ALT-11 Tips for a Great but Low Budget Wedding
Everyone has a different perception of what a "low budget" wedding really is. My husband and I were terrified when our married friends told us what they had spent on their wedding. We had planned on paying for everything out of pocket. It was amazing how many of our friends thought that our marriage was doomed because we wanted to get married as cheaply as possible.My husband and I had found ourselves trying to impress our well to do friends and family. I remember when we were looking at wedding cake my husband stopped me dead in my tracks and asked me what we were doing. We were so worried about everyone else that we almost lost the point. The point was that it was our day and we were going to make it good for us. This wedding was a celebration of our love. We kept that in my mind while making the rest of our arrangements.
Deciding what to wear was as easy as it was to pick the location for the wedding. We live in Florida so we had plenty of outdoor options. We could have done a beach wedding, but I wasn't too keen on the issues with the sand and lack of natural shade. We got married memorial day weekend and of course booking a park wasn't easy. The Parks Dept. actually told us about a great location that had statues lining the road to the location as well as the perimeter of the park. Flower beds were just planted and it had a great gazebo with a circular path around it. This was great for our friends to form a circle around us during the ceremony. The total cost for the park, an attendant, and electricity was $35.00. This was for 4 hours. Because we chose to be outside the clothing was easy. Flowing solid color Tommy Bahama shirts for the guys and tan pants and the girls could wear whatever they wanted as long as they matched with the guys. My husband wore a white embroidered shirt with light tan linen pants and I wore a simple yet flowing white dress. I made the bouquets simple since they would suffer outside with the Florida heat & humidity. I used birds of paradise and a couple other tropical plants and flowers. The wedding was going to be a mid summers dream and I was very pleased with the money that I had already saved.We then did the research and found out that the food & Alcohol was the most expensive part of the wedding next to the clothing. I found some great books on how to cater your own wedding. My husband thought I was crazy. I went to Sam's club and bought some frozen hour dourves like mini quiche, pinwheels and tiny pigs in blankets. I also bought some frozen cream puffs & mini cheese cakes. A friend of mine made two huge Lasagnas and I ordered prime rib from a local restaurant for a steal. The total cost for food was $350.00 for 180 guests. We bought some really pretty glass jugs and made a white & red sangria for our guests. That cost about $200.00. The guest could help themselves and the kids had a fruit punch so they didn't feel left out. We actually had my parents pay for the wedding cake (Publix $80.00) and my husbands parents paid for the champagne.Next we had to pick a location for the reception. Friends of our had a restaurant that was closed on Sundays and it was only 1.5 miles from the wedding ceremony. They actually gave us the use of their restaurant for a wedding gift. They had bartenders come in and we had a full cash bar and two servers to assist with the buffet set up. This was a hot spot at night so we had the DJ setup already there. My husband and I made a bunch of mixed Cd's to play while we were eating and we had a bunch of friends who wanted to DJ our wedding for free. Total cost for reception hall was $300.00 in tips.
Not everyone has a restaurant to use or DJ's as best friends, but even if we had to rent a hall our wedding was still 1/3 of the cost of any other wedding we knew about.So is there such thing as a low budget wedding?Take a look at the figures and tell me:Wedding ceremony: $35.00Decorations:$30.00 (bows and flowers)Flowers: $30.00My dress:$60.00My shoes: $12.99Grooms outfit: $80.00 with shoesGuys shirts:$50.00 for all 3Food & drink: $550.00Cake: $80.00Tips: $300.00Total cost: 1,227.99
