Introduction

Wedding on an extreme budget:

My husband James and I got married on June 12th of 2012. We had very little money for the affair, plus we both find it highly distasteful when people spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on ONE day. So we went for simplicity and DIY ingenuity plus a lot of help from our friends to make our wedding as cost effective as possible.

I wanted to break-down for others how a wedding can be done on around $2,000 and still be elegant and lovely. When I searched for budget weddings in planning my own, they were still talking about budgets starting at $5,000 to $10,000. Well, in my mind you shouldn't spend on one day in your life enough money to make a down-payment on a car or a house...

Invitations

My sister, and maid of honor works at Staples. They make beautiful items in their copy center and our choice for our invitations was a postcard, with our picture on the front and event details on the back. The postcard was a color copy of a photo of us we liked, it was printed on cream colored card stock that was sort of glittery. We didn't have to use envelopes and could just buy postcard stamps to send them.

The picture you see is the one we used for the front of the card.

Our Out of Pocket for 60 Postcard Invitations (without the stamps): $40
note: Postcard stamps are currently 28 cents a piece.

Clothing

Now, in the interest of FULL disclosure, I must tell you that my parents picked up the bill for my dress. I got it at David's Bridal (see below for more on THEM), and it was really what I was looking for, and for only $350. I mean, I wish one of the supposed $99 dollar dresses could have happened, but nope.

I really loved my dress, though and felt super elegant in it. I also bought a corset from Fredrick's of Hollywood for $40, and a pair of shoes from a local retailer for $30. So, my out of pocket on my attire was $70. Thanks, Mom and Dad!!

James' tux came from Tuxedo Den, as did all the boys'. They were $110 each, and we paid for James', my dads, and one of the groomsmen, so $330. Plus James bought some Converse for the occasion, $45.

That, plus a minor alteration of my dress and getting it pressed cost us $70.

Clothing: $870
Our Out of Pocket on Clothing: $520

Just some information on DB

Okay, so I bought my dress at David's Bridal. My bridesmaids bought there as well. This was not a choice...we didn't have a lot of options for frugal in our area. But the experience with them was overwhelmingly bad.

The first time I set foot in the Chico, CA store (which is the one closest to where I live), I was required to register prior to being able to simply look at dresses. I had no desire at that time to try any on, merely to look. But I registered, because it was company policy, and was assigned to a very pushy sales associate, and was talked into trying on several dresses. When I got home and for every week after, I received no less than a dozen emails from David’s Bridal. I’ve also received a myriad of “wedding related” spam due, I assume, to them selling my information to other parties.

When I returned to the store to buy, I brought with me three photos of dresses printed off of the David’s Bridal website that I wished to try on. My consultant pulled out about 8 dresses, none of which were the ones I requested. When she went on break and I was assigned a new person, she actually LISTENED to me (what a concept!) and brought out the dresses I requested, one of which I ended up buying.

My dress required a simple hemming up of about 1 inch. There was no decoration at the bottom, yet the price quoted was around $120, plus the train needed to be bustled permanently which was quoted at around another $100. I instead found a reputable local seamstress to do the work for me for a much more reasonable price.

When I picked up my dress I was told that I was entitled to a free steaming of the top layer of my dress. When I arrived to have that service rendered, I was told that as I did not pay the exorbitant fees for their seamstress, I was no longer entitled to that service. However, at no time was that mentioned to me, that was nowhere on the receipt, nor did the young lady that I picked it up from mention that. Yet, the store refused to provide the service promised to me, even when I asked to pay for it, as doing so would present a “liability” to the store.

My bridesmaids’ dresses were another huge letdown. One of their dresses was a floor model from another store. My bridesmaid paid for it sight unseen, and the salesperson at the other store assured us that it was in good shape. It arrived with numerous snags and makeup stains. She did not get a discount, and now will have to pay for a cleaning.

Living in a rural area means that I have few choices in wedding dresses. But what should have been a pleasant, memorable experience turned into irritation, anger and frustration at all turns. I will NEVER recommend David's Bridal to anyone I know.

They may very well be the source of a lot of the "bride-zilla" behavior exhibited by some women. What should have been a beautiful experience turned into a stressful and frustrating one.

Rant over.

