For years I’ve been telling brides how to plan their dream weddings on any kind of budget. I do it for several reasons, and not only because I want brides to know that they can have a great wedding with budget wedding planning the right way to save money.   But that’s not the only reason I’m here to help brides out with budget wedding planning. I understand that planning a wedding is hard, and it should be one of the happiest days of your life. If you’re stressed out over your budget wedding planning and think you can’t afford anything for a nice wedding, I’m here to lift you out of that hopeless feeling as well. Budget wedding planning is possible – and not nearly as hard as you would think. I’m not going to advise you to take up glass blowing so that you can make 200 wedding favors by hand for each guests – that’s foolish. You see, when I was planning my own wedding, I learned a lot about budget wedding planning, and I didn’t learn it the easy way. I mean, nobody took me aside and showed me all the different ways to save money on my wedding, not enough money to make a difference anyway. My wedding vendors certainly weren’t interested in the fact that I was budget wedding planning, they’re out to make their own money. No, I had to learn budget wedding planning the hard way, and many things I didn’t learn about until after the wedding (and believe me – I’m still kicking myself now!). So here are some great tips for budget wedding planning that can really help you out that I can show you right now. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 20k, Brides, Budget Planning, Budget Wedding, Different Ways, Dream Weddings, Enough Money, Happiest Days Of Your Life, Lot, Many Things, planning a wedding, Planning Wedding, United States, Ways To Save Money, Wedding Budget, Wedding Favors, Wedding Planning, wedding vendors

Most women have been planning for their wedding day from from the time they were little girls, putting pillow cases on their heads, wearing their mom’s high heels and imagining a handsome prince charming down at the altar waiting for her. Well now that you’ve gotten engaged and you can start planning that dream wedding you’ve always wanted, you may discover that when it comes to how to plan a wedding, you’re totally stuck. Truthfully, weddings are the biggest, most important and most expensive days of your entire life, and you want everything to be beautiful and go off without a hitch. But if you don’t know how to plan a wedding, how in the world can you make sure that you’re remembering everything – or that your wedding will be exactly how you’ve always dreamed it would be. I know that when my husband and I were planning our own wedding, I didn’t know the first thing about how to plan a wedding – simply because I’d never done it before.  Nearly all brides are in the same situation that I was in, you’ve got this wedding to plan for and coordinate, and up until now the most complicated party you’ve ever thrown was a pizza party in your dorm room. But did you know that there is a perfect place to start when you’re looking at how to plan a wedding? It’s simple, and I can get you started.

How to Plan a Wedding – The First Place to Start

When you’re looking at how to plan a wedding, the first step that you want to take isn’t anything close to what most brides assume that it is supposed to be. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Beautiful, Brides, Dorm Room, Dream Wedding, Handsome Prince, High Heels, Little Girls, Mom, Pillow Cases, Pizza Party, planning a wedding, Planning Wedding, Prince Charming, Reception Halls, Sweetie, Wedding Budget, wedding day, Wedding Plan, Wedding World, weddings

Are you having problems finding ideas for centerpieces that look nice but that not every other bride out there is using in her wedding? It’s a big problem, to be sure.  I remember trying to come up with ideas for my wedding centerpieces. You can look on the Internet for ideas all day long, but when it comes down to it, what fits in your wedding budget, and what really goes with what you’re envisioning for your wedding. It can really be a tough call. When I was going through different ideas for my wedding centerpieces, I had heard about floating candle wedding centerpieces, but the ones that I had seen I thought were kind of tacky and plain, and didn’t want them to have a part in my wedding. But after the wedding was over, I saw some excellent and elegant floating candle wedding centerpieces and wish that I had thought twice. So if you’re still looking for some elegant wedding centerpieces, here are some great ideas I’ve seen for floating candle wedding centerpieces.

Fun Floating Candle Wedding Centerpieces

If you’re having an outdoor wedding, an informal wedding, or even a wedding theme with a fun theme like butterflies or fruit, then floating candle wedding centerpieces can be a great way to incorporate your theme into the centerpiece.

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Tags: All Sorts, Beautiful Designs, Butterflies, Candle Centerpieces, centerpiece, Colors And Shapes, Elegant Centerpieces, Elegant Wedding, Floating Candle Wedding Centerpieces, Floating Candles, Flowers, Fun, Glass Dish, Informal Wedding, outdoor wedding, Shallow Glass, Stars, Wedding Budget, Wedding Candle, wedding theme

Times are tough to be planning a wedding. Everyone seems to be worried about the housing crisis and rising gas prices, which leads to higher costs everywhere else. Now typically the wedding industry has pretty much been immune to any of these kinds of concerns. This is because couples getting married tend to want to splurge a little bit when they’re planning their wedding to make it the fairy tale wedding they’ve always dreamed of having. A wedding is typically a once in a lifetime event that parents, brides and grooms don’t want to skimp on it. But in times like these where the dollar is losing it’s value, you’re actually going to be getting less wedding for your money than you would have if you had gotten married a year ago. The cost of gold is up as well as the cost of food, and with rising travel costs the price tag on an international honeymoon is skyrocketing as well.

