Cheerful Frugality Weds

Our wedding for 50 guests, all-inclusive was about $5000. *proud smile*

Coincidentally, we used many of the things listed above…waterfront location (we live ina town on Lake Michigan), “unusual” aka mostly local wildflowers (heather, cornflower, etc. with small white roses) for the floral arrangements, and one attendant each.

While the best man got a tux, for my maid of honor I simply sent her a swatch of the color I preferred and told her to buy something nice inthat color that she’d be able to wear again! LOL

Did all the favors, decorations, programs, etc. myself.

Scanned the flashy magazines for dress ideas, took several ripped-out pages to a local bridal place whose owner said she could get me nearly the same thing for less than $200 since her suppliers didn’t advertise in those big flashy magazines so they didn’t have to re-coup their massive advertising budgets.

Since my hubby doesn’t really like traditional cake and frosting, we had three ice cream cakes from Dairy Queen! LOL One large rectangle and two small rounds.

One of the biggest expenses we popped for were the invites – simple but from overseas – and tartan samples – again from overseas – for the wedding party and all the parents (we had a Scottish themed wedding).

http://twolittlevikings.blogspot.com/2008/04/another-7-things.html

We wanted a very homemade wedding and that made it much easier to save money. My grandmother made my wedding gown and that saved us tons, plus gave me an heirloom quality gown that I’ll be able to pass down to my daughter if she wants. Also we got married just after Christmas and that made decoration a breeze – everyone loaned us Christmas trees and greenery. Food was another area we saved a lot of money on – my dad and I did almost all of it with a few friends bringing their specialties and putting them on borrowed silver trays. My aunt is a florist and she saved cuttings from different plants to make my bouquet – I only actually purchased a dozen white rozes for myself and three pink roses for my sister, but the bouquets were lush and I was able to save all the ivy (which means fidelity) from mine and plant it. Actually I think the key to any wedding is deciding what matters the most to you and then spending money accordingly.

Those are all wonderful ideas, and it sounds like the result was beautiful.

One of the best ways we cut costs for our wedding was to find a less expensive venue that still provided set-up options for the price we would have paid at other venues. In our case, a local small town country club was available for the reception and would provide all chairs, tables, linens, and even some decorations at a fraction of the price for a hotel or specific wedding venue. We also asked their wedding coordinator if we could order the food for our guests a la carte from the catering menu since we couldn’t afford the buffet or served meal options. We ordered almost everything that would have been served in the buffet, plus some extras that we especially wanted. By doing this we saved thousands of dollars.

While I would have been thrilled to have a smaller wedding ( I invited 3 of the final 150) hubby and our respective family kinda steamrolled over that idea. Part of that was a built in advantage – his father is executive chef at a reception hall. We got sat down and informed our wedding would be there.

But one idea that did save both money and wear and tear on my nerves was the bridemaid dresses. Going on the idea that every grown women needs at least one black dress that looks good on her in her closet, I told all my bridesmaids simply- You’re in a church, be sensible – and let them pick their own dresses in black. Only two bought dresses, and one of those found the best looking dress in the bunch at a 2nd hand shop for $5.

The wedding favor that was handed out? I bought wildflower seeds from a local company in the wedding colors (blue and silver) and simply made little packets out of parchment paper and ribbon. Three movies with my honey later, they were all filled and tied for a grand total of $35 for everything. (As an added bonus, I had enough to plant a little garden in each of the mother’s yards as a gift, and some left over for my own yard.)

My recommendation is to get married near a holiday and have a holiday themed or colored wedding. We got married 10 days before Christmas and had a Christmas themed wedding. As soon as holiday supplies started going on sale at Hobby Lobby in July and August we bought little Christmas trees for centerpieces, garlands for decorations, etc. It was much cheaper than buying traditional white wedding stuff, and I think it was prettier. Don’t skimp on the photographer though. My parents had a friend take their pictures, and none of them turned out, so we were willing to spend a bit more for a real photographer.

I think our biggest expenditures were booking the church and the reception location. However, since we chose a very attractive church we did almost no decorating. A very talented friend did an altar arrangement for us with silk flowers — it’s beautiful, she only charged us for materials, and it looks lovely in our house a year later. That and the unity candles were our only decorations in the church. My mom and aunt did all of the live flowers (bouquets, corsages, etc.) and we bought the flowers in bulk from a local florist. We got the cake at H-E-B and it was delicious. Dinner was Rudy’s BBQ, which is relatively inexpensive and very popular here in Austin. I found my wedding dress at a store that was going out of business and paid $80 for it — including tax (original price was $700). My aunt made our invitations. My former employer did our photography for free, although we got a hotel room for his family for the weekend and gave them a restaurant gift card. He’s amazingly talented and did such a wonderful job. My mother-in-law made my veil, one of my bridesmaids did my makeup, and my sister-in-law did my hair. We had so many generous and talented friends, and the wedding was all the more wonderful for the personal touches involved at every step.