Battling My Inner Four-Year-Old
I pride myself on being sensible and thrifty, not just in wedding planning, but in life. But it doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes I’ll see something I really like, but when I check out the price tag I think, “Well I don’t like it that many dollars worth.” But then something stops me before I put it back on the shelf (or, more truthfully, click to another website). A voice. A familiar voice, one I thought I left behind in 1988:
It’s my inner four-year-old. Whose “but I waaaaaaaaaant it!” whine could dissolve even the most resolute Broke-Ass’s thrift.
The latest battle between Grown-Up Robin and Inner Four-Year-Old Robin is over our invitations. When I first embarked on wedding planning, invitations were at the absolute bottom of my budget priority list. Like, practically below flowers and cake, neither of which we’re having. Just-Engaged Robin would have said scribbling the invitation on sheets of legal paper, folding them into airplanes, and throwing them in the general direction of our guests would have been sufficient time/effort/and money to invest in invitations. But then I went down the wedding rabbit hole, and now I feel like my invitations will never be good enough unless I have this:
[source]
Yep. That’s it. A freakin’ envelope with a pocket in it. Grown-Up Robin knows that isn’t all that special. Grown-Up Robin knows that when the cheapest I can find pocket envelopes at is 80 cents a piece, roughly doubling the cost of each invitation suite (before postage), it is not worth it. But then, Four-Year-Old Robin rears her evil bowl-cut:
Grown-up Robin tries to reason with her: “No. You can’t have it. It’s too expensive for a folded up piece of cardstock.”
“No. It’s just an invitation fad and it’s not worth 80 cents a pop. We’d have to spend $120 on that part of the invitations ALONE. We need that money for other things, like a DJ, and gifts for the bridal party, and oh yeah, RENT AND FOOD.”
Four-year-olds don’t listen to reason. They don’t care what the budget spreadsheet has to say. When they want something, even something as silly as pocket envelopes, they’ll whine and throw tantrums if they can’t have it. So what to do about that internal toddler?
Get outside perspective. I think “wedding brain” amps up my inner four-year-old like a fistful of pixy stix. So if I’m lusting after something for the wedding but can’t justify the pricetag, I confer with an unengaged friend. They are usually nowhere near as excited about things like pocket envelopes as my wedding-high inner four-year-old. It helps my grown-up brain regain control.
Distract. Now is the time to spend on other things you DO need. These new toys will appease the inner four-year-old.
Wait it out. Kids have really short attention spans. I’m betting that even though I feel like I MUST have pocket envelopes right now, after a couple weeks (but hopefully not too many or I’ll be behind schedule on invitations too!) I will feel they are entirely unnecessary and inconsequential to my happiness and the success of my wedding.
But right now I really want those pocket envelopes. So much that I can’t totally rule out buying them.
So, fellow Broke-Asses, what on your wedding wish list does your inner four-year-old plead for? How do you get your grown-up voice to come out on top?
-Robin
This is hilarious! XD Do we all get like this for one thing or another for the wedding? Right now my inner four-year-old is whining about orchids. *sighs* XP My flower budget is pretty darn small and DIY, so I don't want to have to bother wiring up a bunch of orchids anyways…but still…so pretty o.o
Being a 1st grade teacher, I see this EVERY DAY. And it's all true! I made a decision when I started planning which things I wanted to splurge on (dress!) and which things I was going to be ridiculously reasonable about (invites…. er, pretty much everything else). After all…. sometimes a splurge is worth it!
Oh I understand this completely. I was doing so well with planning until I started looking at favors. I want (or need – depending on if you're talking to 28 year old me or 4 year old me) to give tea as favors. But not just any tea, gourmet loose tea in beautiful tins. Not so bad you say, but I NEED to put this tea into pretty cups with the guests initials on each one….plus I must give them a stainless steel decorative tea infuser so that tea brewing is easy. The tea is cheap, the tins are about $2 each, the cups are $10, and the tea infusers are $14. As much as I want I can't afford $26 a guest! It's killing me that I can't have this. So we're thinking little jars of homemade honey instead.
