The Prudent Bride
January 12, 2010 by: Kyra
One of my favorite bridal shows is Rich Bride Poor Bride shown on the WE channel. The best part of the premise is guessing the amount the couple has budgeted for their wedding and seeing if they stayed on track or not. Throughout the planning process I often placed my fiancé and I in this show in order to keep myself on track with our own spending. The twist during the shopping was adding up the original retail price of each item or venture and seeing how much I saved.
Since I very much enjoy a good deal, I decided early on that I would not pay full price for anything; I kept a log sheet of my spending and savings totals all the while allocating a specific projected percentage for each category. I referred to the general bridal budgeting guides (48% reception, 10% attire, 12% photographer, etc.) and made some tweaks along the way. I learned SO much when it came to spend versus splurge and discovered the best way to save money is by doing your research and taking your time. Certainly it’s good to negotiate but you should know when to pick your battles—no one likes to work with a crazy bride.
I didn’t rule out any option when it came to shopping. I shopped department stores, craft specialty stores, craigslist and garage sales. My mom even found me a peacock farm (in my hometown—crazy luck) which gave me the feathers for FREE (feathers are shed so no harm done to the little birdiesJ). A fast money saver was nixing favors all together. I mean does anyone really believe it when they see “in lieu of favors we have donated to …” Seriously? Instead of renting our centerpiece holders from our florist (which would have cost $30 each) we purchased them from JC Penny’s for about $2.00 (gotta love holiday sales with added $10 coupons). We later sold these vases for closer to their original value of $85 on ebay.
The original photographer I wanted had a $6000 minimum. All the experts say photography was the one place not to skimp on but I was torn. I desperately wanted a cinematographer for our wedding video so with the combined totals being near $10,000 I was really nervous about cost. Before pulling the trigger (and going way over budget in this area) I consulted one of my favorite wedding blogs, Style Me Pretty. With all the contests offered, I thought we were bound to win something right? A local Chicago photographer (and SMP Little Black Book member), Doug McGoldrick empathized with the downfall of the economy and was giving away a wedding package. He offered a vintage feel within his portfolio which was exactly what I was going for. So I entered us on a whim and lo and behold we won. Turns out, planning a wedding is a lot like applying to college—it’s expensive but there’s free money out there so get on it!
In the end our retail total added up to $93,807 which for us would have been impossible to pay for despite our parents help. They say the average wedding is about $27, 000 which is usually doubled if you plan to marry in a large city. I would say that we had a slightly above average wedding which would put cost…well right on track.
Xoxo,
Kyra
