Save the dates & favors & flowers, OH MY!?

Question

i've only been engaged for 5 days and i'm already overwhelmed. i've never been one of those girls who has a scrapbook of cutouts of how exactly i want my wedding. h**l, i never even wanted to get married until i met my fiance a year ago. so what's with all of these unnecessary things that a wedding "should have"? i've been to many weddings and was a bridesmaid/maid of honor in about half, and i can 't tell you what the colors were, the type of cake, or the types of favors or flowers there were. so...with that said...

what are you guys cutting out of your wedding budget to make sure that the important things are remembered?

and what are the important thins that you want remembered?

Answer 1

first of all, congratulations!! take a step back, breath. lol.  if you need some help check out www.theknot.com they have a great calendar of when things should be done to help you organize better. they have a budget organizer, guest list etc etc.  

Ok so to answer your question.  We aren't having a DJ we are bringing my laptop with a playlist and my uncle is mc-ing for a bit (during first dance etc.) then the laptop will just play itself away all night long.

No save the date cards

invitations will be those ones that you buy with just the design on them and print them off your computer at home ($45 for a pack of 50).  This includes thank you cards and everything inside the package.

i'm lucky, I have a close friend of the family who is a hair dresser so hair is free.

Same with photography...my cousin is a photographer so that's covered. (although that is the one palce I would splurge if I had to. I want gorgeous pictures.)

No floral centrepieces. I found these GREAT glass vases at the dollar store actually.  I am going to fill them with water and float some flower petals and a candle in them.

My bouquet will be 3 orange lillies. and my brides maids (only 2 of them) will each have a single lillie.  No need for big bouquets that usually end up so over the top they look tacky anyways.

Favours: chocolates in a box, my best friend owns a chocolate shop so she'll be doing my favours super cheap.

Even my dress is only going to be $400 thanks to www.bridalonlinestore.com  $1200 dress for $400 (my friend got her dress from here and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!)

We are splurging on: open bar

Good food from the restaurant

Beautiful ceremony site (which ended up being a bit cheaper because the hall and site where booked through the same company) but still we were willing to spend it.

And the honeymoon.  We decided we'd rather have an AMAZING honeymoon than some huge wedding where we don't even know half of the guests.  Our honeymoon: we're going to Europe. 10 countries in 18 days thanks to contiki tours.  SUPER excited. almost wish we could just sign the papers and go to europe and skip the whole rest of it. lol

Good luck and again, Congrats!!!!

Answer 2

I left out a lot of things at my wedding to keep costs down.  no limo, small wedding party, small guest list, no dj, no photogrpaher, mom made the food, ordered only the flowers I needed.  that kind of thing.  We made cd's prior to the wedding with the music we wanted played and my friends and family took enough pictures I didnt need a photographer to take posed photos that force me to look like something I'm not.  Our cake was from the grocery store bakery, looked beautiful and tasted great, we didnt do favours because we had open bar instead and we only had a best man and a MOH because wedding party gifts can get scostly too.  What we really cared about was that there was food to suit everyones tastes, free drinks for our guests and some sort of music with a little bit of everything being played.  Those were our main things and everyone had a great time.

Answer 3

I was just like you, too! I was the girl making a mortarboard hat and pretending I was in law school, when other girls were running around with pillowcases over their hair, pretending to be brides. :)

The thing that helped me the most was to get a picture in my head of what I wanted ... the location, the theme, the colors ... and then think of little details from weddings that I thought were effective. Like, I knew I wanted it to be in nature and outdoors, and I saw weddings where the guests blew bubbles as the couple walked back down the aisle, so I made a post-it note reminding myself to do that. Then I decided on a beach theme, so I started looking for ways to incorporate shells, etc., into invitations, into centerpieces, that kind of thing.

Another thing that helped me was to get one of those scrapbooks. I know it seems stupid, but trust me, there are details you never would have thought of in a million years. I used weddingsolutions.com, and if you go through them and start a wedding registry with JC Penney, you get a free planning binder with tons of tips ... thousands of things that never occured to me before I got it. (They also give you a free wedding website and engagement portrait with the free package. I highly recommend.)

