A Budget Savvy Bride Looks to Friends!

My biggest advantage to saving money for my wedding?  My 11 bridesmaids.  Yeah, I said it.  10 of my best girlfriends on tap, and my future sister-in-law.  And several other old friends and college sorority sisters on tap to help out.  It’s not that I’m popular, and it’s not that I’m trying to get by cheaply; it’s all in the approach.  How exactly is it that my friends are willing to help save me so much money?  In a few simple steps, I’ll reveal to you how to both keep your friends and save money.  No better deal on the planet.

Just FYI, we are shooting for a <$10,000 wedding, and with the way that research is paying off and things keep lining up, we are looking to be way, way under that goal.  And my fiancé is up for a grad assistantship that would lower our income, but be better for his future.  This only gives me more incentive to be a bargain hunter, just like my mamma taught me!  Huzzah!

A total of 11 pieces of advice from an 11.11.11 bride…

• Be a Bridesmaid
  

I’ve met some girls who have been always a bride, never a bridesmaid.  Sometimes, if you get married early, this happens.  So far, I’ve been a bridesmaid twice and will do it once more before my wedding, when my brother gets married.  I was a maid of honor once, and though I was in college and couldn’t exactly go all-out for my friend, I helped her make her registry, my mother and I planned a lovely surprise shower (for which my mom hand-calligraphied the invitations – practice for my wedding six years later!), and we did some good stuff in planning the bachelorette party.  We totally surprised her and she had a blast.  For bridesmaid duty #2, I helped craft the Save the Dates, glued paper whenever I was in town to visit, and flew out to New York for my friend’s bridal shower.  Her shower ended up not being a surprise, but my presence was, and it was appreciated.  My oldest friend (we’ve been friends since kindgarten) asked me to do a reading as a part of her wedding ceremony, and I’ll also be up in upstate New York a few days early for her wedding to help her pick flowers and finish up crafts. 

(My bridesmaid duties of yore)

Addtionally, being a bridesmaid gives you a nice crash course in wedding planning, budgets, etc.  It's terrific training.

I’m not saying that you should do things for your friends only in the hopes that you’ll get things in return, but in this case, karma is working to our advantage.  My friend who chose me as her maid of honor recently told me that her father is a wedding photographer, and not only can give us fantastic quality prints, but said quality at a fraction of the price.  And my friend whose shower I flew to?  She is baking and decorating our wedding cake – which she pretty much volunteered for – for150 guests.  Being a bridesmaid can be expensive and a lot of work, but your friends will remember the favors you did for them.

Her cake portfolio:

And also, when it’s time to “collect” on those back favors?  Don’t make things insane for the bridesmaids.  Don’t expect that everyone will be able to make it to everything, because sometimes it’s just unrealistic.  Don’t pick out $300 Vera Wang dresses for your girls and demand they wear them.  (You also save money if you make your bridesmaids gifts more thoughtful or useful – less along the lines of jewelry and more along the lines of memorable, personalized items.)  Don’t take out your frustrations on them the moment they call or come over to help.  Communicate, set up e-mail systems and facebook groups, let everyone know what’s up, and give them time to express themselves.  If some girls (or guys!) in your party don’t know each other, which is the case for me, give them the opportunity to meet and become friendly.  Who knows – your friends can even form new friendships in this way.

• Share Your Plans
  

I try not to beat my friends over the head with information about the wedding and obsess and drive them crazy (especially for at least 3 of my girls who are waiting patiently for their significant others to propose), but I bring things up fairly frequently. Because of a friend of my fiancé, I found my perfect dress.  It is made to order from DollyCouture.com – around $600 for a unique, flattering dress made to specifications and highly recommended by her previous brides.  

(via DollyCouture.com - in her custom collections)

Now I’ve been scouring sites for shoes and jewelry.  Sometimes, just passing these links along can start the conversation.  One of my bridesmaids who is finishing up a teaching tenure in Japan has told me that she’s all over it, helping me by scouting out Japanese shoes and hair accessories which will truly be one of a kind on my wedding day.  Yeah, you want your day to be full of your own ideas (especially if you’re paying for it all), but sometimes more opinions lead to more opportunities.  How many times have your friends picked out things you might have never picked out yourself, and these are now things you’ve come to cherish?

• Build the Hype
  

It would have horrified Martha Stewart, but my fiancé and I threw a kickass engagement party the Saturday after we got engaged.  It wasn’t super planned, it wasn’t anything formal, we drank beer and ate Publix brand pizza rolls (among other little snacks), and I popped a bottle of pink champagne and likely dented the roof of someone’s car in my parking lot. 

But it was awesomely memorable, we got cards and balloons and lots of love, and we got people excited about it.  And it made them excited to help.  Some of our friends who relish in homebrewing are adding to our self-supported bar by making a special wedding day brew for us.  One of our friends who is really tech-y will help to manage the iPod playlist during the wedding (and I’m a music snob, insistent on picking my own wedding mix, which also saves us money).  I have found the more you include everyone – and not just the people in your bridal party – from the start, the more they’ll want to contribute in a variety of ways.

