No, I am not talking about the voted #1 Wedding Location: Oheka Castle

I am referring to having one location for your ceremony and reception.  Using the same venue for all of your wedding events will increase your wedding savings and be more convenient for you, your guests, and your vendors.

Most venues are able and happy to flip any space within a cocktail hour.  Having only one location will cut the cost for event space.  Also, you can just have one set of decorations instead of having two separate sets (one set for the ceremony and one set for the reception).  And if your vendors are on an hourly rate, they will need less time for set-up and tear down.  Furthermore, you can cut transportation expenses for your wedding party and guests because there won’t be any need!

I saw this article and I just wanted to share it. I’m not much of a pop-culture aficionado, but I knew it was really bad wedding savings advice, which is kind of like what I imagine most of the advice from Simon Cowell is anyway!

His idea for a wedding performer: Elton John. Umm… I’m pretty sure Elton John doesn’t come cheap!

But really, the more important thing I want to point out is the idea of getting a “really good” performer for your wedding.  I was watching that Dream Wedding show on, I think, USA a few months back, and on every episode they would bring in someone famous to sing the couple’s song. But there seems to be a problem with that to me. Why would you want your performer to overshadow the rest of your wedding? I mean, in the case of Simon Cowell, I guess he’d have mostly celebrities there anyway. But if you have the brilliant idea to spend $50k on a well-known name to perform at your wedding, just remember that not only is it bad wedding savings advice, it’s also going to be the only thing the guests are talking about when they leave. And you don’t want that, do you?

There was an article in the Washington Post with wedding savings advice. Well… it kind of had wedding savings advice. To be fair, it was more about how ridiculous people are for spending so much money on their weddings. You might think, as a lover of all things extravagant-wedding-related, I’d be the first person to take offense at people criticizing the desires of brides on their “big days.” But actually, I fully agree with the author of the article. Wedding costs are absurd. The amount the average couple (and their families) spend on weddings is way, way, way too much — somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000. Worst of all, that doesn’t even include the costs of attending a wedding. Remember, everyone who attends a wedding has to have an outfit, a gift, and might even have to travel. Sure, some people choose to save on their wedding expenses to attend other people’s weddings, but a lot of people are also prone to buying new outfits, flying across country, buying expensive registry gifts, and so on. These costs all add up.

At the same time, I LOVE weddings. I love what they symbolize, and I love the joy they provide, and I love the experiences they create, and just love the way they always make me feel. So that’s kind of why I agreed to help with this wedding savings blog (though to be honest, I know I’ve been a bit bad about my new posts recently… so sorry!). I think it is possible to have a fabulous wedding and achieve fabulous wedding savings at the same time.

Remember… a wedding is about bringing your loved ones together and celebrating your marriage to someone you truly care about. All those details, like flowers, rings, dresses, and whether or not the DJ should play YMCA, are all there to support your celebration, not be the focus of your attention.

There seems to be  a renewed wedding trend: Lace.  I have no problem with Lace in day to day life; however, for some reason I don’t like Lace when it comes to weddings.  Originally, I really wanted a Lace wedding dress, but when I tried on Lace wedding dresses they did not look good.  I’m sure quite a few of you have been there: you look through wedding magazines, you’re confident about what type of dress you want, and then BAM- you suddenly find out you can’t pull off the look you wanted and you’re back to the drawing board.  In any case, I’m not bitter about Lace.  I just think you have to be really careful about how you use it in a wedding.  That’s my disclaimer.  Now, here is what I wanted to show you: Lace Tape. Little DIY details, like Lace Tape, are great to add finesse to your wedding but at a low cost.

Happy Friday everyone!   I saw this post from Groomsadvice.com and thought I would share…

I like to think most brides try to get a little crafty for their wedding, and that those same brides don’t have a stock pile of craft supplies ar0und.  Well, that’s definitely my scenario.  For example, I am going to make our rehearsal dinner invitations.  No, they will not be anything super fancy but I am going to borrow my office’s paper cutter for the weekend.  Sure, I could buy a paper cutter… but when am I going to use it again?  I also might use one of our printers to run the invites off.  Yes, I do have a printer at home but the one at the office is quicker and I won’t use up all of our ink!

If your office isn’t equipped with useful tools, or your wedding usage would not be encouraged, then check with your friends and family.  You might be surprised as to what their offices have and they can borrow.  Now, don’t go all re-con to get the materials, and don’t get greedy with what you take.  You won’t be able to pay for your wedding if you get fired!  I will definitely ask my office manager if I can borrow the paper cutter for the weekend… if he says no maybe I will just bring everything into the office and stay late one day.

I was reading an article with wedding savings tips. It wasn’t a very exciting article, so I’m not even going to bother sending you to it (remember… that’s my job… filter out all the useless wedding advice and just give you the good stuff!), but there was one quote I just had to share. In the article, one of the brides being interview says this:

“Pick three to five things and do those things very well. That was the best advice anyone ever gave me.”