So how are couples handling the dollar crisis? By looking for extra ways to save money on their wedding, of course! Many brides and their families are starting to hunt for bargains for their weddings, and are starting to do away with any special but unnecessary extras. Many other couples are trying their hand at do-it-yourself weddings, which of course can be a lot of extra work, but totally worth it for the dollar savings. Many other brides are planning morning and afternoon weddings in an effort to save money on their wedding receptions. A morning or afternoon wedding will save money on not having to provide a large fancy dinner with a caterer. Instead, a morning or early afternoon wedding will allow the bride and groom to host a small snack reception which is less formal, but also a lot less money.

There is nothing wrong with looking for bargains when doing your wedding planning. If done properly, your wedding guests will not be able to tell how much you spent on any particular item, and you’ll be glad of the savings when looking at your finances after the wedding. Your wedding is most certainly a once in a lifetime event, and you should have a beautiful wedding, but you shouldn’t have to spend a fortune on it. When I started this blog, I wanted to help brides find lots of different ways to save money on their weddings. The recession (or “slow down”) wasn’t in place when I was planning my wedding, or even the thought that it could happen in the near future. But I wanted to give brides lots of ideas on how to save money on their weddings, and not forgo a great wedding look. The same thought still remains. There are lots of great about how to save money on your wedding ceremony, wedding flowers, wedding dress, catering, and even your honeymoon so that you can have the wedding of your dreams without breaking the budget. In times like these, it’s certainly worth looking at.

Tags: planning a wedding, Wedding Budget

I’ve talked about this in several of my other articles, but it seems that wedding costs are out of control these days. Everything with wedding attached to the front seems to cost twice what it would otherwise. If you’ve started getting quotes from wedding vendors, then you know what I’m talking about. Not only that, but when you’re doing your wedding planning, it seems as though the wedding costs are never going to end. It seems different wedding costs keep springing up all over the place, which can make it extremely difficult to keep up with your wedding budget. I remember it all too well.  The sad thing is, many couples pay the premium because it’s for their wedding, and figure it’s a special occasion.  This is a bad way to look at it. Yes, you are going to get married, but that doesn’t give wedding vendors the right to take advantage of you. Here are some great ways to keep your wedding costs under control.

Make a List – and Check it Twice

Maybe at the risk of sounding like Santa here, I’ll make a point that will stick. Nearly all of the wedding costs you will be looking at are based off of the number of people on your guest list.  Inviting your best friend from kindergarten whom you haven’t seen in ten years really isn’t necessary, and choices like that will drive up your wedding costs. Make a comprehensive list of close friends and family that you want to invite to the wedding, and send out RSVP cards. If they don’t send the RSVP card back, it doesn’t hurt to give them a call and ask. You’d be surprised how many wedding costs are associated with the number of guests you are inviting. Just for starters, your wedding invitations, catering, wedding cake, wedding favors, even reception hall and renting tables and chairs, and programs are different wedding costs associated with your guest list. And that is just off the top of my head.

Cut Out Unnecessary Expenses

This is where a lot of brides stumble when it comes to dealing with wedding costs. Figuring their wedding is a one time occasion and celebration will cause some brides to pay much more than they need to. If you are on a tight budget, there are a lot of perks and luxuries that you can rule out. If your reception hall has centerpieces that you can use for the tables at little or no cost, then consider using them. Buying flower arrangements for 25 tables adds up quickly. Opt out of the open bar, and let your guests either buy their own drinks or only serve water and iced tea. There is no need to pay the extra wedding costs for some of the perks that people do.

I can’t stress just how important it is to stay within your wedding budget. I know that wedding costs can be overwhelming at times, and that you want to have a beautiful wedding day, I really do. Looking for ways to cut wedding costs can be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end. Just be reasonable with yourself and your wedding budget. There is no reason to put yourselves into debt from wedding costs that you will have to deal with after you get back.