My DJ!!

I also plan on having a few other events to help involve all of our friends in the wedding planning process.  We will have an open bar, stocked with beer and wine (including our friends’ awesome homebrew), but we will also have a “signature cocktail” or two at the wedding.  It will be something we can put in pitchers, so we won’t have to pay a bartender an extra mixing fee.  How will we decide?  By inviting our friends over to help us choose one, that’s how!

• Build bridges with DIY days!
  

It seemed weird at first, but my brother got engaged at almost exactly the same time I did, although he’s nearly six years younger than I am.  He’s including my fiancé and I in his wedding party and his fiancée asked me to be in hers, so although we were already looking at huge wedding parties (my fiancé’s will be 9 total), we added them in.  And we are not regretting it.  Many of our friends live all over the place, so this is a great way to unite them, and to bring them together for something memorable.  Almost as memorable as being in my friend’s wedding were all the times we had making paper goods and gluing stuff and talking about taking this huge next step in our lives. 

Thus we are DIY-ing bonkers.  It is going to be like the old days in my collegiate band sorority, when it looked like Michael’s exploded on our living room floor.  We are DIY-ing Save the Dates, invitation assembly, paper crafts for the reception, escort cards, centerpieces, the guest book, the card box, the ring book, everything.  I am planning parties centered around it, where the girls and I will sit around and watch wedding related movies and craft all day.  (I for one could watch The Wedding Singer on repeat, maybe forever.)  One of my bridesmaids has already made plans for us to go through some of her leftover wedding items.  Tacky, you say?  Useful, I say, if you can find ways to repurpose things.   Also great, because 9 out of 11 of my bridesmaids are out of town, and it's a darn good excuse to make special dates to hang out, as we all get older and busier.

I find that in taking the time to do some things yourself, you also take the time to relate to the people around you.  This can even strengthen friendships, bolster your relationship with your future husband and keep within your budget.  Of course, this comes from someone who considers coloring to be a deeply relaxing activity.

Definitely incorporating crafts like this and this from Offbeat Bride (offbeatbride.com).

And we're going to be doing a lot of baking - baking stuff out of boxes and cheap ingredients (flour is not expensive) also saves money from doing a candy bar.  Cake pops/balls are a definite. 

Learn more about these awesome treats at bakerella.com!

Looks like a lot to take on?  Thank goodness I have my 11 Bridal Corps of Craft Engineers  to help out!

• Use your resources
  

As I mentioned before, my mom did calligraphy for my friend’s bridal shower, and now she’s doing it for my invitations.  Rather than do some of the folding a cutting myself, I shopped around and found invitation kits on sale for 50% off – aligning with our color scheme, we got 150 invitations for $111 including tax.  Slap a little extra ribbon on them, and my mom will be doing the rest.  She even agreed to pay for postage, which although it seems like a small expense, it’s a nagging one and one that we’ll save on.  And while not designer, the invitations will be beautiful, unique and memorable.

A similar style to our invitations can be found here: at Wilton's website.

Additionally, we are going to use some items we already own for many of these purposes.  Silver is one of our accent colors, and my students gave me a beautiful silver music stand a few years ago for Christmas.  I couldn’t imagine any designer coming up with something prettier to use to hold a guest book.

My fiancé is very opposed to the idea of having a theme wedding, but since I love music more than just about anything, and he is a bookworm to end all bookworms, printed words and music will very likely be making their way into our big day, by way of crafts and visual motifs.

We are also both pack rats, and so we are planning on using all of the wine bottles we collect before the wedding to make centerpieces with candles.  We had at least eight gifted bottles from the engagement party alone, so we’re well on our way!

It doesn’t hurt to ask.  My mom’s friend, who I’ve referred to as an Aunt most of my life, has catering experience, is in sales, and is a sculptor.  When I brought up the idea of her being our Day-Of Coordinator, it turned out to be even more perfect than we’d imagined.  In exchange for her services, we are flying her down from New Jersey for the wedding.

One of my fiancé’s groomsmen is also a legal officiant, and is performing our ceremony, which in addition to being less expensive, is so much more meaningful to us.   He's also a local musician and a bit of a local celebrity, and his presence makes everything he attends that much more memorable.

Two of my bridesmaids have flute performance degrees, and play better than most wedding “vendor bands” I’ve heard, and will be doing music for the ceremony. 

I find that if I ask people about doing things for the wedding, mostly small tasks, and I ask in a personal way, I always get an overwhelmingly positive response.  Not only do people want to be there for you on your day, they want to use their talents to celebrate you and your partner.

