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

When you’re looking at your wedding budget, most brides don’t even think about adding in extra money for tipping wedding vendors. In fact, most brides don’t really think about it at all, I know I didn’t, at least until a few days before the wedding that is. And then it was a scramble to figure out who I wanted to tip, how much, and how to get the money to everyone while still doing everything else I needed to do and enjoy our wedding day. So with the economy the way that it is right now, and the amount of money that you’re looking at having to spend on your wedding, you’re probably wondering if tipping wedding vendors is really necessary or not. Here are a few etiquette tips when it comes to tipping wedding vendors, which wedding vendors to tip, and when it’s okay not to give a tip.

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Tags: tipping wedding vendors, wedding vendor, wedding vendor contracts, wedding vendors

Planning a wedding can be seriously overwhelming. I mean, if you’ve never had to plan something to big and detailed before, it can be hard knowing even where to start. You’re working with numerous wedding vendors, there are probably hundreds of details to remember, and to add a little more excitement to it, you’ve got to watch out for scammers, or wedding vendors who don’t live up to what they’ve promised. It’s every brides worst nightmare, and it can be easily avoided if you get organized, stay organized and follow these simple steps when dealing with your wedding vendors leading up to your wedding day.

Obtain Wedding Vendor Contracts

Wedding vendor contracts are meant to ensure that wedding vendors will follow through on what they promise you. Negotiating and signing wedding vendor contracts is essential to planning the perfect wedding day, and having some kind of recourse if things don’t go as promised.

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Tags: Wedding Planning, wedding vendor contracts, wedding vendor quotes, wedding vendors

It’s exciting when you get engaged. You have a dream wedding to plan, and a future to prepare for. Seriously, when my husband and I got engaged, it was totally exciting, but it was also very overwhelming! One of the first few steps that I took was to collect a list of wedding vendors in my area to start collecting wedding vendor quotes, so that I could have some kind of idea about just how much this wedding was going to cost me and my family.  There are lots of different wedding vendor quotes that you would need, such as for wedding dresses, a caterer, wedding photographers, wedding invitations, wedding hairstylists, videographers, reception sites, and much more! Understanding the overwhelmed feeling? Here are some great steps in collecting wedding vendor quotes to find a place to start in planning your wedding.

Too Many Wedding Vendor Quotes???

By living in a small town, I had it better than some people who live in larger cities. I simply didn’t have the choice between all of the vendors that someone in a larger town would.

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Tags: Wedding Planning, wedding quotes, wedding vendor qutoes, wedding vendors

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

As I was writing the last article I realized that there are lots of places where you can cut costs in your wedding planning, and that there was much more to write about on the subject. You can read the previous article here, “Wedding Planning to Cut Costs Part 1“. True, it is my belief that most local wedding vendors overprice their goods for weddings, and do I believe there are things you can do to counteract that. Some of it I learned by doing myself, and some of it I realized in hindsight. There are plenty of options out there to implement which can help you cut costs on the ever rising cost of weddings.

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