Hair

Sometimes in wedding planning, luck plays a factor in the pursuit of a good deal. It also helps to ask around to EVERYONE you know...often it is not WHAT you know, but rather WHO you know...such was the case with our hair.

One of my bridesmaids and I were discussing what we should do with our hair. I was lamenting the fact that I don't have a regular hairstylist, plus I didn't really have the money for a salon. She suggested that her friend, a mom who lives on my street, used to be a hairstylist. We made a call and she was available.

We did a run-thru at her house to decide the style, then at 7am the morning of the wedding we trooped down there. She did a beautiful job, styling mine and 2 of the bridesmaids' hair (my sister, the maid of honor, chose to use another stylist for herself and my niece, the flower girl).

My suggestion? Ask around. It could be that a friend of a friend, or even a friend of a friend of a friend of an acquaintance might know someone who used to do hair, and would be willing to come out of retirement for one day.

Our Out of Pocket Cost for my hair: $20 (plus the cost of bobby pins, since I was out)

Photography

One of our four "it's not what you know, but who you know" breaks came in the form of our photographer. We had a photographer chosen, a former coworker of James', but she ended up being unavailable, so we were stuck as to what to do for our pictures. We were at that desperate point where we were torn between paying the huge $1,200+ fees of traditional photographers or just having our friends bring their digital cameras and hope for the best.

However, one of my coworkers is a member of the local Photo Club. She is a talented hobby photographer and has only done a few professional jobs. I asked (or begged) for her help and she agreed. Her fee: $250. So, I know not everyone has a talented photographer friend or coworker, but check your local area for hobby photography clubs...another coworker who was married the same day also had a club member do her photos.

Our Out of Pocket for Photography: $250

The Ceremony Location

This is another one of those instances where who you know makes all the difference! I worked for several years at Wm. B. Ide Adobe State Historic Park here in Red Bluff and I volunteered with them for several more, so when I decided to have our ceremony there, they gave me a huge break on the fees. I actually only paid the $25 application processing fee!! Normally, though, it would have been only another $100.

Our Out of Pocket for Ceremony Location: $25

Bouquets

I bought silk flowers and made all of the bouquets myself. The ones we wound up with were my second attempt. At first I thought I wanted a cascading bouquet, but I saw lots of pictures of hand-tied style ones made with vintage looking flowers and decided to go with that.

The flowers were small magnolias, hydrangeas, and white filler material. I added in there peacock "swords" to tie in with the boutonnieres and flower girl basket. Mine was a bit bigger than the bridesmaid bouquets, and had blue, brown and ivory ribbon. The bridesmaids had ivory and brown ribbon (their dresses were blue).

I spent between $10 and $15 each on the bouquets. It is hard to have a per-item cost on them.

The accompanying photo is an early one--I filled it out a bit more before the wedding and hot-glued some of the hydrangea leaves to the bottom to create a collar for the flowers.

Our Out of Pocket cost for the bouquets: $30-$45

Boutonnieres

My wedding colors were blue and brown, and so for the boutonnieres, we based them around peacock feathers. I made them myself.

I took a peacock feather top, a small silk flower, a little bit of silk greenery, a loop of blue ribbon and some silver wire. I put the items together, making sure that they whole assembly wasn't more than a few inches tall, used a small piece of tape to secure them together, then wrapped the stems very tightly with the wire.

Each stem of feathers was 5 dollars, and there were 3 feathers per stem. The wire was a couple of dollars for the entire spool, and I still have some left over. The blue ribbon was used on all of the boutonnieres, plus the flowergirl basket and my bouquet and was about $6 for the spool. The flowers were small snippets of those used for the bouquets.

An approximate Out of Pocket for Boutonnieres (each): $2.50
Time Spent: Approximately 2 hours for all 5

Flower Girl Basket

I bought a pre-made basket from Michael's. It was ivory, like mine and the flower girl's dress. I embellished it with blue and brown ribbon and a peacock feather.

I used hot glue and corsage pins to secure blue and brown ribbon wrapped around the handle. I tucked a peacock feather under the basket's existing sheer embellishment and secured it with hot glue.

The basket cost about $10. The peacock feathers were $5 for a stem of 5 ($1 each). The spools of ribbon were $4 or so dollars each.