Tags: Wedding Budget, wedding costs, wedding vendors

If you are like most people out there, then when you are planning your wedding, you need to stay within some sort of wedding budget. Not everyone has an extra $15 grand (or more!) laying around that can be used just to plan the perfect wedding, with the best of everything, and everything just how you want it. The reality of it all is, that nearly every couple planning a wedding is having to stay very conscious of their wedding budget to make sure they don’t wind up with debt problems after the wedding. Each couples wedding budget is different, and some have larger wedding budgets than others, but just because you have a lower wedding budget doesn’t mean that your wedding has to look cheap. Perhaps your wedding budget is a sum your parents are going to help you out with, and then a certain amount of money that you and your fiance are going to use towards the wedding, or perhaps your wedding budget is being funded completely by you. Whatever the case, you’ll need to learn how to show smart, and bargain, so that you can have the wedding of your dreams and still stay within your wedding budget.

Keeping Track of your Wedding Budget

I can’t stress the importance of keeping close tabs on your wedding budget. As I girl, I know how fast expenses can add up while you’re shopping, you go out for a few items and end up spending much more than you had planned. Hence why my husband tags along when I go grocery shopping. But, back to the subject, it’s important to special attention to what you’ve spent, what you still have left to buy, and about how much money you have to spend for each thing. Perhaps the best way to do this is to start a wedding book, and include receipts, coupons, vendor names and phone numbers, and much more. Also, if you have knowledge of Excel spreadsheets, you may want to create some spreadsheets with guest lists, gift lists from showers, and other useful information. Using this method to keep track to your expenses in regard to your wedding budget can require a lot of organization and computer knowledge.

Get Help with Your Wedding Budget

If you have a friend or family who is good with organization and keeping track of money, then you could enlist their help on getting yourself set up. But this may not be available to every couple. In that case, you may want to look for some kind of wedding book or wedding software which can help you keep track of everything having to do with your wedding and your wedding budget. Check out card stores for different planners that you can buy and use, or look on the Internet for other help with your wedding budget. There is one great tool that I found on the Internet, I purchased it and it really does have a lot of great information.

I can’t tell you the importance of keeping close tabs on your wedding budget. The last thing you want when starting your new marriage is to have money problems and extra unexpected debt from the wedding. Not only that, but if you run out of money in your wedding budget while you are still buying things for the wedding, you could run into lots of different problems, creating unneeded stress on you!

Tags: Wedding Budget, Wedding Planning, wedding software

One of the best things you can do when you are working on your wedding planning is to either create or purchase a wedding checklist to keep for yourself to make sure that you don’t forget anything. Trust me, once you start thinking about all of the things you need to plan and keep track of for the wedding, you’re going to want to have some kind of an organizer or planning a wedding checklist to keep yourself from forgetting anything. There were times during my own wedding planning when someone would ask me something like, “Well, what are you going to do about your ___? (insert wedding photographer, wedding programs, music, I was asked them all)”, and I would realize that I hadn’t even thought about doing that particular part of my wedding planning. Stink. So I started searching on the Internet where I could find a free planning a wedding checklist that I could use, and I found a bunch. But none of them really had everything that I needed, or they had items that I wasn’t planning on using, such as a DJ, and packages for out of town guests. But planning a wedding checklists are great, and overall they can really help you out a lot. Here are some great benefits for using a wedding checklist.

Find out How Early to Plan Each Thing

One great thing I loved about wedding checklists is that it let me know how early out I needed to start working on things, such as when to send out my wedding invitations, as well as when to have other things either picked out, places reserved, and much more to help me maximize my time. That way I could do my wedding planning in an order that made sense to me, since I had never planned a wedding before. Plus, it kept me from making my wedding favors when I should have been spending time picking out a wedding dress, or putting money down on a reception hall.

Remembering Where You’ve Been

I make a lot of lists in my day to day life. Not only because I have a ton of stuff to do and remember each day, but also because if I don’t have a list then I know something will be forgotten. Perhaps the best thing about a wedding checklist, or any checklist for that matter, is the satisfaction of being able to cross something off the list, and seeing your list get shorter as time goes by. For me, being able to cross stuff off of that planning a wedding checklist really helped with my stress level.

Tags: planning a wedding checklist, Wedding Budget, wedding checklist, Wedding Planning

When wedding budgets are running slim, usually the first things to be cut out are wedding favors and bridal party gifts. But don’t forget these important people in your ceremony! Some of them have spent considerable time and money traveling to your wedding, paying for your bridesmaid dress, and countless other expenses just to support you! Don’t neglect those people close to you, show them that you appreciate all they are doing to help make your special day unforgettable. Here are some great ideas for gifts to show your appreciation that is easy on the pocketbook as well.

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Tags: Bridal Party Gifts, bridesmaid dress, bridesmaids, wedding, Wedding Budget, Wedding Favors