INTRO!! :D

[contradictz]

Name: Ruby
Wedding Date: March-May 2014
Bride/Groom/Other: Bride
Age: 25
City/State/Country you live in: Sydney, Australia
Your song/First Dance song: No song, no dance.
Wedding Colors: Red and Gold (because I don't have a choice), Hopefully I'll be able to sneak some purple in!
Formality: informal
Theme (if you have one): Chinese themed because

Comments

[amme5832]

First of all, congratulations!

My experience with saving money included:
- Refraining from magazines and pretty pictures - what I don't see, I can't want! It also helps that I'm too lazy to DIY things and try them (and I don't want to store crap in our apartment); besides, we selected a venue that is beautiful on its own, and adding some extra things like single bud flowers over the fireplace, candles in nooks, and flowers on the tables.
- We're picking up flowers from a wholesaler, rather than getting flowers at a florist (that is EXPENSIVE!)
- I scored an online deal to bring the cost of my flowers for the bouquets and boutonnieres to a whopping $99 for everything. That's my bouquet (20 roses), three bridesmaids bouquets (12 roses), 6 boutonnieres (groom, 3 guys, 2 dads), 2 corsages (moms), toss bouquet (3 roses), flower girl bouquet (9 roses). I only have 2 bridesmaids, so I'll actually be sending one of the bouquets home for my grandma who can't make it, and I'm not having a flower girl, so the three roses will be put in a bud vase on the guest book table, and the 9 rose bouquet used for tossing.
- we did invitations through vistaprint.ca when I found a deal for 50% off. We spent $95 including shipping for 70 invitations, and 90 thank you cards - the RSVPs were online to our wedsite or by phone, saving us paper and postage costs (no RSVP envelope, and the weight of our invites was a single piece of cardstock)
- If you are doing your own invitations, you need to make sure you have a LASERJET printer. If you have inkjet, then if the invite gets wet, the colours of the ink will run together and you may end up with illegible text.

This is what worked for me. Your priorities can of course be different, but one of our priorities was to not go into debt for our wedding.
Basically, I recommend figuring out how much money you can budget first (i.e. if you want to spend 12,000 and you have 12 months to save, that means you need to find a way to save $1000 a month. If that is unrealistic, figure out what IS realistic for you, and then make decisions).

Once you have worked out how much you can save, decide on your ideal guest list. If these are people you imagine wanting to see on the day you get married, write them down on this list. You may not end up with these people as your final list, but this gives you an idea of the size of your wedding. Once you have that number, you can start figuring out your next set of priorities: what sort of venue are you thinking (backyard, public park, museum, banquet hall, restaurant, etc.).

For the venue, I found it helpful to note exactly what my needs for the venue were (in my case, that included the ability for the ceremony and reception to be in one place, free parking, air conditioning, wheelchair accessible, bridal room to get ready, not too expensive), and then determined what my wants were (pretty venue with character, not too far out of the way for guests, cool location, can come in early to decorate, etc). I hit all my needs, and got many of my wants, and we ended up with a venue that allowed us to bring in a caterer and alcohol, so we were able to save some cash that way. It is a beautiful venue, and I will be able to get so many options for pictures, so I'm OK with it.

Then we worked from there. I'll be honest, I gave myself the tag line of "Good Enough Girl". If a vendor was "good enough" or the option was "good enough", then I said "OK" provided I had a good vibe. I personally don't require swans made of ice, or other elaborate things - I'm not that kind of a person in my everyday life, so I didn't see why that would need to change for the wedding.

It also means my life has been pretty stress free. I get married in 37 days, and I'm still wondering when this panic of preparing for everything that people speak of is likely to attack. My preference is it doesn't :P

Good luck with all of your planning adventures! My experience with planning is that it is easy, but the relationships (not just fiance - friends and family were the predominant issue for me) tested my patience and caused me stress.

Also, in addition to the offbeatbride.com recommendation, I would suggest apracticalwedding.com :)

[amme5832]

(sorry for the novel)

[contradictz]

LOVE the novel!

I thought buying magazines might've made me calm down a little...but maybe not! XD

There's actually quite a few things we're not going to be needing any more because we're cutting the entire formal ceremony out of the picture (minus the formal tea ceremony - but that's just for family).

Definitely need to start putting away more money for this shindig!
Let me know if the "panic" eventually shows up! I'm hoping my stressing 1.5years in advance will help me not stress closer to the date