With all the celebrity weddings, TV shows, and bridal magazines, a bride to be could be overwhelmed and think that they have to spend their last dime for the “wedding of the decade”. Some of these “reality” TV shows actually scare me! Most brides that I work with for wedding favors, wedding decorations or bridal jewelry never act the way these TV brides do.
Many of today’s smart women have chosen to invest their hard earned money into homes, businesses, and other investments. To these women, it just doesn’t make sense to have a $70,000 wedding. I have to say I agree and applaud these women!
When my husband and I were planning our wedding almost 25 years ago, we didn’t want to spend unnecessarily. We preferred to put our money into our first home. Our wedding was beautiful and many of our friends chose to follow our idea of putting our money into something more important than spending thousands on a huge wedding reception.
We were married on May 19th in the church that I grew up in. But after that, we didn’t go the standard wedding reception route. We had a friend with a white Mercury Marquis driving the wedding car both to the church and back to the reception. But instead of renting a large hall, we held the reception in my mother’s gorgeous backyard in Cleveland, Ohio. My mother has the best green thumb I’ve ever seen and her luscious green backyard with beautiful Spring flowers provided the best decorations possible. How can you beat mother nature for beauty?
What if it would have rained? We had a back up plan of course. Mom had a 2.5 car garage plus a basement that were ready in case of rain. Luckily for us, it was the perfect Spring day and the temperatures stayed near 70 degrees so most of the reception was held outdoors.
We did hire a caterer and worked with a local bakery for the wedding cake. We stocked the bar ourselves and had friends alternate tending bar - so we didn’t need to pay high prices for the drinks or the bartenders. We didn’t hire a DJ or band, but chose to play music from tapes. We didn’t spend a lot on decorations, but did have nice wedding favors for our guests to remember celebrating our day with us. We borrowed tables and chairs from friends and family and covered each with a white tablecloth. My wedding color was blue, so the centerpieces were blue candles on each guest’s tables.
My best friend handled the photography and all I had to pay for was the film and developing. You cannot tell that my pictures were taken by a $1000 per day photographer and I have the most gorgeous photo album! Today, we have 4 rental properties, a gorgeous home in Florida, several parcels of land, our own business, one daughter in college and one in high school.
The point of this post, is for all those brides out there that have either chosen not to or cannot afford a wedding that will cost either you, your fiance, parents or both $25,000, $50,000, $75,000 (can anyone say home equity loan?), or more - you do have other options. Sometimes it’s as easy as taking a step back after meeting with a wedding planner and thinking, “it’s going to cost us how much?” to let your creativity take over to plan an affordable but elegant wedding yourself.
Let me help you get started. Visit our inexpensive wedding favors and wedding decorations website at buyweddingfavorsonline.com and use coupon code c0107 to save 10% off your wedding favors, decorations and accessories. Congratulations!
