Maybe we should just get married in Vegas

Remember that wedding planner I was going to meet with last week? Well, he's a nice guy, but I just don't think it'll work out. He started our lunch meeting by telling me that we should move our budget total up to $15,000. He told me they offer a variety of options for how much help he would give, and the prices vary accordingly. He told me he'd either charge 15 percent or a flat fee of $1,500. That's a lot of money to me.

I was willing to consider it, though, if it meant planning this wedding would be easier and we could save money by having him help us. He's an event planner, right? He has to know more about venues and florists and caterers than I do. It's his job.

He asked me questions about what we wanted for our ceremony and reception. I explained to him that we wanted it to be simple and fun. I know those two words can mean very different things to different people, so I tried to elaborate to where he knew exactly what I meant. I was pleased when he summed it up with the words "elegant and classic, but simple." Clearly, he understood me.

He told me about this great venue in a great area of Dallas, and he told me to Google it when I got back to work. When I did, I could see that not only had he seriously misunderstood what I had in mind, but he actually may need a little more planning practice if this is what "elegant and classic, but simple" mean to him:























The room is fine. It's nice, but it's not my taste or K's. We want simple, and by that, I mean simple!

I figured if the planner could be so far off-base for what we had in mind for the venue, there's no telling what we could wind up with for flowers and our cake. It would be best, I decided, to just part ways. And hey, I'd save $1,500 too, right?

I emailed the lady at the venue I'd found that K and I both really liked. I told her to go ahead and draw up a contract. From our last meeting, I was able to get figures from her to find out that it would cost right around $7,650 for our reception venue and our catering. It meant we'd be a little over budget once we threw in flowers and everything else, but we wouldn't go too far over. I could live with that. It was better than immediately deciding we'd have to spend $15,000, only to just as quickly hand over $1,500 of that to some guy who thought we needed clear chairs.

Today, I got the contract back from the lady at our chosen venue. I opened it, eager to see what the catering and site would cost us. When I saw all those digits on the "Total" line, I wanted to cry. I almost did.

Just to the right of "Total Value" was a number just a little higher than $10,550. This woman told me my optimistic budget of $10,000 would be just fine. She said I might have to go "a little" over it, but I was okay with that. That was fine.

To me, though, that did not mean it was okay to spend more than $10,000 on the reception alone!

Does no one understand the concept of SIMPLE?!