Weddingbee Blog

The recent Weddingbee talk on budgets (especially Miss Bluebell’s great polls!) have really made me start thinking about my own budget. I won’t disclose the exact dollar amount, but let’s just say it’s modest without being unbearably so.

But one lesson I’ve learned from all my DIY and dollar-stretching is that when planning a wedding on a budget, it’s not about how much you can do, but about how to do less and do it well.

For example, with our budget we could offer a modest dinner–an inexpensive buffet-style meal, with no alcohol. Or we could offer a *fantastic* dessert buffet with a limited selection of alcohol. To us, it was a no-brainer for which option to choose!

Likewise, I knew I couldn’t afford any of the huge and gorgeous centerpieces I loved in the bridal magazines. So rather than using silk flowers or having diminutive centerpieces with real flowers, we chose to forego them all together and make pretty non-floral centerpieces.

All this has allowed us to splurge where it matters and where we really wanted to: we found a great photographer and dropped about 15% of our budget on hiring her, and went with a more expensive bakery in order to get a cake that looks *and* tastes fantastic.

But will we be buying food (dippers for the chocolate fountains, mostly) from Sam’s Club the day before the wedding? Yes. And am I breaking my back DIY’ing all my stationery? Sure! And I don’t mind at all.

More important than “keeping up with the Joneses” or having the wedding of the century is having a wedding that fits with you and your fiance’s style, without putting you 10 years behind. Guests won’t remember their bums resting on Chiviari chairs, but they will remember the sugar high from that fantastic cake.

Every couple has their own priorities–some may not care if they have an iPod DJ, others couldn’t do without a jazz band. And that’s OK, as long as you remember to keep it realistic and cut corners where necessary–there are so many ways to save money on certain things to ensure that you get other things!

As a bride working on a “real” budget I’ve been trying to post some of my DIY instructions to help other brides out, but now I plan to double my efforts. Not just with DIY, but with tips for modest budgeting in other areas. It’s always important to keep in touch with what real weddings are like and not get too wowed by the extravagent affairs pictured in the shiny pretty magazines.