Ohhhhhh yes, all too familiar with my inner 4 year old! As is my fiance! I have to tell myself in a conscious and assertive inner grown up voice “Push Yourself Away From The Computer!! NOW!!” And I force myself to bookmark all the pages I was looking at/comparing/shopping, then “Shut Down The Computer!! NOW!!” and just walk away for the night. The next day I’ve usually thought of SOMEthing else I need/want and am off on another rabid internet search for something completely different…but at least no worse for the wear on my pocketbook from the previous day! I give myself at least 2 days of thinking about something before I seriously consider buying it….this *usually*, but not always, works
Robin- I think your inner 4-yr-old has been hanging around with my inner 4-yr-old!!! Tp pocket or not to pocket, to print my own or order them printed, and of course how/where to get what I want at the absolute BEST price have been my wedding dilemmas for the last few weeks. I did the same thing… wait and think on it. Thankfully my grown up self overruled and I came to my senses. That money can be better spent on something more useful.
Well, you already know how often my inner four-year-old has bothered me about invitations. She won the Fancy Photographer battle. Currently she is telling me that I need to rent the house for several more days so that we can play longer in San Francisco. That kid needs a time out.
I had to convince my inner four year old we didn't need a limo. She was not happy.
I love this post. its so true. even us thrifty brides succumb to this! I think sometimes talking with others who have already been married will often put things into perspective because sooo many of them have such regrets about the amount of money that they ended up spending…
I totally understand how you feel!!!
I'm looking for invitations right now also, and came across this and thought of you and this post.
http://www.weddingbellinvitations.com/
Good luck!
Oh man, I do that exact same "Well I don’t like it that many dollars worth" line of thinking!
I succumbed to my inner 4 year-old and bought a purse that I had been drooling over. I thought I could resist, and then it went on sale, and THEN, I found a coupon code, and my resistance was futile. It was regularly $1,800 and then after the sale and the additional discount, it was $130. How could I possibly say no? I couldn't, that's how. Here it is in all of its splurge-ificent glory (but it had a silvery glass pearl handle instead of crystals). http://www.amandapearl.com/bianca
I did try to make sure that my "budget pushers" were on things that would last beyond the day of the wedding and cut corners on things I really didn't care too passionately about. (Examples: We rode in our neighbor's classic car instead of renting a limo and only had light appetizers at stations instead of fancier foods passed around by servers during the cocktail hour). I justified my purse purchase because I figured that I could use it at another formal event, or could pass it down as an heirloom.
If you plan on framing your invitation after the wedding, the pocket envelopes could be a justified splurge, under my standards.
For me, I didn't really go wild on the invitations. I figured that, aside from me and my parents, everyone else throws them away, so I couldn't justify making them too fancy (even though I adore letterpress printing). The invitations were one of the most frustrating parts of the wedding budget because every little detail– from the paper type to the printing method to embellishments like bows and crystals– adds up. We had simple, non-designer, one-color, thermography invitations done by a local print shop and I still felt like they were uber expensive.
Mary,
I had a tea themed bridal shower and it was such fun. My mom and maids collected different vintage tea cups from various antique shops and yard sales. The cups were all different, but it actually made the room look really pretty and gave it a lot of visual interest.
I'm not sure what cups you were looking for, but these are on sale right now for $3.95 at Anthropologie. I've gotten them as gifts for friends and they are adorable. (You can call customer service for the locations of stores that have the letter you need to have them sent to you directly from the stores, if the letter you need is sold out online– and the shipping should be free, if your local store doesn't have them.) http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/produ…
I'm sure you could also find less expensive tea infusers, although I can understand if you have your heart set on a particular kind. EnglishTeaStore.com has a few simple ones that are around $2.00. Target also has some that are fairly inexpensive, since they are in bulk. http://www.target.com/Kate-Aspen-Heart-Tea-Infuse…
Good luck!
A nice cake. 4 year old me really really wants one of those amazing multi-colored cakes with patterns and flowers and… stuff!… on it. The ones you see on Food Network or Martha Stewart catalogs.
