planning a wedding

[RandyWayne]

OK, no one has probably mentioned this because they know the idea would not be taken seriously but it IS an option to have a wonderful wedding!  And cheap -and hassle free to boot!

Our hotel -5000 rooms (and an Emeralds Restaurant!):






The reception was a half an hour later at the Rainforest Cafe:


And the next night at the Excalibur show:

[Envelope]

Randywayne,

     My 4 year old daughter walked up and said "who is that" I told her I don't know...just some people....and then she says..."GUYS are NOT princesses!!! " I about fell over laughing....she seen the pic with your wife's veil!!!  It was tooo cute!!

sharon

[RandyWayne]

I'm so.... I'm so.... so... hurt! 


Actually, we had a month engagement ourselves and ended up with the perfect wedding.  
One of the only details that needed attending too was my wife picking out her dress (a modified prom-dress for a couple hundred bucks), then choosing the length of the service.  We could have the "long" version at 11 minutes or the short version at 7! LOL

Another nice thing about having a vacation wedding is that you can invite anyone and everyone!  If they are able to come, great!  If not, no biggie since it IS out of state.

[Heather]

the only issue with that is #1 we are on the other side of the US with one bad car my getting airsick. lol. #2 i don't want to hurt our church or our mutual families feelings. thanks for the suggestion though!

[*Christi*]

We had a wedding with 200 people in attendance and 6 attendants on each side for right around $1500.

I bought my dress on Ebay.  (Shut UP Seth)  I went to a bridal shop and tried dresses on to see what style I liked and what size I needed and then I hit Ebay.  I paid I think $135 for my dress.  Borrowed the headpiece and had my seamstress add the veil that I purchased for cheap at walmart.  My shoes were from Sears!  My bridesmaids dresses were from the clearance racks at Dillards for $35/each.  My Jr Bride's dress also came from Ebay and was $30.  The flower girl already had her dress... I think it had been her Christmas dress that year.

You said you already have someone doing your cake but the way I saved money on the cake was to have the baker decorate foam forms and then we served sheet cakes.  It kept the cake beautiful through the entire reception and made serving the cake easier.

I had fake flowers that I got on sale and used coupons at Hobby Lobby.  I NEEDED my flowers to be fake so that I could see them and approve them BEFORE the wedding day!!  The only thing I didn't get a chance to see in advance was the bouttineires and I didn't like them! ugh

I agree on the tulle and lights... lots of tulle and white lights!!  Cheap easy and beautiful!!  Also for the reception balloons and candles are the way to go!!

Here are a couple pics:

My "fake cake"


Here is me and my hubby:

[RandyWayne]

Those are great photos!  And it shows that you can spend $1500 on a NICE wedding or $6000 on one that looks like it was thrown together.

The cost of weddings, and especially the receptions afterward, are really getting ridiculas.  My cousin and a beautiful outdoor wedding at a museum just North of Chicago.  The entire tab came to nearly 30 grand.  The went on a 1 1/2 week honeymoon but were  not able to go to Hawaii, their dream destination.  I kept thinking "they were not able to shave a few thousand dollars and STILL have a great wedding AND their dream honeymoon?".

It reminds me of an episode of the Bob Newhart show where Bobs wife Emily goes all out one birthday and buys Bob an 1800 dollar watch.  Of course Bob becomes all distraught when he finds out how much it is and tells Emily "$1800 isn't... isn't... a watch.  It's more like a piano... AND a watch."

[Envelope]

I think my husband and I paid around $700 for our Whole wedding!!! and it was elegant yet simple....

We were scheduled to go to Colorado Springs on the honeymoon, but we got married 4 days after Sept 11, 2001....so Colorado springs was completely shut down!!  We instead went to Eureka Springs ARkansas and branson MO...and had a FABULOUS time!!!  It was the FIRST time my hubby ever rode a roller coaster in his life!!!!!  We've been back to Branson Twice since we've been married....

