The dream becomes cloudy

Pic of our wedding ceremony venue, Curzon Hally, Marsfield, NSW.

Last night Ben and I drove quielty towards Lane Cove to met our new wedding photographer. Ben was sick and I was tired. We kept our appointment souly so some progress was made on the wedding front this month.

On our way there I thought it was a done deal. Her prices seemed fair. She was throwing in some free stuff. What more could we want?

As we rolled down the street scanning for house numbers I couldn't help but retract when I saw that number 11 was a stunning brick residence hidden by a imaculate hedge. The home was a postcard for wealth. I felt inadequate as I usually do around wealthy people. Brings up all my own feelings of "not good enough."

I began to visualise what lay behind the timber doors...marble tiles...leather lounges....granite bench tops...all spotless clean.

"We are really early handsome" was all I could muster to say as I stared at the home.

Anything to postpone going in that house.

We sat in the car chatting and giggling about silly jokes for 10 mins. This small pleasure was enough to have me relaxed as we walked towards the front door.

Upon pushing the buzzer I heard the familar bark of Maxine, the house pet, then spotted the shadows of 2 adults. Heidi openend the door and Steve stood beaming behind her. Heidi looked neat but comfortable. Steve wore a suit but announced he was off to get changed. Both we welcoming and although the home was immaculate, there was no marble, lol!

Heidi led us to her studio down white carpet stairs.

Her home office was small but tidy. A purple couch faced the wall where several large photographs hung in substantial frames. Mostly brides in beautiful locations. There was a coffee table between the couch and the wall where 2 large black books sat. Once Heidi explained what her fee covered (basically just her time to shoot, and all the proofs, etc) she then moved one of the books towards me saying "Now all you need to do is choose the album style you like."

Ben and I already knew what we liked. At the 3 wedding expos we had attended the photographers who offered the "magazine layout" option took our interest the most. The "magazine layout" was all done digitally and looked very swish. The normal album was just that, a normal album beautifully assembled but wasn't really eye catching.

The first album was the normal kind. Some black and white photos, some color - but I had seen 100's of albums like this before and wasn't hugely interested. 3 albums later I felt like I was seeing much the same and was beginning to wonder if Heidi really was the right one for us.

I was trying to work out a polite way of asking if she did the "magazine layout" when she reached behind the table saying "And then you have the digital albums..." - Perfect!

Shiny. Colourful. Screaming "You want me!" and my heart was saying "Hell yeah!"

Ben laughed. Heidi smiled knowingly.

"Yes they are great. But be warned Sonya - they are allot more expensive" were Heidi's words of wisdom.

Damn.

We looked anyway and we both loved it.

As the talking progressed towards the end of our meeting I asked the question I was dreading and dying to hear at the same time. I knew the albums are included up to a point...that being they are included in the cost with only a certain number of pages. Anything beyond that was extra. I pointed at the digital album and asked how much it would be if we got something similar in size and number of photos.

Heidi walked off to get her calculater but as she announced the number my mind thought "CRAP" but my body stayed perfectly still.

For Heidi's time on the day, plus a digital album all done up we were looking at around $6,000 - that was insane!! The album alone was more then the cost of having Heidi take the photos!!

I left a little depressed and terrified. The digitial album was so stunning but omg, that kind of money was ridiculous ESPECIALLY since I know how they are made.

Heidi wasn't over charging. This is where they make there money. All wedding photographers pretty much charge the same from what we can see.

We have learnt having photos taken is a seperate expense to how they are actually delivered.

As we silently drove home I started to freak out.

Where were we going to find that kind of money?

Where are we going to get the money for any of our wedding plans?

So far we were looking at more then $20,000 for a wedding we were suppose to be keeping small and we had only organised 4 things!

Heart rate racing!

Fear quickly turned to anger as I made a snide remark about Ben's on going house-not-being-sold-yet problem pushing us further from our dream wedding as it was eating into our time to save.

Ben sat in silence.

So many things I wanted to say but since they were all blame I sat with my mouth shut and watched the rain fall down the window.

Could my dream wedding be slipping further and further away or do I just need to pull my head down out of the clouds and start cutting items from the wish list?