• Create Somthing Lasting
  

Obviously, this is what you want to do more than anything on your wedding day.  But aside from starting your life together as husband and wife, it’s also an opportunity for others to get something started of their own.  For our homebrewer friends who have thought about starting their own brewhouse, this is a terrific test run.  For my friend who is making the cake, this is a hell of an item to put in her Wilton portfolio for when she starts teaching cake decorating classes.  For our photographer, whether we go with our friend’s father or my old sorority sister, this is a start to his business and another avenue of income.  For my mother, even – the more bridal shows and catering events I bring her to, the more excited she gets about the possibility of putting her talents to use.  Especially in today’s environment, many creative people are thinking of ways to put their talents and the things they really enjoy doing to some use as a way to become more financially independent.  You don’t want your wedding to be a test run for everything (for example – we’re looking to splurge a little on established caterers and restaurants so we are sure that everyone eats well), but I love the idea of looking back on our wedding day as not just a positive day for us, but for everyone involved.  That it was really the start of something great, on top of a wonderful life of love together.

Five extra little secrets:

• Hair & beauty – Aveda Training Salons.  Recommended to me by a friend when I decided I’d ditch expensive haircuts and go back to Great Clips, these places are great if they are in your area.  Yes, they are staffed by students, but I get my haircut here regularly for the same cost as a Fantastic Sam’s cut, and it always looks amazing.  These salons are also large enough to handle large bridal parties, and they use eco-friendly plant-based products that you’d pay a lot more for in regular salons.  Massive win!  Check it out here!

• Venue research – this pays off way more than you think.  We do have two venues, but we were lucky enough to get both for a total of $1125.  Our reception venue is the city Farmer’s Market, which works well as both a slightly offbeat choice, but still extremely popular among wedding-havers, so they’re used to doing weddings.  And both venues easily accommodate a 150 guest wedding.

• Jewelry – keep it simply, silly.  Everyone all through Project Wedding already knows all about Etsy, but my advice would be just to keep it simple.  You want your beauty to shine through on the day, and not gaudy earrings that will get in the way.  This is the seller I’m currently most interested in, and her costs are unbelievable.  Etsy is not always cheap.  Shop around!

• Do your research!  In general!  That’s how coupon mavens do it, that’s how millionaire investors do it, and that’s how you should, too!  While you shouldn’t spend every hour online looking at wedding things, gather as much information as you can.  Get prices, even from vendors you’re not interested in.  Sign up for mailing lists (and maybe even start a new e-mail account just for wedding purposes).  Do window shopping.  Attend tastings, bridal shows, if possible, and get information.  People who sell wedding goods are dying to send you information, and if they’re not, then they’re not who you’re after.  This is not only a good way to ensure prices stay down, but that you get reliable vendors.  You’re not a Bridezilla if you’re decisive, and anyone who doesn’t value that decisiveness is not worth your time, anyway.

• Don’t compete!  Your wedding is not a contest.  I think the best advice in life is to be yourself, and follow your path as you choose it.  The same goes for a wedding – don’t seek to be someone else’s idea of beautiful.  Your fiancé loves you for who you are, not who you try to be.  If your wedding reflects that, silver candelabras or not, then it will be a success.

BONUS ADVICE!  Honeymoon logic: at first, I had my heart set on going to Paris.  However, it really looks like putting on this wedding is not going to leave us a lot of money for a specatcular honeymoon.  The next best option on this continent?  Montreal - gorgeous, historical, got the French flair going on, still out of the United States but not on another continent, and at least $2000 cheaper - per person for flight an hotel.

vs.

So much money saved!!!

Quick Review:

Ways in which I’m saving money…

• Friend making the cake (cost of cake supplies vs. $300-500 cake)
• Friends/family taking pictures ($500-700 photographer fee vs. $1555 starting package for photos)
• Custom made ideal wedding dress, from a friend’s recommendation ($600 vs. $1000+)
• Personal shopper for accessories (free vs. $100+)
• Homebrew help ($700 budget for self-bought beer/wine, plus awesome personally made craft beer vs. $1400+ for caterer bar)
• Friend-attended laptop/iPod (free vs. $800+)
• Mom-calligraphied invites ($111 for kits vs. $300+ for stationary, plus calligrapher costs)
• DIY Save the Dates, programs, escort cards, and other crafits (<$100 vs. at least $500 to order stationary)
• DIY bouquets (cannot even calculate the savings)
• Music stand guest book holder (free vs. rental fee)
• Print related crafts, book ringholder (free vs. designer fees, $40+ per item)
• Mom’s friend DOC ($180 plane ticket vs. $500 fee)
• Groomsman officiating (cost of a gift vs. $150+)
• Bridesmaid flutists (free vs. $50-100 an hour)
• Aveda Training Salons ( )
• Venue know-how ($1125 vs. $3000 for comparable local venues)
• Scouring bridal jewelry on Etsy ($120 for full set vs. $200+)
• Coupons & more research (that’s the fiancé’s job J)
• Not competing (financial savvy, satisfaction & sanity vs. feelings of inadequacy & deep debt)
• Montreal Honeymoon instead of Paris ($750 per person flight/hotel vs. $3000+ per person

  In the end, having a lot of people who you just have to invite to your wedding should be considered an advantage, not a hindrance.  Sure, some people attend weddings with the intent of getting drunk and disorderly, but if you just politely peep up, so many more of them will be wiling to help make your day beautiful – making it not just less expensive but so much more personal.