kristiewellsI have planned a few events in my lifetime and thought I was pretty darn good at budgeting needs and associated costs by now. I thought this, that is, until I started doing the checklist of all the things we need to do before we head to Mexico, and suddenly realized how many little ‘big’ things I forgot to factor in…
- Cat sitter – $350
- Home alarm system – $450+monthly expense (so let’s just call it $930 for one year)
- Cables and other tech stuff – $250
- Suitcases/bags – $150
- Personal trainer – $1,600 (which hindsight tells me, we should have put in more than 1-2 days per week in the gym as it really made no difference – but that is our fault, not the trainers)
And I guess while I am at it, I should add in the ‘play clothes’ we have purchased as we both needed some ‘beach attire’.
In the blink of an eye, I just added $3,700 to the cost of the wedding. Crazy.
Now, some of these things aren’t really wedding expenses, meaning we should have done them anyway (alarm system, trainer), and I know in the long run, this will seem like peanuts as the destination wedding is still about 1/3 of the cost of what it would have been if we got married in San Francisco, but it never ceases to amaze me all the little ‘gotchas’ that pop up.
So just a word of advice to anyone else thinking of a destination wedding, well this applies to any type of wedding I guess, just be sure to have an extra credit card (or two) laying around for all the things that may come up during the planning process. You will be thankful you have that cushion.
Photo credit: Refracted Moments