Our Out of Pocket cost for the basket: $11.50 (approximate)

The investment of time was really frugal--I think I spent 30 minutes total on the basket!

The Reception Location

Our original plan was to have the reception at the Hampton Inn and Suites conference room, since it was up the road from our ceremony location. That fell through, and fortunately, in mentioning it to James' brother, he was able to come up with a solution for us...we had the reception at his church, in the multi-purpose room. The room was large, had tables available to us, and had a kitchen at one end. We got the use of it the night before to set up, and we had to completely clean up and re-set the room at the end.

Our Out of Pocket cost for the Reception Location: $0

To Feed or Not To Feed...

As I mentioned, we had our ceremony outside, and since our area is known for triple digit heat in June, we chose to be married at 10am so that we could beat the heat. Therefore, our choice for food at the reception was to just serve cake and beverages. We mentioned that specifically on our invitations. So, along with the cake, we purchased a case of Diet Pepsi, a case of Sprite, and a case of Root Beer. That was actually far too much drinks. The cases were on special at the Wal-Mart supercenter for $5 per 24 pack.

For the toast we bought sparkling apple and sparkling lemonade, both Martinelli's brand. We got them for a great deal at our local Grocery Outlet, at $1.78 a bottle. We bought 12.

Our Out of Pocket for Beverages: $37

The Cake

We went to a local small baker/caterer for our cake. We ordered a relatively small 3 tier cake that would serve 60. It cost us about $180 for the cake, and delivery was free.

We also looked at major grocery stores like Raley's, Safeway and the like for cakes. They had beautiful, lower cost options that would have been lovely. The only reason we did not use one of them is that we would have to pick up the cake ourselves and with our wedding taking place in the morning, we wanted to purchase it from someone who would deliver.

Our Cake Out of Pocket: $180

Reception Decoration

We had 6 tables for guests, and a large table up front for drinks and cake. I got ivory table cloths for the 6 tables, all from Bed Bath and Beyond (I had a gift card--a bridal shower present), on sale, $15, marked down from $50. I borrowed the long table cloth for the big table. Down the center of each of the guest tables were strips of blue and brown satin cloth, purchased at Wal-Mart for $4 a yard. I bought 5 yards and cut them into 4 strips. These were loosely laid down the centers of the tables. On top I put small candle jars with coffee beans on the bottom and a tea light on top. Each table had 3 of these. With them, each table had 2 jars filled with a mix of blue M&M's and Raisinettes (blue and brown!) and a long handled (iced tea) spoon with brown ribbon bows tied on them.

I had 3 easels, borrowed from my work--ask a local school, arts association, etc. On each was a collage frame. One was pictures of me as a child, one of him as a child, and the last, pictures of the two of us together. On the cake table was a framed copy of the photo we put on our invitations.

At either end of the cake table was a large ficus tree borrowed from the church (they were in the lobby). And really, that was it. It was simple, and I thought it looked very elegant.

I got our decoration items at Michael's. The cart contained: 3 collage frames, 1 8X10 frame, a signature mat, 12 small tea light jars, 9 larger jars for candy, all the stuff for corsages, bouquets and boutonnieres, toasting glasses, cake server, flower girl basket, etc. I spent around $260 at Michaels, however, later on we found the tea light jars for way cheaper at WalMart, and instead of a signature mat, my sister enlarged a photo of us, mounted it on foam core and left a huge border around it, so we took back that other stuff.

Our Out of Pocket for reception decorations (minus flower stuff--which is accounted for above--and the stuff we took back): $190

Grand Totals

Add all of the above and the total is $1,338. I would include about another $200 in various and sundry items, nail polish, lipstick, plates and cups, etc. So that brings us to $1,538. Add to that what my parents paid for the dress: $1,888, and miscellaneous stuff others got for us (ice for the reception, etc.) and we are still under $2,000! How's that for a good deal?

Obviously, this was not a huge, fancy and traditional ceremony with a sit down meal reception. This wedding was entirely us--outdoors in a beautiful and meaningful setting, very casual, with our very dearest friends and family around us. I think that is what is important--not that you spent a lot or it is fancy, but that it suits your personalities. This wedding truly was the essence of us. Wouldn't change a thing!