guarantee certain spending limits to make it worth the restaurant’s while and you’re stuck with whatever food they happen to make.

We got lucky: Joe’s parents offered their home as the venue.

Joe’s parents’ house is right on a body of water and their living room is open and gorgeous, with cathedral ceilings. They had even already thought through how they would host a wedding there since another family member is getting married next year and had considered their house as a venue. The choice was an easy one: a home wedding it would be!

The Cost

We didn’t pay for announcements/save-the-dates or invitations since we just called or emailed everyone with the information. Cost: $0

Since most of our guests were local and several others could stay with family, only a couple of people needed to resort to hotel rooms to stay, so we didn’t need to reserve a block of rooms or anything. Cost: $0

Our venue needed no reservation or pre-booking, and the food, drinks, furniture, and decorations were going to be separate. Cost: $0

I used a claddagh ring I already owned as an engagement ring, since we hadn’t finalized one yet, and it’s currently serving as my wedding band! This will be a future expense, since Joe wants to buy me something to represent our new milestone, but I love my placeholder. Cost: $0 (so far)

Wrap up

Of course the decision to get married and the announcement are easy. The venue worked out wonderfully, and we didn’t have to worry about a ring for me, but there was still so much to consider. Our so-far free wedding wasn’t going to stay that way!

Up next: Decorating the venue