Wedding Planning: Plan Your Wedding on a Budget
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Got a Wedding Budget? Here are Some Ways to Plan a Cheap wedding
Most of us wait our whole lives to get married. If you're like most women, you've been dreaming of meeting a great guy and having that perfect wedding ever since Johnny lost his cuddies and started looking cute; if you're like most men, you're lying to yourself when you say that you could careless about a wedding.
I'm willing to bet that deep down, everyone wants their wedding to be special - from engagement to honeymoon - am I wrong?
Special weddings shouldn't just be for the wealthy, us hardworking folks can, and should, have an amazing wedding experience too. This lens is going to give you budget minded wedding planners some tips to plan a cheap wedding that will become an event to remember.
I'm willing to bet that deep down, everyone wants their wedding to be special - from engagement to honeymoon - am I wrong?
Special weddings shouldn't just be for the wealthy, us hardworking folks can, and should, have an amazing wedding experience too. This lens is going to give you budget minded wedding planners some tips to plan a cheap wedding that will become an event to remember.
Shopping for a Wedding Gown
Researching and Buying a Cheap Wedding Gown
High-end wedding gowns can cost a bride thousands of dollars, but those same gowns can be purchased from online retailers and in discount stores for less than $1,000, I've found some designer gowns for as little as $399. Here are a few tips to get you started on finding that perfect gown.
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Researching Your Wedding Gown - Wedding gowns come in all fabrics, colors and sizes; there are hundreds of different designers and each has there very own style.
If you're looking for a wedding gown, you might find it useful to discover who your favorite designers are before you start looking at individual dresses. Here are a few top designers to get you started, just Google or Bing the name -
Vera Wang
Amsale Aberra
The Pronovias Group
Melissa Sweet
Liv Harris
Alfred Angelo
Badgley Mischka
Ulla Maija
Reem Acra
In addition, here's a web page with a little background and more information about the above wedding gown designers. -
Now that you've found a few designers, it's time to start looking at individual dresses. Each designer offers several different gowns in each of their collections; gowns from many of the designers above can start at a few thousand dollars, but we're not paying that much. It's not that we're cheap, we're just not about to spend our entire wedding budget on a gown that can be purchased for less.
Online outlet retailers and outlet stores offer these same dresses for a fraction of what the manufacturers and large retail stores charge, sure, it might be from last year's collection, but I guarantee you that you'll look just as stunning.
BridePower.com is one of a few online retailers that offers a large selection of cheap wedding gowns from the world's top designers. In most cases, you can save thousands of dollars, and in all cases, you'll look like you coughed up a barrel of cash and that it was worth it.
Deciding on a Location
Tradition Smadition - Get Married in the 1600s
Golf Courses, Hotels and Reception Halls are expensive and can eat away a bride's budget. At these facilities you're not just paying for the location, most of these places come stock with a bunch of small fees for the little extras.
Why not be different, be unique and be memorable? Theme your wedding and have it in your backyard - no backyard you say - how about a friend's, or a local park. I've been to more weddings than I can remember and the ones that do stick out for being fun and special, had a clear theme.
One wedding I attended brought back the 1600s with a Victorian style wedding in an open park. My favorite things about the wedding were the Castle cake and the music, there was no DJ, they kept it old school with instruments from the time.
Okay, so you, your friends and your family suffer from wedding theme block - how about a non-themed wedding at a community park with a lake, a friend's backyard, or in the pines? I've attended a wedding at a restaurant where the couple went on a first date - it's not about doing what everyone else does, it's about doing the things that mean something to you.
Check out our Melissa Sweet Squidoo Page
Why not be different, be unique and be memorable? Theme your wedding and have it in your backyard - no backyard you say - how about a friend's, or a local park. I've been to more weddings than I can remember and the ones that do stick out for being fun and special, had a clear theme.
