Guide to Planning Your Wedding on a Tight Budget

Summer is nearly here, and with that comes the wedding season. The wedding is just the most visible part of months and even years of preparation. Some weddings are done for very low cost, and others are insanely expensive.

I can't speak of the results of an expensive wedding, as my wife and I did ours for very low cost. But, remember that sometimes no matter how hard you try, and how much money you spend, something could and will go wrong.

My wife has three daughters, and was raising them on her own for at least 10 years when I met her. I am ten years younger, and just now getting my life long career off the ground, literally. We really couldn't afford a very big wedding, or a wedding that most people dream of, so we had to find ways to be thrifty. To our luck, I had a Firebird that was paid off, so I was able to get a loan and use that as collateral. I had a total of about $2000 to work with from the loan, and plenty of time left over to work some overtime to make up the difference. After all was said and done, our wedding cost us about $3500. My wife was married once before, so her family didn't contribute. They weren't really able to either as they had their struggles as well.

We consider ourselves lucky, as finding a photographer and a DJ was pretty simple. During the wedding season, my wife and her sister did photo shoots for weddings on the side for people based mostly off of referrals. They really didn't have any fancy equipment, but had good enough cameras to get some great photos. We asked her sister if she would be willing to do the wedding photos for us, to which she agreed to do. All she wanted was a "Thank you" afterwords. All of the photos turned out just as nice as a professional photographers.

The next hurdle to get over was finding a DJ for the entertainment at the reception. A good friend of mine had his own Karaoke business. Not only did he stand up for me in the ceremony, but also agreed to take care of the music. It was your typical dance, but included was the option to sing karaoke as well. We wanted to have some soft music playing during the meal, so we decided to make up a CD ahead of time that would obviously play on it's own and not have to worry about tending and flipping CD's. My friend typically charged $700, but told us that he would do it for free. My wife and I gave him $300 anyway.

For the slide show, my #2 Best Man was asked to take charge. He was a bit of a computer and tech geek anyway, so I knew he was the man for the job. He was more than happy to be in charge of that. I got ahold of the school board in the small town we live in, and asked if we could use their Power Point projector. After spending many hours scanning photos from our childhood through the time we were dating, the show was really coming together. Along with that, we again set up a second music CD to run with the show.

We had to get ahold of someone to make a wedding cake for us. To our luck AGAIN, my wife's parents were life long friends with a lady who made wedding cakes in her spare, retired time. Needless to say, she gave us a hell of a deal! We got a three layered cake, and it was absolutely beautiful. As luck would have it, the wedding cake was the only problem we had the whole day! It was August 9th, and very hot and humid. When the cake was brought in, it was leaning slightly to the side, but never fell over! The lady that made it felt terrible about that, but we assured her that it was just fine and that we were very happy with it
regardless.

We had the reception eight miles out of town, where there was an old barn type building that was fixed up beautifully for such occasions. It had more than enough floor space for everyone to eat, as well as dance. We didn't get any special deals or discounts there, but it was a hell of a lot more reasonable than renting a conference room at a hotel. The only problem with that, is that we were worried about people drinking and driving. But hey, we're not babysitters, and most of us were adults, so we told everyone to plan responsibly. We also had a few people sober and standing by just in case someone drank too much to drive.

The last "formal" photo shots we had of the wedding day was with our local ambulance at the reception building. My wife and I were both EMT's at the time, and seeing as though that's how we met, wanted to get some pictures with out "rig". Our ambulance service director drove it out, which spark some interest. We had been asked many times if we were expecting any "trouble".

My wife's dress was beautiful, and she only spent about $600 on it. We thought that spending more for a dress that was only going to be worn for one night was ridiculous. Traditionally, she wanted an off-white color, as she was married once before, but I didn't like that idea. Tradition or not, I wanted her to be in a white dress, and that was non-negotiable!

Invitations were fairly simple. We made our own from some good quality paper and a good printer. My wife and I got engaged on Baker Beach in San Fransisco, so I had some awesome pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, and the wave slapping on the rocks where I had proposed to her during the most beautiful sunset we'd ever seen. We picked a picture for the front side of the invitations, along with a poem of our own to caption it. They turned out very nice, and got many compliments on them. There was no need to spend the ridiculous amount on commercial invitations!

I nearly forgot the rehearsal dinner. My mom and dad, paying for the dinner, wanted it at a nice restaurant. My wife and I, again, didn't want to pay, or anyone else to pay for that matter, for a place were we couldn't walk around casually and talk or mingle. I finally convinced my mother that she only needed to pay for the food, as we were going to have the dinner at our house in town. We had the usual picnic type food. Brats, beans, potato salad, cole-slaw, chips, etc. We rented five or six picnic tables from the city for about $20, and set them up in our driveway and front yard. After dinner, we had a bon-fire and some drinks.

Weddings typically have singers too, right? I sang "Southern Grace" during the ceremony, and one of my groomsman sang, "My Best Friend".

As you may be able to see, our wedding was mostly non-traditional. However, we were able to do it with the budget we had, and it was PERFECT. We received so many compliments from our guests, and I myself had more fun this way than any other wedding I've been too.

My oldest step-daughter is getting married in one year from now. I wish my wife and I could do more than we can to give her a nice wedding, but she thinks that she needs to spend oodles of money to make that happen. I think there's some pressure there from her future mother-in-law there though too.

My advice to you is that you don't be afraid to get a loan for yourself if your family is struggling too. I'm sure they would spend the money for your wedding if they had it, but sometimes times it isn't possible. Don't think that you have to have deep pockets for a fairy-tale wedding. It can be done nicely on a budget. One thing I hate the most is couples fighting over who's going to pay for what! It's YOUR wedding, YOU decide. Split the bill 50/50. If your parents are more "better off" than your future spouse's, don't be afraid to help out a little more than that.

I hope I have given you some ideas for your wedding plans. If anything, you can see that we are just as happy spending $3500, as much as we would've been as if we spent $20,000.