100

I've been hunting down venues for la wedding. It's been only a week, but I'm far too much of a planner to sit on my hands and twiddle my thumbs (Ha! Doesn't that sound terrible?) Anyway, I want to set a date, which requires a venue booked on a date, which will tell us something significant about how much of our budget is sucked up. And since everyone else on Earth plans this stuff a year in advance, I have to as well.

Our first appointment is this Saturday. Knowing us, if the price is right and we like it, we're not going to look around. We didn't do an extensive search for any of our apartments, so I doubt we'll do it with a place that is for 1 day instead of a minimum of 365 days. Affordability + availability + reasonably attractive = The Spot.

It's looking like November. First it was September, then October, and now screw it. November. It's the off season so it's cheaper, and it gives us a full year to plan and save. The guest list is also huge. At least it's huge to me. It wouldn't be huge for, say, an Italian wedding. But 100 people is pretty dang big to me. My dad's family is over 30 people, the Dude's immediate family after remarriages is around 20, plus his mother's and father's families, plus mine, and our friends. Yeah.

And this 100 number is without plus ones for singles and no kids. Otherwise we'd be looking at 130 or more and then we wouldn't be able to afford a wedding that big.

I know it's going to bother some people. Parents who want to bring their kids will be unhappy and probably won't come. I can respect a decision not to come because finding child care may be too difficult, but it's the displeasure I don't want to see. And the singles who can't bring a date may be irritated with me. But including their dates would require me to remove people I actually know from the guest list to keep the numbers affordable, and inviting strangers over loved ones is not something I'm prepared to do.

It begins. I'm too meticulous a person in this sort of way for it not to begin.

Man, wasn't this post boring? My apologies.