Wedding Planning

As many of you know, I was laid off last week. My fiance and I are working on planning our wedding, which has become a bit more difficult now with the money situation. Are any of my fellow B/SOTL in the wedding planning mode right now? I'd love any wisdom/advice that anyone has to help make the wedding planning less stressful and a bit easier. Thanks to you all, cheers!

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0patience

Wedding license - $40
Justice of the Peace - $40
Keg - $100
Cake - $200
Relative as a DJ - $20
Back yard reception - Garbage run - $40
Not having to take out a loan for a wedding - PRICELESS!

jasonusa1

Yeah. Don't do it.

beatnic

Give her old man a box of cigars and ask nicely!

Lee.mcglynn

No advise but wish you luck budget or not it's a pain in the a$$!!!!!

phobicsquirrel

well it's more or less her day so you need to talk to her. My wedding was really cheap. We both didn't want to spend a lot of money on it, however we probably should have spent a bit more than we did, it was really thrown together. However we spent a lot on the honey moon. Wedding stuff and weddings in general are way overpriced, I mean anything with "wedding" in it is like double the price. Maybe have it in your yard or a friends yard. Maybe do a bbq or something. We even had our "pictures" taken over at a lighthouse near our house that has an incredible view. It was free and had great scenery. Though my parents had a really nice camera which helped. There are ways to do it cheaply, u just have to think outside the halmark box.

phobicsquirrel

0patience:
Wedding license - $40
Justice of the Peace - $40
Keg - $100
Cake - $200
Relative as a DJ - $20
Back yard reception - Garbage run - $40
Not having to take out a loan for a wedding - PRICELESS!

lol! 200 cake aye? I made ours which was a pain in the ass but it looked good and tasted good, I spent 300 dollars on beer though... but the wife didn't know, I told her the cake cost more than it really did. In fact the beer was the most expensive thing at our wedding. Even her dress wasn't that much, like 125 or something. Though a year or so later her sister had a 15000 dollar wedding and my wife was a bit sad we didn't spend more though our honey moon was much better.

beatnic

Thirty something years ago I was married. We had a backyard reception. My brothers-in-law were the cooks, bartenders, gofers, and what ever else was needed (6 of them, LOL). Still married. I suggest you invite you family and friends over for a pre wedding rehearsal, and walk in already married. But, if your fiancé has her mind set on anything, you gotta go with it, or there will be HELL to pay. LOL. Good luck.

jthanatos

Definitly DIY as much as you can, everything is stupidly expensive when done by a "wedding person"(planner, chef, such). If you have time, invitations especially are so much cheaper when done by you. Maybe even get some friends to help, and make a herf out of it. I know one friend that saved a ton on photos by have a pro do the wedding party photos only, then left a punch bowl full of cheap disposable cameras out at the reception. Got tons of pics a pro would have missed, and everyone had a blast doing it.

jgibv

0patience:
Wedding license - $40
Justice of the Peace - $40
Keg - $100
Cake - $200
Relative as a DJ - $20
Back yard reception - Garbage run - $40
Not having to take out a loan for a wedding - PRICELESS!

big 'ol +1!!
(FWIW - my fiance and I are about to say f** it and go do this ourselves.
Wedding's been booked and almost entirely planned but it's just turning into such a stressful headache. We're about to just "write off" the deposit $ and skip the whole big ordeal in favor of the courthouse. But to each their own.)
/rant

So back to the original question:
@ Illinois - there's a ton of blogs (or so my fiance tells me) that offer DIY solutions for everything from flowers, to party favors.
Even if you're not "crafty" you should still consider this (we are by no means crafty/artsy but plan on making the centerpieces & partyfavors ourselves). And it's especially easy to do if you have a Michael's or similar craft store nearby. For example we got all of our invitations/envelopes/RSVP cards as a set from Michael's and are going to print them out at home. Michael's always has coupons too so we ended up paying next to nothing for the invitations.
We're also considering making the party favors ourselves: we plan on making small jars of homemade jams & jellies and printing "custom" labels at home and giving out the jars to our guests.
Last piece of advice - if you're going to order flowers - place a bulk order with your grocery store and skip the florist. Unless you want some crazy-flower arrangements that only a florist could put together, this will save you quite a bit of $$ as well.

