Wedding Blog

I think I might have mentioned once or twice that we’re definitely doing this wedding budget-style. While we don’t officially have a “budget”, we are trying to put on the biggest party of our lives without ending up in major debt. Our families are helping us out a bit, but the majority of the wedding fund is coming out of our daily budget. Mr. Crab Cake and I are both working two jobs to make this thing happen. In addition to our regular jobs, we both teach at the college level part-time.

It was super important to us (read… me) that this thing be elegant and classy. My daddy always says that I have caviar taste on a tuna fish budget.

So, to save money (and get my caviar), we enlisted friends, family, the internet, our bosses, random strangers, and anyone else who was willing participate in helping us.

The first thing we did was book the museum Mr. Crab Cake works at for our reception.

For us, this was a no-brainer. Hello, free reception site! I was not originally thrilled with the idea of having our wedding in a military museum, but the free-ness won me over and I’ve since not only come to accept the museum, but am actually excited about it.

I’ve enlisted one of my bridesmaids to do the flowers. Okay, this is not just some friend who has dabbled in floral design. This girl has a degree in floral design, worked for almost 2 years at a leading florist in Charleston, and has recently branched out into event planning. She also did all her own flowers for her wedding last September. She’s the second person I go to (after Mr. Crab Cake) when making a major wedding decision. Having her do our flowers has not only allowed me to have beautiful floral arrangements at a reasonable price, but it’s also the only way I will be able to have peonies (!!). I’m so thankful to her for being willing to come out here early to spend all week designing our flowers.

My stepmother is doing the catering. She and her sister both love throwing parties. Honestly, she’s so excited about catering the wedding. She and her sister have gone crazy. They are cooking up a storm, seeing what tastes good and what stores well. The decision to forgo a professional caterer did bring up some decisions I hadn’t planned on making, like linen rentals, and how we plan to keep the appetizers warm, as well as what kind of plates we are going to have. But I still think we’ll end up saving money.

There are some other things in the works, but I’m not quite ready to share them with you!

Are you enlisting any friends or family to help you achieve the wedding of your dreams?  How are your friends helping you cut your costs?