I have had to re-think practically everything, in terms of what I've envisioned my wedding to look like, to fit into our budget. And I've been really OK with all of it…. except the cake. I've always really wanted a cool looking cake, because I'm really into baking and good quality food, but I'm coming to terms with the fact that we're going to most likely end up with an array of small cakes/desserts in lieu of a traditional wedding cake.
…and that kind of sucks. But in 10 years we'll have better incomes and we can celebrate with a huge fondant mega-cake, I guess. C'est la vie! People don't come to a wedding for a cake, they come for love. And we'll have that in spades.
Ha! Your outer four year old was waaaaay cute!
But I agree, and I also think that as soon as you start refering to invitations as "invitation suites" (not a judgement – I do it too) you are well and truly down the wedding rabbit hole (GREAT metaphor, btw) and there are many tasks to accomplish before you can even begin to get out.
Oh man, pocket invitations. I balked at them until I found a place in town (Minneapolis, Paper Depot, http://www.paperdepotinc.com/) where – as long as you bought all your paper from them, you have free range to die-cut and emboss pocket invites, then assemble them yourselves. One big invite-making party later (fold the tabs, glue the pocket, tack down the invite paper) and the invites came out around $1 each before postage. Ultra win, and they look so classy.
Oh — also, a couple of suggestions to get what you really want. Do a search online for pocket envelope templates. Buy your own paper, and fold, glue, fold glue. To get the invitations that we wanted at a price we were okay with, we shopped around. A LOT.
I bought the envelopes at Michael's. They came in packs of 10 for $1.99. I found sheets of beautiful paper that I cut into envelope liners at an art store. These cost $2.99 each, and I was able to get 15 liners out of each sheet (I used the leftovers for our place card project, which is more complicated than names on card stock and I'll blog about later). I collected vintage postcards to use as our RSVP cards — this was the fun part. I found larges batches of them on ebay and etsy for super cheap. I picked up some pretty raffia and sealing wax that goes in a glue gun to tie around the invitations at Save-on-Crafts, and I shopped around for pretty heavy linen papers that were pre-cut to the correct size (more expensive than getting standard-sized sheets and cutting them down myself, but worth it to save myself some math and some extra steps). I had a lot of suggestions for where to buy papers. Ultimately, I ended up at http://www.envelopperinc.com because they had the widest selection of precut sizes. If you are interested in the other sources I looked at (all came recommended and looked to have very nice quality options), let me know. I'm very happy with the quality of the paper we bought, but I did go with the lighter card stock to make sure it would feed through my printer. They had a heavier option that I wish I had, but alas, we're home-printing.
Thank you for these great suggestions. Making my own pockets sounds like a lot of work but I am looking into it. As for pre-cutting the invitations, that was in my original budget, but then I remembered my sister-in-law is an art teacher and I can probably exploit her school's paper cutter.
I battle my inner 4 year old every day,
adult: "no you cannot have more ice cream!"
inner 4yo: "but I did so good today, I finalized the guest list, cooommmmeeon!"
adult: "yeah, but you didn't call the caterer or the florist or your moh or you own mother."
inner 4yo: "no fair" Then she sneaks off to get the ice cream herself.
My inner 4 year old had the same bowl cut. WHAT WAS WITH OUR PARENTS?!
My inner 4 year old also HATES the tablecloths at the venue, which look like wood panelling from the 70s. According to the Groom and my folks, nobody will notice them and it will be better to spend the linen money on out-of-town bags for our guests.
But she still HAAAAAAAAATESSES THEM. (My inner 4 year old is also alot like Gollum.)
I had that same bowl cut too! I just started planning and mine is telling me to spend $3000 on venue alone (no tables, chairs, tents, linens, nothing!). But it s a house on a beautiful lake for five whole days!!!! *Sigh….*
My husband wanted to hire a flashy sportscar for the day – but what's the point? The wedding and reception are at the same place, so he'll drive there before everyone else and it'll be sat in the car park all day – complete waste of money… "But I waaaaannt one" he said :0)
My fiance is doing the same thing. I suggested he get it for another day to ride around town, especially since we have the same situation – we'll be at the venue all day!