How depressing that a wedding is reduced to a spreadsheet!!!

Sassie

Hello everyone,

I have really enjoyed reading through the wedding forum and have found so much useful information.I got engaged last summer to a wondrful man and we are very happy to be taking the big step in 2011.
Anyway, As I have said I have read through the forum and am reduced to sheer depression and disbelief that a wedding, a special occassion is reduced to colums and figures and Spreadsheets!
I enjoy the odd wedding here and there but really, they are all the same. Same routine, same food and OMG the same music. Where is the the simplicity and the movement back to what a wedding should be? - a celebration of a commitment - not a dilema over beef or pan fried chicken, or even whether to include the dreaded Siege of Ennis or whether the sale of Red Bull in the bar is asking for trouble?!
I read a forum on Boards of a lady who wants to have her wedding in her home and I think this is simply lovely. I wish her well.

Ickle Magoo

Unfortunately as any location you choose to be married in has to be open to the public, people here can't get married at home...so they have to find other ways of doing it which involve hotels, churches, registry offices - and unfortunately, budgets.

thebiglad

Everyone to their own but our wedding was 'arranged using a spreadsheet' - we had a brilliant day and having used the spreadsheet to plan there was little to stress about.

People tend to stress too much in organising a wedding, once it is clear what needs to be done it is a straight forward planning task - can be part of the enjoyment.

si_guru

thebiglad wrote: »

Everyone to their own but our wedding was 'arranged using a spreadsheet' - we had a brilliant day and having used the spreadsheet to plan there was little to stress about.

People tend to stress too much in organising a wedding, once it is clear what needs to be done it is a straight forward planning task - can be part of the enjoyment.

hahah... after 10 years of guilt... I finally find I wasn't alone using excel!

Whispered

How far along in your planning are you OP?

Sassie

helena.ryan wrote: »

How far along in your planning are you OP?

No date set as we are building our house this year so the wedding date will be along the same lines as its completion. Autum 2011?
I hope I have not offended anyone. I just like watching two people really enjoy their wedding and not stress. I do alot of singing at weddings so have lots of meetings with the bride and groom and rehersals and really it is an eye opener. The rows between the couple, families, the stress, drama, etc.
I think that whatever people choose to do should be special to them, be that the simpler version or the splendid ceremony.
I also think that couples should take no heed whatsoever of "offending "people should they choose a quieter/imtimate affair . Often, people look at you funny if you say you are keep it small. People are often too quick to judge others on the spread they show. Many people simply cannot afford to invite absolutely everyone to their wedding. I would never take offence to not being invited to one's nuptuals. My presence is not going to make their relationship any stronger! I would just be happy that two people have make the decision to marry and wish them well. I am going to try and keep it simple, meaningful, relaxing, full of fun with friends and family, and focus on the significance of the event rather than the event itself taking over.
And I suppose, that making lists do help.

dollybird2

My partner and I are getting married in church. Then we are having a big celebration at home in a marquee at the back of my home. We're having buffet meal, providing loads of wine and music and a full bar. Hoping it'll be relaxed and informal and a bit different to the norm for us and our guests.

However, the wedding is still a total Excel plan! Gotta love spreadsheets

Sassie

dollybird2 wrote: »

My partner and I are getting married in church. Then we are having a big celebration at home in a marquee at the back of my home. We're having buffet meal, providing loads of wine and music and a full bar. Hoping it'll be relaxed and informal and a bit different to the norm for us and our guests.

However, the wedding is still a total Excel plan! Gotta love spreadsheets

This sounds great. Really love the idea. When is your big day? Already it sounds like grat craic!! Enjoy

dollybird2

Thanks Sassie! We're both quite laid back and shy people so this is our way of enjoying our day! It's in July, been planning for the last year so fingers crossed the sun will shine!

Toots

I spreadsheets!! I use them for everything, my Dad made me a fantastic one for when we were trying to price venues, it counted the number of people on the guestlist, figured out how much wine we'd need, and how muchfinger food we'd need. All I had to do was put in the price per main course, andper head for evening food, and it came up with a total figure for the reception. It changes if I add or remove names from the guestlist too, it's the best thing ever!

Pherekydes

dollybird2 wrote: »

However, the wedding is still a total Excel plan! Gotta love spreadsheets

+1.

My wife used Excel, while I used Lotus 123. But we proved compatible in the end.

Breaktown

Toots* wrote: »

I spreadsheets!! I use them for everything, my Dad made me a fantastic one for when we were trying to price venues, it counted the number of people on the guestlist, figured out how much wine we'd need, and how muchfinger food we'd need. All I had to do was put in the price per main course, andper head for evening food, and it came up with a total figure for the reception. It changes if I add or remove names from the guestlist too, it's the best thing ever!

