The Flower Girl and The Budget

I know, such a great combination, right? Well, I figured I'd soften the blow of budget discussions with these way cute pics of The Roo - nickname of the most fabulous Flower Girl ever. Seriously.

Cute as all hell, right? I hear her walk down the aisle was quite focused on her task at hand. I will hold off on the story until I see if JCP was able to capture it.

I took these photos while I was waiting to walk down the aisle. I swear, that was the longest thirty minutes of my life. The Roo was really good though. You knew she was bored as hell with all the waiting and waiting. There was no fussing or whining or anything.

So, I am ready to share all things budget related. I'm not quite sure how to go about it though. I feel a little oogy about sharing the final totals on everything. Is it in poor taste to bring up the exact total of our wedding? I have two major numbers - the cost of everything and the cost of everything without the rings and honeymoon. I did that because the rings and the honeymoon were two areas where we had already started saving for prior to getting engaged. The honeymoon savings was originally my Bikram yoga fund. I sacrificed my yoga practice for a honeymoon! I'm going to get back into practicing as soon as possible because I have totally missed it!

The Candyman and I had started saving for our rings around September or October - right around the time when he and I started shacking up permanently. We had about half of what we paid saved up. We were super-duper-uber blessed that we were given a family heirloom diamond and only had to pay for the setting, my band and his band. His band was actually more expensive than most men's bands. However, we felt it wasn't a place to skimp since he'd be wearing it forever-ever. If we'd had to buy our own diamond, we'd still be engaged instead of married. For reals.

One thing The Candyman and I had decided on from the very start is that we would not, could not, staunchly REFUSED to go into any sort of debt for this wedding. It simply was not an option. The other rule we had was that we would absolutely NOT touch my savings. I've got the required 6 months salary saved if I should ever lose my job and it's something I worked really hard to get to. I wasn't going to blow it all on stuffed mushrooms (regardless of how super-yum they were) and tulle. No sir.

So that being said, I'm still trying to figure out how to share the budget breakdown. I can do it by percentage to total. I can talk about where I was over and where I was under. I can give SOME cash totals, or all cash totals (must check with The Candyman though to see if he's down with that, yo). I'm going to add a poll to the top of the blog. Vote for what you want to see.

God, I love polls. Totally fun because the are anonymous and all those people who don't like to leave comments can still participate with a clicky-clicky. Yes, you know who you are.

You can vote for more than one option. Go vote.