u/Current_Boss4686

Been backtesting pretty consistently and the numbers look fine. Positive expectancy, reasonable drawdowns. Three months live and I'm clearly behind it, not by a crazy amount but it's consistent.I'm pretty sure a lot of it is me. Entries slipping, sizing by feel, bailing early. None of that gets written down anywhere so I can't measure it. Does logging live trades against the backtest actually close the gap for anyone, or is some of it just permanent?

Looking in Manhattan and Brooklyn and I knew NYC would be expensive. I did not know food and beverage minimum alone could apparently be an entire respectable wedding budget somewhere else.

We are not trying to do ultra luxury. We have what I thought was a solid budget, around 100 guests, and every spreadsheet is laughing at me.

couples who pulled off a venue on a normal human budget, what actually moved the number? Friday? winter? restaurants? outer boroughs? fewer people?? give me hope lol.

NYC

We found a venue we really love but the deposit is several thousand dollars and the word NONREFUNDABLE is doing a lot of psychological damage rn. Haven't signed. I keep finding stories about venues closing, changing owners, moving dates, all the nightmare scenarios you should probably not read at midnight before paying a deposit...Can you actually negotiate protections into the contract for that money or is a big deposit just one of those wedding risks you accept? What did you ask for?