Ah, weddings. The flowers! The cake! The dresses! The vows! ...and the MONEY. Ugh, the money. I am at the very first steps of the marathon that is planning for a wedding and already I have learned some valuable lessons. The first is that weddings are EXPENSIVE. Even if you all you want is to throw on a pretty dress and elope, you are gonna pay BIG dollars. Due to the fact that we are paying for our own nuptials, I wanted to try to go as cheap as possible on a wedding gown, make the flower girl dresses, rent the tuxes, and DIY as many of the little details and decor of the wedding as possible myself. Lets talk about that first one...
There are websites that sell wedding gowns that are beautiful and are incredibly inexpensive all over the place and they just seem too good to be true! Guess what? They are. I found a website that looked great with affordable gowns that were incredibly beautiful so I hopped on over to my Pintrest to pin them. (I have quite the Pintest addiction as a bride-to-be.) Upon attempting to pin these dresses, Pintrest rejected my pins and sited that the website was a scam. So I did some research and found out some very unfortunate information about the world of wedding dresses. These cheap dresses are not the real designer's gowns at phenomenal prices. These gowns are knock-offs made in China. The real designer gown's designs are mimicked and a replica is made that might or might not match what is advertised when it shows up at your house. The gowns might be very badly made, have very cheap fabrics, and be very ill-fitted even when you give exact measurements upon ordering. If you are not satisfied with the gown and you somehow get a hold of the makers, they request a picture of the gown and then argue with you until you are forced to give up and either pay hundreds to have it fixed or just go spend more money on a gown from a wedding dress store in the states.
As for dresses you buy in stores, I found some interesting accusations across the board on that as well. Many future brides made the common complaints that after finding "THE ONE" and placing their order with their measurements and all, their gowns would show up over-sized. This would then enable the wedding dress stores to "need" to do alterations on the dresses that would push the already sky-high prices of $800-$5000 of the gown up by a couple hundred more dollars minimum. Profits galore, sky's the limit. Add in all the accessories they push while you are caught up in the emotions of stepping into that perfect gown, and you are spending a thousand dollars on a five-hundred dollar budget! It is enough to make me nauseous and I have not even stepped foot into a wedding gown store yet. And to think, that is only the FIRST of the multitude of wedding costs and hurdles I am up against...
I made a list of what a wedding budget includes the other day in order to get a realistic and honest perspective of what we are up against. It is mind blowing! Here we go:
- Wedding dress, dress alterations, accessories, shoes...
- Tuxedo rentals for L and our little boy ring bearers.
- Wedding rings for both L and myself.
- Flower girl dresses, and my daughter's Jr. bridesmaid dress.
- Hair, nails, and makeup costs for the day of the wedding.
- Ceremony and reception venue rental costs.
- Tables, chairs, and decorations such as table clothes, candles, draping, lighting...
- Flowers.
- Food.
- The cake.
- Photography.
- Stationary for the save-the-dates, invitations, postage, and programs.
- The officiant's fees (the person who performs the wedding).
- Marriage license.
- Gifts for your wedding party members.
- Honeymoon.
It makes my head spin! I have come up with some ways to really save money on some of the above costs but I am always open to anyone else's thrifty money-saving ideas. So far I have found a nearby park that could serve the dual purpose of a ceremony plus the following reception to save on a double rental fee. I am looking at making rather than purchasing as much as possible in decor and even flower girl dresses. If you have experiences or advice, I NEED it please! Until Next Time...
3 comments:
Im so happy and excited for you! And I LOVE weddings, I was a bridal consultant when I was living in Cedar City. The nice thing about temple weddings is that they're free (and eternal:])! Even if you want to do a separate ring ceremony there's no charge for the bishop or the church. And I am big on DIY stuff. When I got married, for my bridesmaids, I found a fabric that I loved for cheap. It matched my colors and then I had my girls pick a pattern they liked. I wasnt about to try to fit my girls who had completely different body shapes into the same style of dress. That way they were happy with their dress, I was happy with the color, and it turned into a gift too because I made it for them. It saved me and them hundreds of dollars. My flowers were fake, which at first I wasnt happy about having fake flowers but now I use my bouquet in my house for decoration! In fact, I use more than 75% of my wedding decor as decor in my house which has saved a lot of money. I saved money on my announcements by doing them through Vistaprint. With the money saved I was able to spend a little more on my wedding dress! There are lots of ways to save money but still have a beautiful classy memorable wedding :]
I did our wedding and honeymoon for about $3000. Take into consideration though that I didn't have to pay for my dress, or my ring. My ring was handed down to me by my aunt, and I only had to pay to have it sized. My mom and step dad paid for my dress. Because we were on a budget, my bridesmaids bought their own dresses, which also gave them the option to choose the style that best suited them, I just picked the colors. We rented tuxes, and the little boys wore black dress slacks and button down shirts in the colors of the wedding, which saved us a bit of money there too. I ordered all my other stuff online, even my flowers. They were live, and came shipped overnight in flat boxes via FedEx and they were beautiful, and super cheap. I ordered my cake at WalMart, and, believe it or not, it was perfect. I bought a kit on clearance at Michael's and made my own invitations. Most of the links I used I found through the website The Knot. And let me know if you need some help making décor. :)
Not for the first time I feel so blessed that my mother is such an amazing seamstress. It's too bad you're not living in Vegas, or I'd give you her information and see if you could work out a price for her to make you one. She made mine, both of my sisters' and 2 of my sisters-in-law's dresses.
And we ordered my wedding cake at Smith's. And my mother's best friend did florals (silk, because I'm allergic to just about every flower imaginable), so she did it for me just for cost.
I also made my own invitations and as much of the decor as possible. And Matt was the only one wearing a tux, all the other men just wore suits.
Um....and we just had a dessert bar at the reception, not a full dinner. And no liquor of course. :p
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