Planning Tools via the Unabridged Bride Workshop

At last night's Unabridged Bride workshop, I really enjoyed hearing from CJ Dickinson of CJ's Off the Square. She spoke to us about how to build a realistic budget, manage our funds, keep our expectations in check, and work productively with potential vendors. Although we are a bit ahead in the planning process, all of this information was still helpful.

CJ suggested a "weekly wedding meeting" with one's fiancé so that a wedding doesn't take over one's regular day-to-day life. The meeting would consist of a regularly assigned time to talk about any issues, ideas, and especially a budget.

You can't talk about the budget without talking about the guest list, right?

Taking our number into consideration and dividing by our budget, I started thinking about our real "price per guest" and what that means to me. More on that later.

There are a couple of things I wish that I had started in the beginning:

• Set up a separate email account for all bridal related correspondence.
• Set up a separate bank account for the wedding funds.
• Set up a weekly "date" with Big Spoon to talk about the wedding.

Now that I am more informed, I intend to discuss this "weekly meeting" with Big Spoon. I think it's a great idea!