Photography Fees! EEK!

One of the most expensive parts of a wedding can be the wedding photography. Many professional photographers have starting base packages at $2000. If you are having a $10,000 wedding, $2000 for wedding photography just isn't feasible.

Patrick and I had this problem when we were planning our wedding. I have many friends in the wedding photography business - and they are excellent photographers.... there's only one problem - the COST! Instead of paying $2000 for photography, we ended up paying $375! How did we do it? We checked the local classified postings for cheaper photographers. We lucked out in finding someone who had been a photographer full time but now was working at my graduate school. Instead of charging an exorbitant amount and basing her yearly income on her photography jobs - she did photography as a hobby. At the price of $75 an hour and free engagement photos - we just could not say no!

Here's what I would suggest - think outside the box. Many times you can find photographers running specials in the paper or even students studying photography who need some real life experience. And you can always check out my photographer, especially if you are in the Bloomington area: http://www.psphotographyonline.com/.

Couture Silk Invitations

Even though I provide advice on this site for brides who want to save a buck, one of my friends recently started a handmade invitations business. If you are interested in couture silk invitations, check out http://www.revelryinvitations.com/. I love her invitations - they are extremely classy :-)

Wedding Flowers

Most people when planning a wedding want flowers.... lots and lots of flowers. When you visit some florists, however, it's easy to have sticker shock. Many florists will charge upwards of $250 just for a simple brides bouquet! When you add all of the bridesmaid bouquets, flowers for the men, flowers for the parents, and centerpieces, your flower cost can easily total $2000.

It is really easy to cut the cost of your flowers.....

Here is how - first off, decide if you want real or fake flowers. A lot of people will tell you that fake flowers are tacky - but if that is what you want, don't listen to those people. The cheapest way to get fake flowers is to visit Michaels when they are having a clearance :-) One of my friends had fake flowers in her wedding and all of them came from Michaels. They were very beautiful. The plus side of having fake flowers is that they will last! Buy the flowers and make the bouquets yourself. It really isn't that hard.... Check out this site: http://save-on-crafts.com/bouqmakbas.html.

I decided to go with real flowers for my wedding. Real flowers are typically more expensive than fake ones. There are a couple places you can buy real flowers cheaply. If you want to have roses, check out www.freshroses.com (also known as 2G Roses). They have wedding packages that are fairly inexpensive, comparatively. I had a friend who ordered all of her flowers from Fresh Roses (dot) com and they were beautiful. One of the nice things about this site is that you can have a test bunch sent to your house with different colored roses before your wedding to decide on your color scheme. Then you can test how long it takes for the roses to open and how to make your bouquets.

You can also purchase bulk flowers from Costco or Sam's Club. I actually had all of my flowers shipped from Sam's Club. I ordered LOTS of daisies and hydrangea (see pic above). The price for all of my flowers was $150. Not bad for all of the centerpieces and bouquets! One thing to keep in mind about these stores, you need to have a membership to purchase bulk floral from them.

Happy Bargain Hunting!

David's Bridal "One Love" Contest

Win a FREE wedding package from David's Bridal.

David's Bridal has released a new contest: the "One Love" Contest. All you have to do is upload a picture of you and your man, tell them your personal story of how you knew he was "the one," and put together a wedding collage with 6 items from David's. If you are selected to win, you will receive all of the items in your collage.

Enter here:

http://www.davidsbridal.com/onelove1.jsp?cm_sp_o=PybgLdbltCjCBEwkBMwCjCwMwEf5zTw

Dyed Crinoline

Another neat thing to do to set your wedding apart from all the rest is to dye your crinoline. When I found pics online of other people dying their crinolines, I knew I just had to do it. And since my wedding colors were tiffany blue and white - I had to dye it blue!

To begin, I checked to be sure that the material that my crinoline was made out of could be dyed. Luckily all of the crinolines from David's bridal can be dyed. Amanda and I headed off to WalMart and bought some rit dye.

We added the dye to the washer and turned the water to hot. We also took the crinoline to the shower and got it wet before adding it to the washer.

We stuffed it down in the washer and every few minutes would open the washer to redistribute the poofiness ;-)

It turned out to be a beautiful shade of blue. We let the washer run again after pulling out the crinoline and added some vinegar to the wash so that the blue dye would not get on our next load of laundry. We hung it up to dry and it only took a little while.

Wedding Card Box

One of the hip new things appearing at weddings is a variation on the traditional "card box." It is customary to have a box or birdcage at weddings for guests to place their cards in for the couple. What all brides discover when shopping for wedding supplies is that card boxes are very pricey. Many run between $20-$100 ( http://www.weddingcardboxes.com/).


My maid-of-honor and I, however, in my quest for saving money on my wedding, decided to make my card box. My wedding colors were tiffany blue and white, so I wanted to make a card box that looked like stacked Tiffany & Co. boxes. I found some stackable cardboard boxes at a flea-market in Michigan for about $6. I bought the perfect color blue paper at the Card & Party Outlet, and some white sparkly ribbon at Michaels.

Amanda then cut a large opening between the boxes and an opening for the cards in the smaller box lid (see pic above). Then we wrapped the boxes and decorated them with the ribbon. Below was our result. The total cost of our project was $10.

Cheap Bridesmaid Dresses

If you are like me, you want your bridesmaids to be in a dress that is comfortable and won't "break the bank." Today, bridesmaids dresses can cost up to $300 or more. Many dresses also don't look great on every body type. It's hard to find the perfect dress.

Here's my advice: First, check out some dress shops and see what styles you like. If you are having a strapless dress, for instance, you might want your bridesmaids to also wear a strapless gown. You can do almost any type of bridesmaid dress with your wedding dress - but it is key to be happy with the style and material. I was very happy with the bridesmaid dresses at David's Bridal.

If you are having bridesmaids who are different sizes, you will want a dress that compliments all body types. These are hard to come by, but aren't impossible to find. The dress that I decided to go with was a strapless pool blue dress with a rhinestone broach: http://www.davidsbridal.com/bridesmaids_bycolor_detail.jsp?stid=1552&sid=8351&cfid=34.

The way that the dress gathered on one side was very flattering on all of my ladies. I actually tried on the dress myself to make sure that it was "the one."

Another way to make sure that the dress will be comfortable on each of your ladies is to pick a color and a brand, and let each of your bridesmaids pick their own dresses. That way they will be able to pick out something that they like (and might wear again).

There are a couple ways to offset the cost of bridesmaid gowns. First, check out some websites that offer cheap bridesmaid dresses, such as http://www.houseofbrides.com/.

Chadwicks also offers some pretty dresses for special occasions: http://www.chadwicks.com/. They have a nice clearance website as well: http://www.coboutlet.com/.

It's also possible to find a nice dress for all of your bridesmaids at Sears, JC Penney, or Dress Barn. Keep an eye out for sales.

I decided to go with that particular bridesmaid dress because no only was it flattering, but many were offered on ebay for half the price. Two of my bridesmaids actually bought their dresses that way and saved $50 on them. A lot of people also offer their gently used bridesmaid dresses on http://www.craigslist.com/. We found a couple people selling their pool blue dresses there. Sometimes you can be lucky enough to find someone selling a lot of bridesmaid dresses.

Good luck bridesmaid dress shopping!