Wedding Essentials: Where Budgeting for More is Worth Every Penny!

When we were planning our wedding about a year ago, I was certainly a spend-thrift bride. I considered every cost-cutting option there was from skimping on traditional items to improvising with cheaper alternatives. This affected my view of the entire wedding. It was such an emotional roller coaster, but in the end there were a few key items I was so happy we splurged on a bit and would have been willing to pay more to ensure some peace of mind.

Pictures
I will have to admit, we did cut a few corners here. I didn't do a bridal portrait- instead we had a friend who was an amateur photographer to follow us around for a couple of hours and take a million pictures of us. We took the one we liked the best and used www.snapfish.com to blow it up as a supplement. (This also meant I didn't have to pay for my hair and make-up more than once- tricky for those brides who are meticulous about how they will look!) However, when it came to the big day, not only did we have a professional photographer, we had two for the ceremony since it is such a difficult job for one person to take pics from different angles during a live event. Also, when negotiating the contract, we made sure to get digital rights to all the photographs so that we could re-print them whenever and however we wanted. So, I used www.blurb.com, a print-on-demand site, to publish a wedding album that looks like professional quality, only much cheaper and EXACTLY what I wanted!

Caterer
We bounced several ideas around about where to do the reception and how to handle the food and clean-up. Ultimately, we stumbled onto a great deal with the Hilton hotel, chose their cheapest catering options, and allowed them to do the rest! It was scary talking about the money with them as it was a LARGE portion of our wedding budget, but they prepped the room, they kept our guests happy until we arrived, they were ready and willing to keep the party moving as long as we occupied the space, and they cleaned up when it was over. This was more than important as my family lives several hours away and they were exhausted from the pre-wedding week and all of the wedding festivities.

Wedding Coordinator
I had no idea how much of a God-send a good wedding coordinator could be! Thankfully my mother-in-law had a friend who was willing to perform this task for us. I had no idea how big of a job it was or how much of a supportive role she would play. She was essential to planning out the logistics of the ceremony, which was tricky as we were sharing the stage with 10 attendants and a full rock band. She was genius enough to show up very early at the church on the day of the wedding, bringing chilled bottles of water and a plate of grapes and cheeses for the bridal party as we all waited for the ceremony to begin. It was so nice to think "man, I'm thirsty" and have something right there to drink! She kept the whole day running smoothly, ahead of me the whole day making sure nothing went wrong and thinking of things I'm sure would have slipped our minds otherwise!

Notice that with each of these items, we still didn't spend a ton of money. It's important to know what quality you require and how much you are willing to pay for that quality. Looking back, these are all key items that I would have gladly paid more for (although I'm thankful we didn't have to!)