Ditto, spreadsheets are very handy. I'm using Excel to keep track of everything from the budget to potential hotels. I won't be getting married for a couple of years yet, so it's handy to be able to compare various quotes I get before making any decisions.

Toots

And another great thing you can do is have a database of names and addresses for invitations. If you're making your own, you can just do a mailmerge to a sheet of labels or else the envelopes, saves writing out loads of addresses.

How Strange

Toots* wrote: »

And another great thing you can do is have a database of names and addresses for invitations. If you're making your own, you can just do a mailmerge to a sheet of labels or else the envelopes, saves writing out loads of addresses.

+1 to that! Excel was a life saver when we were sending out invitations.

OP, everything up to the day of your wedding should be seen as an event you need to organise. You have a budget which you need to monitor and you need a project plan to make sure you organise everything properly and in the right order. For this excel or lotus or whatever is godsend. It doesn't matter how big or small your wedding is it is still a project with a budget.

I've yet to make it to the BIG DAY but I'm quite sure when we do it will be special and amazing and all thoughts of budgets and excel sheets will be very far from my mind.

Tim Robbins

I actually thanked Excel and Google in my speech :-)

Things are a bit more complex than the good auld days when everyone lived in the same village and did the same thing, ate the same food, used the same band so there was no need to really plan.

Toots

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I actually thanked Excel and Google in my speech :-)

Things are a bit more complex than the good auld days when everyone lived in the same village and did the same thing, ate the same food, used the same band so there was no need to really plan.

I think my Dad will definitely be thanking Excel! I think my H2B will probably be cursing it to a height because me and Dad get totally over enthusiastic about spreadsheets, and it's like I've died and gone to heaven with all this spreadsheeting.

Tim Robbins

Toots* wrote: »

I think my Dad will definitely be thanking Excel! I think my H2B will probably be cursing it to a height because me and Dad get totally over enthusiastic about spreadsheets, and it's like I've died and gone to heaven with all this spreadsheeting.

You can't copy my jokes. Get your own. :-)

hinault

Sassie wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I have really enjoyed reading through the wedding forum and have found so much useful information.I got engaged last summer to a wondrful man and we are very happy to be taking the big step in 2011.
Anyway, As I have said I have read through the forum and am reduced to sheer depression and disbelief that a wedding, a special occassion is reduced to colums and figures and Spreadsheets!
I enjoy the odd wedding here and there but really, they are all the same. Same routine, same food and OMG the same music. Where is the the simplicity and the movement back to what a wedding should be? - a celebration of a commitment - not a dilema over beef or pan fried chicken, or even whether to include the dreaded Siege of Ennis or whether the sale of Red Bull in the bar is asking for trouble?!
I read a forum on Boards of a lady who wants to have her wedding in her home and I think this is simply lovely. I wish her well.

I think maintaining a spreadsheet might bring home to people the concept of what a wedding should be about.

bangersandmash

hinault wrote: »

I think maintaining a spreadsheet might bring home to people the concept of what a wedding should be about.

Agreed. Of course the day that Excel no longer suffices and you need to plan your wedding using Microsoft Project, then you know you're going over-board

The Gantt chart wizard within Microsoft Office is a useful way of visualising all of this information. It can show you what needs to be done after your engagement, three months before your wedding, one month before, one week before and finally on the day itself. Best men and bridesmaids could well follow suit and use Microsoft Project to help plan speeches and stag or hen do's.

hinault

dollybird2 wrote: »

My partner and I are getting married in church. Then we are having a big celebration at home in a marquee at the back of my home. We're having buffet meal, providing loads of wine and music and a full bar. Hoping it'll be relaxed and informal and a bit different to the norm for us and our guests.

Good on ya.

Barname

Breaktown wrote: »

Ditto, spreadsheets are very handy. I'm using Excel to keep track of everything from the budget to potential hotels. I won't be getting married for a couple of years yet, so it's handy to be able to compare various quotes I get before making any decisions.

you probably dont even have a husband to be yet do you?

ntlbell

Toots* wrote: »

I spreadsheets!! I use them for everything, my Dad made me a fantastic one for when we were trying to price venues, it counted the number of people on the guestlist, figured out how much wine we'd need, and how muchfinger food we'd need. All I had to do was put in the price per main course, andper head for evening food, and it came up with a total figure for the reception. It changes if I add or remove names from the guestlist too, it's the best thing ever!

do you think you could give people a link to that sheet?

It sounds very handy

Breaktown

Barname wrote: »

you probably dont even have a husband to be yet do you?

Um, yes, we're engaged but it's going to take a while to save up enough money. What's wrong with waiting a few years?

Toots

ntlbell wrote: »

do you think you could give people a link to that sheet?

It sounds very handy

I'm not sure if I can link it, but will be down with the parents on Sunday and I'll see if Dad can do me up a blank one so I can attach it to a post if people want it.