And remember, there isn't anything that you MUST do. There are traditions, but nowadays weddings are supposed to be a reflection of who YOU are, not how it used to be. Just read as much as you can, visit bridal websites and look at bridal magazines, and absorb everything. You don't have to do any of it if you don't want to, but you might find a great idea that you love. Give yourself plenty of time, too!

Good luck!

Answer 4

basically im cutting out most of everything. we are "simple" type of people who don't want much of anything. We're going to have backyard BBQ (pig roast) and kind of a pot luck thing. im making "big" cookies for each table as my cake. He's not into wearing a tux or suit or anything like that so he was to get a "tuxedo" shirt. The only thing that's really important to me is..ME. makeup,hair, flowers and then the pictures. but i think thats going to be a bunch of throw away cameras and my handycam. but really this is up to you and what YOU want remembered (and congrats!)

Answer 5

First off I want to start out by saying Congratulations!!!! I'm a dealer for carlson craft wedding invitations and accessories and we also carry favor boxes and save the date magnets & cards.  I'm sure you are overwhelmed and some budgets can get out of control if you are not careful.  If you are on a tight budget make sure you only invite the most important people to you. As far as favors it will all depend on how many guest are attending.  If you are doing save the dates they must be sent out about a year to 10 months before the wedding date.  Email me if you have any questions.

[e-mail]

www.customizeyourevents.com

Good Luck, Farika

Answer 6

I am renewing my vowels in two years and I am as well very overwhelmed.  When we got married almost 2 years ago we decided the money we would spend on a wedding would be a nice down payment for our first home so we got married by a justice of the peace and now I want to do my wedding.  But it is getting crazy.  sit down dinner or buffet, linens, chair rentals, halls or do I spend the extra money for a sight that will provide everything.  I think you and your fiance need to sit down and decide what is most important to the both of you guys and from there get the extras if you can.  I went to a wedding that had no flowers but tons of candles.  Then I went to another wedding that linens were not important to them so they were a cheap cotton but it was nice because the money they saved went to a very nice sit down dinner and I am pretty sure people remembered the lobster over the linen.  So pick out what is important to you and build from there.

Answer 7

I can make this real easy for you and slash your budget to practically nothing...go to the county court house and enjoy your lives, because in the end it's the two of you that matter the most not all the pomp and circumstance of a huge wedding that we really have for our guests, not ourselves!

Answer 8

I can tell you that when we were planning our wedding, my fiance and I sat down and decided what was most important to us.  I made a list of all the STUFF & we ranked them 1 to 5 (5 being most important).  It was pretty clear that things like ceremony & reception locations as well as photography were important to both of us!  We spent most of our money on those things.  As for our ceremony neither one of us wanted something super traditional - but rather something that was a relfection of us.  We spent the most time planning that portion and to this day (2 years later) people are still talking about the special elements we included in our ceremony.  

Good luck... look around and think about purchasing a wedding planning book (or a wedding consultant) - it will help you prioritize all the things that need to get done and figure out what is truly necessary

Congratulations!

  

Answer 9

The photos and the honeymoon are the 2 most important things. I cut out the big fancy hotel type reception and catered in a buffet style at the church. We did have a large wedding party - but we wanted those special photos with them. We cut the guest list from 500 - to 100 and still had some people who really didn't need to be there. I used the wedding coordinator at the church to help out with things and I had young people from the church help out to serve food rather than pay an outraegeous price for waitstaff from the catering company. We had relatives kids do the instrumentals - yeah we saved thousands but we included children and the people most important to us - we had a great honeymoon and now 8 years later we have the most memorable photos ever that a good friend took for us and we went to a botanical garden to take them before the wedding. Our reception was rushed with a 3 hr limit -but the get away was amazing! 8 years later I don't care that the cake colors weren't perfect because they weren't the best cake decorator in town. I don't care that I didn't spend a fortune on flowers and ended up with the wrong color flowers. I have the most special wedding day  photos with my husband, close family and friends. I remember being togther, the toast the best man gave - how the flowergirl and ringbearer were so adorable and how sweet it was to be with my closest friends and family that weekend. I remember - getting away and how great the honeymoon escape was! We cut out the alcohol and saved thousands! Our wedding ended up costing about $3000 and we used the other 10 grand for a downpayment on a home and we're glad we did - because if we spent all that on the wedding - we might be living in mil's basement right now with our 4 kids!