0patience

jgibv:
0patience:
Wedding license - $40
Justice of the Peace - $40
Keg - $100
Cake - $200
Relative as a DJ - $20
Back yard reception - Garbage run - $40
Not having to take out a loan for a wedding - PRICELESS!
big 'ol +1!!
(FWIW - my fiance and I are about to say f** it and go do this ourselves.
Wedding's been booked and almost entirely planned but it's just turning into such a stressful headache. We're about to just "write off" the deposit $ and skip the whole big ordeal in favor of the courthouse. But to each their own.)
/rant

So back to the original question:
@ Illinois - there's a ton of blogs (or so my fiance tells me) that offer DIY solutions for everything from flowers, to party favors.
Even if you're not "crafty" you should still consider this (we are by no means crafty/artsy but plan on making the centerpieces & partyfavors ourselves). And it's especially easy to do if you have a Michael's or similar craft store nearby. For example we got all of our invitations/envelopes/RSVP cards as a set from Michael's and are going to print them out at home. Michael's always has coupons too so we ended up paying next to nothing for the invitations.
We're also considering making the party favors ourselves: we plan on making small jars of homemade jams & jellies and printing "custom" labels at home and giving out the jars to our guests.
Last piece of advice - if you're going to order flowers - place a bulk order with your grocery store and skip the florist. Unless you want some crazy-flower arrangements that only a florist could put together, this will save you quite a bit of $$ as well.

Just so folks know, this is exactly what my wife and I did over 25 years ago.
I've often ask her if she regrets it and she doesn't. So it was totally worth it. LOL!

JDH

illinoisgolf99:
As many of you know, I was laid off last week. My fiance and I are working on planning our wedding, which has become a bit more difficult now with the money situation. Are any of my fellow B/SOTL in the wedding planning mode right now? I'd love any wisdom/advice that anyone has to help make the wedding planning less stressful and a bit easier. Thanks to you all, cheers!

I'd be thinking Gatlingburg or Asheville or Nashville. Have a small ceremony. It aint the pomp and the party that counts, only the sincerity and commitment of the vows. The wife & I were married in '75 and I don't think there were 10 people present. Think about what you're doing, and why, not about the show.

Gray4lines

The easiest way to run up the cost is 1. Invite too many people 2. Have a huge wedding party. If you can, keep the numbers low. I promise, if it isn't your immediate family or very close friend, you will not even notice if they aren't there, the day goes so fast!

edit: and people typically understand the idea of "keeping it small" and arent offended if not invited.

phobicsquirrel

Gray4lines:
The easiest way to run up the cost is 1. Invite too many people 2. Have a huge wedding party. If you can, keep the numbers low. I promise, if it isn't your immediate family or very close friend, you will not even notice if they aren't there, the day goes so fast!

edit: and people typically understand the idea of "keeping it small" and arent offended if not invited.

true, and to be honest weddings are boring unless #1, you are the one getting married or #2, there are hot bridesmaids and or ladies there who you can score with. I guess I'll put a #3 on there, if it's your wedding and are able to score with a bridesmaid b4 the wedding. (yes I do know a guy who did this and yes he didn't stay married too long).

Scrambler

Best thing that happened with my wedding plans was getting short-notice deployment orders. We had a set a date in October, but I was notified that I would be mobilizing in under a month, so we moved the wedding up 8 months. We were still able to do about 90% of what we would have done if we planned for the whole time, but had 2 weeks to get everything ready.

Probably the biggest cost savings was having the reception at the restaurant we were planning to use as caterers. The food cost the same, but they provided the banquet room and staff at no extra charge. Instead of hiring a bartender and dealing with the associated costs, the servers took drink orders and brought drinks from the bar and I just paid the tab at the end.

We got married in a park on the bank of the river, overlooking Jackson Square and the St. Louis Cathedral. Made for awesome photo backdrops, and the fees for using the park were minimal. This was my first choice for location, but I think it was going to take a little convincing to get the wife on board with the outdoors location and the giant cannon in the middle of the park, but with the time crunch, she happily agreed.

Lasabar

I just started the ole planning as well... I know two things
1. I love her
2. Don't spend all your money on ONE FRIGGIN DAY!

Unfortunately, she does not see it this way. I want 200 guests, free beer (Miller Lite of course!) and wine and some good ass food and a nice DJ...
She's opting for aroudn 300 and open bar and the works... She's lucky I love her. I want to spend $10k, she's thinking over $20k... I'll let you know who wins...

And to not sound like a dlck.... I'm truly sorry for the job loss, I cannot even fathom the crap you're going through. I know how you want to cut back and especially now, and at the same time all you want to do is make your beautiful bride happier than any other bride that has lived.... shlt sucks....

Bigshizza

First off, sorry Jarett but it is temporary even tough the timing sucks. I just got married for the 2nd time in April. At first, we wanted a reception with all the family etc.. The more we thought about it...it became clear we were spending money for other people to have a good time. Plus, who wants to deal with 90+ year olds in 90 degree weather. So, I lost my $500.00 deposit. We decided on the big island of Hawaii. Just the two of us, flew first class, a minister, 2 photographers at a beautiful beach. My wife made her bouquet and it was great! Well except that I laid out the same day at the pool and got damn near a 3rd degree sunburn. Her mom thought I looked like a native Samoan. Just make it fun for yourselves, not anyone else. Meet your expectations, not everyone else's. She's available to answer your questions, especially about sun block!! P.s. I got to meet Mick Fleetwood at our dinner...that was the icing on the perverbial cake.