I love the beautiful and creative weddings that I shoot for my Brides. But when it comes down to it I don't need a $20,000 wedding. What I really want is a House! I would be happy with a court house wedding and a party at Sherlock's afterwards. But, alas. This is not my fate. So, I am going to tell you how I plan to throw a beautiful wedding for under $5,000.
I will admit, I have some advantages since I work in the industry. Firstly, I can trade my craft for services or discounts. Don't rule this out when you are shopping for your wedding services! That's how I got my Chaplin, and my photographer for free. (It's cheating I know). But think about it when you book. What can you offer the vendor that they will want or need?
If you're not crafty, never fear! I promise you that you have friends that are. Its very fashionable right now to be crafty. Just make sure you go to them when you already know what you want. Pictures never hurt either!
So, now we have the biggest expenses. Location and Food. I know you don't want to hear it, but getting married on a Sunday is an easy way to save a ton of money. Do it early so you leave friends and family travel time, and then you get to party ALL DAY!
We chose our locations based on our relationship. We met in college so why not get hitched there? The church is nice and bright (this was the single most important thing for me in a venue. You know, photographer and what not.) Also, we got a massive discount for being alumni. Go Coogs!
For the reception we had our hearts set on a brewery. My finace is a craft brewer and I knew he would love this venue. I also knew I was going to be making some decorating choices that are not the most manly, so I wanted to make sure his personality was present in our wedding. Now, here's the best part. When you rent the space a lot of breweries will include the beer FOR FREE! Mwahahahaha!
We chose St. Arnold's Brewery because we love their beer and they are only a few miles from the ceremony location. This puts us at roughly half our budget. Diabolical! Food is troublesome. We are both avid foodies. Nothing would depress me more than a poor meal at my wedding. Since we are doing a early Sunday wedding, we have a lot of flexability here. We can do snacks, brunch, gourmet sandwiches, or a full dinner. What ever we do, we are keeping it to $10 a head. There are also fashionable new gourmet food trucks that can pull right up to the reception! This particular section of our wedding is still being hotly debated. But if we stick to our budget that puts us right up to $3,000.
Ok, I cheated again. I skipped the dress because my Mother-and-Father-in-law-to-be were gracious enough to pick up the bill on my dress. I cannot thank them enough for this. I originally had planned to make my dress, as I have some sewing abilities. But this concerned my Finace's Father enough that they insisted. For this particular area I have no advice except to come to the Bridal Show I'm shooting for this June:
Brides Against Breast Cancer
http://bridesagainstbreastcancer.org/
They will have huge DESIGNER names for awesome DISCOUNTS! And when you buy a dress, you get entered in all sorts of really awesome giveaways!
I'm sure we will inevitably go over our optimistic budget. I haven't started collecting invitation supplies or bridesmaid gifts. And we are still up in the air about the cupcakes. Whatever we do we are keeping it
simple so we focus on keeping our wedding day about celebrating our love with friends and family.