Toots

Tim Robbins wrote: »

You can't copy my jokes. Get your own. :-)

I wish I could copy that one, at least then I'd have an idea of what jokes to expect in the speeches! I'm expecting a lot of embarrassing childhood incidents to be brought up by my Dad, and H2B will have a massive arsenal of adult capers to share with our guests. I'm incredibly accident prone! And they always seem to be very slapstick type accidents too :(

clint_silver

Got married in early 2000. We used Excel. We had a budget and the spreadsheet helped us manage it. With so many vendors and meals and options it helped so much with formulas etc.

Conversations went like this

"Ok, we can have this for dessert but that alters the total so much so that means we cant get the bridesmaids those shoes"
or
"Ok, if we get this photographer and that bag and invite Jerry & Mary who we met on holiday last year, we'll only be able to afford a 2 venue honeymoon"
etc
etc
etc

Spreadsheets rock.

google spreadsheets rock even more as you can share with whoever you want.

Edit:(this wasnt an after thought I meant to include this in original post) Financial management is a part of a wedding day due to the large costs involved. Its up to the couple how much a part they let it be. Some posters on here come across like the spreadsheet its the largest part, but in reality I doubt that it is. Or at least I hope that it isnt.

pwalshy

We've been engaged for over a year and recently decided it was about time to start getting organised so I called my sister who got married a year and a half ago to ask her roughly how much she spent (so we had a rough guide for how much we needed to save) I laughed at her when she said she had a spreadsheet made of a breakdown of costs! (although I still gratefully took it from her!) From reading these forums, she clearly isn't alone in her super organisation!!

We want to keep our wedding as simple and personal as possible but it seems so easy to snowball....looking forward to our day but definitely not the months of planning ahead...maybe this spreadsheet malarky will be helpful to get us on our way!

Whispered

Would anybody have a spreadsheet they wish to share. It sounds like a good idea, certainly better than my "scribble it on a postit and stick it on a wall/in a mag/on the bookshelf" method.

galah

would have been lost without excel - didnt use it to budget though - just to track people's movements - we got married in Germany, and had roughly 45 Irish people coming from Ireland, plus loads of other guests from other countries. Trying to get flights, hotels and airport shuttles sorted was a nightmare - spreadsheets are great for that sort of thing.

Oh, and also to track invites, responses, and thank you cards sent.

I can't see why the use of spreadsheets would detract from a wonderful wedding...

BigBelly

We had a simple at home wedding but it didn't reduce the need for planning and organisation. I don't know why anyone would think otherwise
We still needed to know the numbers in attendance for food and drink, we needed to hire a good band and dj to ensure they had a good time and didn't end up listening to my lovely horse on loop.
We also needed to organise a priest and church which cost time and money along with attending a pre marriage course. Without organisation the day couldn't have been about us as a couple joining our lives together in front of friends and family and declaring our love, commitment and dedication to each other. It would have been about not having enough food for Aunty Ann, not enough seats and Grandad complaining about the music. We could have turned up to a church with no priest, no alter servers, no music. Surely the OP as a church singer you must understand people have to book your services. I assume you don't wander from church to church looking for brides and grooms in distress???
If you choose to have a wedding different from the "norm" then make peace with that decision and enjoy your day but don't criticise others for organisation into what is a momentous occasion in their lives. I look back on our day and remember my Husbands face as I walked toward him, the applause we received after saying our vows, the emails and videos from relatives too far away to make our day. Our day was not fraught with tension and worry because our organisation before hand ensured the focus was were it should be on the day :rolleyes:

beegirl

I don't know what I would do without my spreadsheets at the moment, I have one for budgeting and one for the guest list...

For those who were looking for a sample one, I am using the one I found here:

http://waterfordweddings.com/

There is a sample budget but also a blank one - does all the calculations for you, yay!!!

bills

might be depressing but it is realistic. Money matters especially at the moment.

prinz

I think the OP is confusing planning and organisation with money and expense. My own wedding was brilliant and relatively cheap. We didn't go down the traditional route, but at the same time there was far more planning to be done because we organised everything ourselves. It's probably far more work, and needs a lot more effort to take charge of everything from beginning to end, rather than spend a small fortune and have a hotel or whatever. So yeah, spending less on a DIY celebration actually took a lot more emails, phonecalls, spreadsheets etc. But I do agree with the OP that a lot of posts on this forum are just depressing they are so money and spend-centric.

