3. (a) Money Talks
You’ve gotten a few wedding planning things under your belt at this point: (1) you’ve agreed to get married and (2) you’ve identified the things about the wedding that are most important to you. Those are big steps. Now, take a deep breath, because this next step is where the wedding planning rubber meets the road.
You have to figure out how much money you’ll have to spend on your wedding. This is where you decide what you’re willing to "pay" (and I don’t just mean financially) to get the things you’ve realized are important to you as you plan for your wedding day.
Imagining a fairy tale wedding with all the trimmings is free. Making it actually happen is going to cost you. You can pay for things with money, hard work, barter, or a piece of your soul (if, for example, you must swap a piece of it for financial help from your mother).
To help us save even more money, we called on friends and family with particular skills to provide other aspects of the wedding and reception. A friend of ours owned a restaurant and he offered to purchase all the food we needed from his wholesale distributors, and he offered us his kitchen for all the preparations. Another friend who is a Lutheran chaplain offered to purchase our flowers with her wholesale flower card. She also offered to create our bouquets, boutonnieres, and centerpieces. Getting the flowers wholesale and not having to pay a florist saved us a considerable amount of money. A third friend, who is a jeweler, designed and created our wedding bands. We got rings we both like at a discounted rate. Two people from my mother-in-law’s church offered to set up and maintain the buffet during the reception. This saved us from having to hire catering staff to manage that aspect of the reception.— Paula
Paying With Time (”Do It Yourself”)
How much time do you want to spend making your own decorations or invitations? Do you have the skills to do that kind of thing without accidentally chopping off an appendage? Do you know people with the kinds of skills a wedding requires (catering, photography, flower arranging, etc.)? Are you going to be able to get the service and quality you want from these friends?
There are plenty of good books on the market about saving money at your wedding. I read several and certainly know the one I couldn’t live without, but every bride’s situation is different, and most books include some good advice. Discover the rest of the story ...
