The work story. I spent the last couple of months collecting data and coming up with a plan for how to build a better education system at my company. I presented it last week and the proposal was accepted, which means I'm essentially starting my own department. In my proposal I said it would cost $80 to get up and running, because that's how much a bluehost web hosting account costs. Instead, I got my first lesson to building something for a large corporation - it's always five times more expensive, and ten times more complicated, than doing it yourself. Legal and marketing had some issue with bluehost and even if they didn't our IT department had security issues. Instead, they insisted that we install on AWS and my $80 turned into $504. I was terrified to tell my boss about the five fold increase but the head of IT told me everything was approved by his boss, a different person, and we would be up and running by the end of the week. So that's cool. The personal story The wedding is coming along. We're realizing how expensive everything can be and we're getting a bit more creative with what we want. My fiancee is doing most of it, and I feel like I should be doing more, but most of this stuff just seems insane to me. If I had my way it would be a BYOB potluck with a simple ceremony and anyone offended by the lack of propriety would be more than welcome to stay home.
We did a ceremony on an island on a Wednesday. There were 13 people there. Then we did a reception a month later at my uncle's house. We sprang for the alcohol and the rest of it was a potluck. The downside? you don't get to extort presents from everyone. The upside? We were less than $2000 out of pocket, including putting up our parents on an island.
We have 180 invited. It's pretty insane, but that's what she wanted. It's not too bad, the guest list is 80% her side and she knows she's responsible for the size and therefore stress so she's taking on the brunt of the work. It still makes me sad to see someone I love learn a hard lesson.