BigBelly

Prinz, if the OP is confusing spending and organisation I can understand to a point. A lot of people feel they have to spend in order to keep up with the Jones and "put on a show" for family, friends & neighbours. You can also get very caught up in the "I only do this once" mentality which is bad thing when doing it once equates to having the big dress, venue, band etc but not the nuptuals.
We have attended 6 weddings since our own, 5 of which I really enjoyed as they were about the marriage, a celebration of the couple and a chance for everyone to get up and dance the night away. The one that stands out in my mind as bad had almost 500 people, most of whom the bride and groom didn't know and had only met in passing but were invited to keep up appearances for the parents. There was a free bar all day/night which meant that most tables were empty for the meal as many were at the bar drinking like fish. By 8pm most people were locked, there were 3 fights we witnessed before I decided I'd had enough of the chav fest and went to bed. This wasn't a celebration of the marriage it was an excuse to get locked and messy. Disgusting behaviour but I heard so many people that day say it was the best wedding they were ever at!! The mind boggles

Ickle Magoo

prinz wrote: »

I think the OP is confusing planning and organisation with money and expense. My own wedding was brilliant and relatively cheap. We didn't go down the traditional route, but at the same time there was far more planning to be done because we organised everything ourselves. It's probably far more work, and needs a lot more effort to take charge of everything from beginning to end, rather than spend a small fortune and have a hotel or whatever.

Not sure if I'd agree with that. We had both the wedding and ceremony at a hotel but still organised and designed everything ourselves, from rings to the dress, to the menus, to the cake, orders of ceremony, flowers, table decorations, band, everything - the hotel just provided the rooms and the staff.

Short of a couple flying off to Vegas or something, I can't think of a wedding that doesn't involve an awful lot of planning - regardless of expense or location.

prinz

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Not sure if I'd agree with that. We had both the wedding and ceremony at a hotel but still organised and designed everything ourselves, from rings to the dress, to the menus, to the cake, orders of ceremony, flowers, table decorations, band, everything - the hotel just provided the rooms and the staff.

Well when it comes to having to order knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, organising kettles, teabags, sugar, salt, pepper etc etc it's the little things that add up when you're organising from scratch, making preparations that when you're heading away on honeymoon that all those table settings etc are acounted for, cleaned, boxed and returned etc etc.

Ickle Magoo

I know what you mean, of course organising all the minutae is going to take more planning. I just meant that a hotel wedding can still take an astronomical amount of organising; of course there are weddings in hotels that the hotel take care of a lot of it.

dollydishmop

I do understand those folks who want "Hello!" wedding, although that has never been my cup of tea....but I truly don't see the point in getting debt for it?

Got married 2 years ago, and we did it (by choice) for absolute pennies.

We had a civil ceremony in a registry office in the morning.
Hubby hired a wedding suit locally.
I went dress *shopping* in Dublin, found the *perfect* dress for €4k (!!!), watched eBay in Ireland & UK like a hawk, and then bought the exact same dress, in the right size, for under €100...
We just had family and a couple of close friends on the day.
Essentially took over a small country house B&B for the weekend.
We did our own catering for an afternoon meal. A fabulous, yet simple, buffet that could be on servers in the fridge at the B&B ready for when we came back from the registry office.
We all went out to dinner in a fabulous restarant in the evening.
A pub lunch on the Shannon the next morning and some local sight-seeing for our families.
And another group of friends organised a party that evening in a local hotel bar.

Celebrated our wedding with everyone we wanted to, no stresses over budget whatsoever, in my eyes it was absolutely perfect...and we both, independantly commented that we wouldn't have changed a thing after the event...and if we had to do it all again, we would do exactly the same.
Friends & family all commented on how relaxed & stress-free the whole weekend was, and how much they enjoyed it...I have no reason to doubt them.

Sassie

dollydishmop wrote: »

I do understand those folks who want "Hello!" wedding, although that has never been my cup of tea....but I truly don't see the point in getting debt for it?

Got married 2 years ago, and we did it (by choice) for absolute pennies.

We had a civil ceremony in a registry office in the morning.
Hubby hired a wedding suit locally.
I went dress *shopping* in Dublin, found the *perfect* dress for €4k (!!!), watched eBay in Ireland & UK like a hawk, and then bought the exact same dress, in the right size, for under €100...
We just had family and a couple of close friends on the day.
Essentially took over a small country house B&B for the weekend.
We did our own catering for an afternoon meal. A fabulous, yet simple, buffet that could be on servers in the fridge at the B&B ready for when we came back from the registry office.
We all went out to dinner in a fabulous restarant in the evening.
A pub lunch on the Shannon the next morning and some local sight-seeing for our families.
And another group of friends organised a party that evening in a local hotel bar.

Celebrated our wedding with everyone we wanted to, no stresses over budget whatsoever, in my eyes it was absolutely perfect...and we both, independantly commented that we wouldn't have changed a thing after the event...and if we had to do it all again, we would do exactly the same.
Friends & family all commented on how relaxed & stress-free the whole weekend was, and how much they enjoyed it...I have no reason to doubt them.

Am reading through your post and everything you have described sounds like the most perfect day and what I would love to do too. Love the idea of a Shannon Pub lunch. Sounds so peaceful.