One of the things I’ve found while planning the wedding is that I kind of have been losing sight of some of the more practical things surrounding the wedding including where we’re going to live once we’re married. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely thought about it right down to us coming home from our honeymoon to a clean, new, perfectly furnished apartment, all ready for us to begin our new life in. I guess I just thought it would fall into place on its own, but that’s never the way things work in the real world.
[HudsonValleyWeddings.com Tip: A Mailboxes makes a Unique Wedding Gift: Paint, decorate and personalized a mailbox to be used for gift envelopes at the wedding and after the wedding at the Bride and Groom’s new home.]
Unlike a lot of other couples that we know, Tim and I don’t live together. I live in a (really) small apartment by myself in Dover, and Tim lives in Pawling above his parents’ house. When we started discussing where we were going to live, we pretty much ruled out my apartment right away. It’s a nice place, but I can barely keep my own stuff from spilling out of the tiny closet. I don’t even want to think about what it’d be like if Tim’s stuff was in there too it’d probably feel like we were crammed into a can of sardines.
[HudsonValleyWeddings.com Tip: Living at Home. Consider having your folks add a floater to their Homeowner’s insurance policy. The floater will allow your parents to increase coverages that are limited in their original Homeowner’s policy. A temporary floater added to your parents’ insurance policy can also be used to insure wedding gifts you receive before your wedding.] So we had to start looking. The first question we had to ask ourselves was where we wanted to look. Our range was anywhere between Poughkeepsie and the Westchester areas, and we had to think first and foremost about prices. It’s kind of hard to figure out what the price range of apartments is without actually going to look at them, but we found two really great resources for gauging prices online the Pennysaver and Craigslist.com
[HudsonValleyWeddings.com Tip: A Homeowner’s Policy is usually divided into two parts. The first section protects your home and the possessions it contains. The second part covers you when you are held liable for something you did or for something that happens on your property. This is the most basic policy and is one every young couple should have.]
After a little browsing, we figured out that the Hudson Valley is a really expensive place to live. The more inexpensive apartments were in areas that we knew weren’t exactly ideal locations to live, and the ones that sounded perfect were perfectly miserable, price-wise. Since we’re both musicians, we were looking into 2-bedroom apartments so we could have a room to kind of turn into an office/studio, but after looking up prices we weren’t sure that could ever happenÅ unfortunate, but better than going bankrupt!
[HudsonValleyWeddings.com Tip: Work as a Team to set up a household budget to keep track of your expenses and of where your money is going. Keep in mind that having a budget gives you more independence, not less.]
Then, one day, everything seemed to turn around. One of the families that often hire Tim to fix their home and office computers mentioned that one of the tenants who lives on their property wasn’t working out, and that a small guest house was about to open up. The area is nice (Pawling!) and Tim said that they were really nice people, so I started getting excited. They said they would cut us a deal on the rent if Tim continued to help them with their computers, and they also sent us pictures of the inside of the house. Sweet! It’s beautiful small, but perfect for us. It has a loft and a sunroom in addition to a full living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and even a wood-burning stove in the living room so nice in the wintertime! We said we’d take them up on their offer, as long as they could get the pervious tenant out so we could move our stuff in before the wedding.
Weeeeeell, that just might be the problem. They mentioned that the current tenant isn’t exactly thrilled about having to find another place to live, and you know how things go for situations like that they could stay there for months. But my perfect vision of after-wedding life! Coming home to a perfect home, already set up for the two of us! It might happen, and it might not. We talked about what we’d do in the event that things happened that way, and Tim will probably end up moving in with me in the meantime cramped, but it looks like our only solution should the house not be ready for us. It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do.
[HudsonValleyWeddings.com Tip: Last Minute Details. Make logistic arrangements for your apartment or house. Arrange for someone to water plants, check on the cat and stock your refrigerator with necessities, so you don’t come home and immediately have to go out food shopping.]
So I guess the moral of the story is that you can’t expect everything to be perfect all the time. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that the apartment will be ready in time! I guess we’ll have to see.
-Laura =)
