Cheap wedding bells

Since this blog is supposed to be about saving money, I thought I'd talk a little about how John and I saved money on our wedding.

-The dress. I bought it online for $230 and then had it taken in, taken up, and a lining put in, all for about $120. So I came to about $350 total. Considering what David's Bridal and other stores charge for dresses and alterations, this is a bargain. I wanted something that wasn't big and froofy and tulle. So this worked out well.

-The shoes. Bought em at DSW for $35.

-Jewelry and headband. Bought on Etsy.

-The guestbook. My friend Kate had the brilliant idea to use a cookbook for our guestbook, since John and I love to cook. We loved it! I bought a bunch of sharpies and people left us their "recipes" for love. This is fantastic because we can use our guestbook and read peoples' messages all the time.

-RSVPs. We went to Hawaii last year and picked up vintage-looking postcards for the RSVPs. They cost like $30 total. Then we had my friend Ryan do a graphic of a piece of coral for us for our invites and accommodations cards. We hand wrote the RSVPs.


-The officiant. Neither of us is religious, but we didn't want a JP either. So we asked John's dad to officiate our wedding. We got him ordained online. He wrote a great speech for us (about wine!), and it was so amazing to have everyone involved in our wedding like that.


-Favors. Ok, we didn't really save any money on favors. We found these half bottles of wine at World Market. It was Primus, one of our favorite reds. So we bought one for every family/couple and wrote notes for everyone on them. Not cheap, but infinitely better than impersonal gifts.

Things we didn't do for the wedding:
-A program. Everyone knows what happens at a ceremony. Why do you need a program?
-Save the dates. We got engaged in August and married the following March. By the time we'd booked everything, it was too late for Save the Dates.
-Linens. We just used the ones the location had.
-Full bar. We had wine, beer, and delicious prickly pear margaritas. I heard no complaints.
-Stupid chair drapery things. They are my nightmare. I don't get them.
-Big centerpieces. I had the florist give me big peonies to float in water in the center.
-Placecards. We only had 70 people at the wedding. We let everyone sit where they wanted.
-Menus. The location provided them for us.
-A DJ. We asked our friend Sam, Kate's husband, to be our "DJ". We set up the iPod with all the mixes and he just made sure the right mix was playing and all.