My fiancé is giving me grey hairs!

Have you both made your list of what you envision for the wedding? You have your vision, and he has his. I think y'all need to make a list of your must haves, want to haves, and would be nice. Then find a way to compromise on them. Your vision does not out weigh his, and vice versa. This is a team effort. And putting "fun money" away for the wedding, "sacrificing" on things for a while does suck because it just becomes tiresome. But good on you for making sure you both put money away for your wedding budget

If it makes you feel better, I went shopping with my then finace for his suit, and he said go ahead, 20 minutes later he comes over and sees what I picked out and then decided he wanted to wear red and the groomsmen can wear champagne......The associate was laughing, and threw away the form to start over with my fiancé. He kept asking me questions......as he was supposed to be filling out the form for who should wear what.

Hi Kristen. Very few people have budgeted or planned for something as big as a wedding, so either they underpredict or get overwhelmed. Perhaps your FS is feeling both? So good for you for creating a savings plan as this is your wedding budget. Unless you take up additional jobs, that is your hard number. I agree with Janet that you two should sit down and write your own 3-tiered list (must-haves, etc.) and compare. His vision has equal weight to yours. Most people who invest their own money will expect a say. But, the upside is this helps with ownership to said plan which includes the savings plan. I'd request estimates and show him the itemized costs of a real wedding.

Perhaps you can have a Church ceremony and a downtown reception? You can hire transport for your guests between the 2 locations, or you can research already- available parking options. If your groom continues to put off next steps, then there might be a bigger issue. Good luck.

First and foremost, I think the two of you need to calmly sit down and discuss what each of you are envisioning for your wedding. The wedding is about both of you so it should be a combined decision. During this discussion, I would recommend deciding your guest list and budget that way you are both on the same page. From there you can decide on venues. You will need a venue that can fit all of your guests and is within your budget. It is important that both of you are on the same page about parking for the wedding as well. He can't expect guests to attend and there be no parking for them. That's just not realistic. The venue is the very first vendor you need to worry about booking because you can't book other vendors without having a location for the wedding. As for the attire for him and the groomsmen, I would recommend either going together to look at suits/tuxes or looking online together to decide the best option. I went with my husband. We agreed on a color for the tuxes then the sales clerk showed us the options we had in that color. From there my husband eliminated two of the like five options and he was fine with any of the others so he just asked me to pick my favorite which I did. We agreed we wanted him and all of the groomsmen in the same tux, but he wore a different colored vest and pocket square that matched my dress. The best man also had a different colored pocket square but the same color vest as the groomsmen. I think you need to decide on the venue and other major vendors before you worry about attire though.

I echo the tiered list idea, and would add to include things that you absolutely do not want as well. Then work on finding a middle ground. If he really wants a limo and you don't have a strong opinion, let him have that. If you want one cake flavor and he wants another, consider a tiered cake with different flavors on different tiers. Being able to see where each other stands and having a discussion on how you'll move forward will make the planning process a lot easier. You may find you agree on a lot more than you thought, which will make it seem like less of an uphill battle. Regardless, unless either of you has a stockpile of money set aside, you'll probably have to budget and save to pay for things. Does saving and saying no to things you'd like to spend money on suck? Of course. But it's the same thing whenever there's a bigger purchase you'd like to make. Good for you for having a plan to set aside money!

As to the issues you listed, there's some ways to deal with those to give you both what you want. If you want to get married in your church and he wants to have the reception downtown, why not rent a shuttle to take guests from the church to the reception venue? That was exactly what we did for our wedding. We got one room block at the hotel closest to the reception venue, had a shuttle pick up from that hotel, and then after the ceremony it took guests back to that hotel. Most of our guests were from out of town so they stayed at the hotel, the shuttle eliminated the need for anyone to pay to park, and as a bonus, everyone could enjoy the reception without worrying about drinking and driving. Just my 2 cents, but downtown areas are usually a great option since they're near airports, there's plenty of hotel and restaurant options, and there's usually a better rideshare presence.

As to the suit issue, unless he's suggesting something super off-the-wall, I'd let him have his way. He's going to be the one wearing the suit, and if the shoe were on the other foot I doubt you'd want him making demands on your dress. For me, I prefer notched lapels on tuxes, but my husband wanted shawl lapels. I wasn't thrilled about the choice, but on the day of the wedding, he looked so darn handsome I didn't even think about it.

Wedding planning can be super stressful, but at the end you'll get to be married to the love of your life