I can not imagine spending soooooo much on a wedding....but hey, to each their own!!

sharon

[alohilani]

The average American wedding and reception, according to bridal sources like theknot.com, costs about $30,000. But that's nothing, right? *cough*choke* Recently a pastor I know paid upwards of $80,000 for his daughter's dream wedding. The cost included things like renovations to the church's platform and a ginormous (and hideous) gold dangly chandelier thing.

Yep - weddings can get ridiculous! *grin* Better to start planning ahead, like you're doing!

[Heather]

i've decided to do the invitation myself. going to look into crafty, cute way of doing them. also going to browse/try on wedding dresses this weekend with my mom and sister. also my cake lady came back in town yesterday...so that will be taken care of sometime this week.

[Jennie-lynnie]

oooh this is so exciting! *

[Envelope]

I cannot even FATHOM spending 80,000 on a wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!  choke choke....that is the cost of MORE than my house, car COMBINED!!!!

Sometimes I think I would be better off not knowing these things!!!  ughhhhh

sharon

[RandyWayne]

$$$ Weddings = "Bring on BRIDEZILLA!"

[littlegal]

i think my wedding was around $1500.

[nicolejoy]

Click on my webpage link thing to see pics of my wedding...

The ceremony was simple, we had it in a rose garden at the Botanic Gardens - so it was already decorated with real roses We hired some chairs so that people could sit, and we borrowed a small PA system so that everyone could here. We also hired a string quartet who played the music for the ceremony...

All in all, I LOVED it!!

The reception, we just paid a reception place to do it all - decorating, food, etc... we bought the cake and had it decorated with real flowers that matched our bouquets... I bought my dress... we hired cars... we spent probably more than most people on here though - although by the "average", we were still MUCH less than that!!

[RandyWayne]

I actually did our own DJing at the reception.  It IS my 2nd job!  (The reception was 3 months later in our back yard.  A big rented tent, caterer.)

If we could do things different, we would have our reception at a big restaurant somewhere instead of our backyard.  We did not save ANY money and spent weeks getting the yard and house ready. 

The tent rental was almost 700 bucks.  The caterer for 150 people was over a grand (but was very good WITH some of my own additions).  And the beer/wine was a few hundred more -not that this would be an issue with most here.  But hey, our wedding!

<sigh>  A restaurant (a NICE one) would have been sooooooo much nicer!

[mesipie]

here are a few from my friends wedding

the flowers were fake,. we used white lites and tulle

the reception:


the platform:


closer up of the columns:

our dresses:

her boquet:

ours:

[mesipie]

the did the unity candle, and also did comunion which i hadnt seen done b4...but it was neat, a special prayer was prayed quietly over them right after communion and the unity candle...they also had quite a few songs

they walked out with "movin' on up"...it was funny...lol

[Jennie-lynnie]

Wow Mesi I love those colors together!

[nicolejoy]

Ahhh - I just went to check our webpage and they closed it down when we switched ISPs!! How sad!! Now I don't have ANY wedding pics online!! I'll have to re-upload them somewhere else...

[mesipie]

ty...it was a very beautiful wedding...idk how much it cost tho

[AmberMarie]

 My sister got married last year. Her wedding was outside at a state park...(you could rent it for $40 and hour).  The reception was within walking distance of the wedding site.  Her wedding was so cheap! My parents had a set amount of money they were giving and whatever wasnt used for the wedding, my sister and her fiance could have..so yeah, it was a cheap wedding that was absolutely gorgeous.

[AmberMarie]

oh yeah...the little flower girls wore wings...

[mesipie]

cute

[acjmom]

very nice  
you could even dress up something like that a little more with balloons and/or flowers

[SippinTea]

I really like it, Amber! If I ever get married, you can tell your sister that she's hired to do the decorating. 
I much prefer simplistic elegance to the 'fluffy-frilly-foofy' stuff.