One wedding I attended brought back the 1600s with a Victorian style wedding in an open park. My favorite things about the wedding were the Castle cake and the music, there was no DJ, they kept it old school with instruments from the time.
Okay, so you, your friends and your family suffer from wedding theme block - how about a non-themed wedding at a community park with a lake, a friend's backyard, or in the pines? I've attended a wedding at a restaurant where the couple went on a first date - it's not about doing what everyone else does, it's about doing the things that mean something to you.
Check out our Melissa Sweet Squidoo Page
The Food and the liquor
$5,000 for liquor? No thanks....
Food and liquor usually hack a good chunk out of any wedding budget, but. Can you afford to pay $30 per person for food or $50 per person for food and liquor? I couldn't either, which is why I got a little help from my friends.
A friend of mine had a beautiful wedding on a golf course. It was catered and had an open bar, both provided by the golf course, and everything turned out great. Guess what the price tag was for food and drinks....$10,500. That might be okay for some, but not me. Thanks to my friend's experience, I looked for another way, and found one.
My wedding was incredible. We had tons of people, tons of food, and everyone had a great time; the best part was that the food and the liquor didn't eliminate our savings. We hired a caterer and had their team cook our food and we hired a few local bartenders to shell out some drinks.
The food was incredible, steak, chicken and pork fajitas with steamed veggies, salad, rolls, rice, beans, asparagus, garlic mashed and baby potatoes. New York Cheesecake, Carmel Flan, Baked Alaska and our wedding cakes provided a nice variety of delicious deserts.
The bartenders we hired were great, we paid them $20 an hour and they made a killing in tips. We had a full bar a few specialty cases of premium beer and two kegs, grand total on liquor for our large wedding was just over $900.
Instead of hiring the first caterer you find, shop around and find one that will cook and serve your food and get some friends or bartenders from your local pub to dish out drinks...you'll save thousands.
A friend of mine had a beautiful wedding on a golf course. It was catered and had an open bar, both provided by the golf course, and everything turned out great. Guess what the price tag was for food and drinks....$10,500. That might be okay for some, but not me. Thanks to my friend's experience, I looked for another way, and found one.
My wedding was incredible. We had tons of people, tons of food, and everyone had a great time; the best part was that the food and the liquor didn't eliminate our savings. We hired a caterer and had their team cook our food and we hired a few local bartenders to shell out some drinks.
The food was incredible, steak, chicken and pork fajitas with steamed veggies, salad, rolls, rice, beans, asparagus, garlic mashed and baby potatoes. New York Cheesecake, Carmel Flan, Baked Alaska and our wedding cakes provided a nice variety of delicious deserts.
The bartenders we hired were great, we paid them $20 an hour and they made a killing in tips. We had a full bar a few specialty cases of premium beer and two kegs, grand total on liquor for our large wedding was just over $900.
Instead of hiring the first caterer you find, shop around and find one that will cook and serve your food and get some friends or bartenders from your local pub to dish out drinks...you'll save thousands.
Invitations on the Cheap
Why buy invitations from people that charge to much to make them?
A friend of mine took on designing and printing her own invitations and saved a few coffee cans full of cash in the process. She's not a designer or printer, but she found individuals offering those services on Craigslist.org.
She hired a designer to design an invitation for about 100 bucks, the design was pushed back and forth a few times and when it was done, it turned out better than most from invitation companies.
After a design was established, she took it to Kinkos and asked them to print up 200 invitations on a fancy sheet of paper and sent them out.
Quick and Easy
She hired a designer to design an invitation for about 100 bucks, the design was pushed back and forth a few times and when it was done, it turned out better than most from invitation companies.
After a design was established, she took it to Kinkos and asked them to print up 200 invitations on a fancy sheet of paper and sent them out.
Quick and Easy
Wedding Pictures from Flickr
Check out some wedding pics from the Flickr community
BridePower.com Blog - Wedding Industry Commentary
BridePower's blog offers brides commentary on wedding designers, gowns and the industry.
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