I don’t know about “best wedding advice possible” status, but the more I think about this little comment, the more I really like it. At the end of the day, no one is really going to remember your wedding for all the little details. They’ll probably just blur together in one big memory from all sorts of weddings past. Heck, even as a wedding junkie, when I look back on any one specific wedding, I see a big blur of an image and can rarely pick out one specific detail.

However, in a few cases, I think back on weddings I’ve attended and remember one or two precise details that were incredible. For example, my roommate from sophomore year had the most incredible lobster bisque I’ve ever tasted. It was to die for. In fact, it was so great that every time I’m in South Jersey, I still go by that restaurant where she had the reception and order it. It’s incredible.

In another example, I’ll absolutely never forget the gardens where my cousin got married. You’ve never seen so many beautiful flowers everywhere. If a little bird landed on my outstretched finger and started singing to me, I would have been 100% positive I was in a Disney movie. As of right now, I’m only 98% positive.

So when you think about your wedding priorities and where you need to best budget your limited monetary resources, consider spending more money on the things that people are going to absolutely remember. Just off the cuff, I’m thinking things like food, venue, and music. No one is going to remember if your open bar served Grey Goose instead of Smirnoff, but they’ll remember if they ate the most deliciously tender lamp chops instead of a lukewarm chicken breast. No one is going to remember if you get married in a hotel ballroom in the Ritz instead of the Marriott (a hotel ballroom is a hotel ballroom… besides, it’s all about the decorations!), but they’ll remember if you got married in a luxurious private mansion instead of a hotel ballroom. And no one is going to remember if your DJ played the Electric Slide instead of the YMCA, but they’ll remember if the best 80’s cover band in the city rocked out the wedding reception for four straight hours.

The point is, spend money where it counts, and do those things really well. The rest is just small stuff. Appetizers. Flowers. Lights. They’re all important, but they’re not necessarily memorable. So if you have to be concious of your budget, think about how you best spend where it counts most.

To be fair, I’l probably title half the articles I write with some form of the phrase “the best wedding savings advice in the entire universe.” So, on one hand, I suppose you can take an article titled “The Best Wedding Savings Tip There Is” with a grain of salt. But on the other hand, it’s not like any wedding savings tip is really going to be bad. And in this case, I think it’s a pretty good one.

When it comes to wedding savings advice, there really is no “magic bullet” or perfect way to save yourself thousands of dollars. Quite simply, it just doesn’t happen. Even the best DIY brides are going to disagree on the best ways to “do it yourself.” But one piece of wedding advice that seems to cut across all levels of wedding planning would be this: When planning a wedding, if you want to save money, you’ve got to make compromises.

I know, I know… making compromises and not getting “exactly what you want” on your wedding might not be the piece fo wedding savings advice you most want to hear, especially from a wedding blog that tries to teach you how to get what you want and save, but it’s something to at least consider. And more importantly, my suggestion is that to get the wedding of your dreams on a budget, you’ve got to learn to make the right kinds of compromises.

What the right compromises are is a little harder to explain because, quite honestly, those compromises depend a lot on you and the needs of your specific wedding. For example, some brides might be able to compromise on venues. While that dream wedding venue which is absolutely gorgeous and overlooks the most beautiful park in the city is the ideal setting for your big day, it also probably costs a few thousand dollars more than an equally gorgeous wedding venue overlooking an equally gorgeous park a 45 minute drive out into the country. So by not having your wedding downtown, you could save yourself thousands of dollars. Is a 45 minute drive for your guests worth the wedding savings?  It’s up to you. But I can tell you this… chances are great that when you, or anyone looks back on your wedding in 10 years, they’re probably not going to think “that would have been an incredible event if and only if it had been moved 45 minutes into the city and overlooked Park XYZ.”  And honestly, if someone can look back and say that, then that’s one place you shouldn’t make the compromise.

And wedding compromises don’t have to be big. They can be small compromises, too. Is having passed beverages during a cocktail hour really worth the extra $1,000 it’ll cost versus your guests going themselves to the open bar? Is anyone really going to say, “That wedding was great, except I had to walk to the bar to get my drinks instead of having the drinks come to me?” Again, I can’t tell you. But what I can tell you is if you find the places to compromise, then you can have the wedding of your dreams while still having the wedding savings you never dreamed of until you actually had to start paying for that dream wedding.

Happy Sunday everyone! Just a quick wedding savings update today… here’s an article that’s filled with good tips on how to get the most out of your wedding buck. Enjoy!

Double Duty Decorations for your wedding!

How does premarital counseling relate to wedding savings you ask?  Well, I made the connection when I received information about the marriage license process from our venue, and discovered that in our county and state, couples who undergo premarital counseling will pay less for their marriage license than those that do not.  This might not be the case for you, but I think it’s worth looking into.

Yes, I do recognize that a premarital counseling course will cost you money.  But, your wedding isn’t all about glitz and glamor, it’s also about committing yourself to one another.  We’ve all heard the staggering statistics about divorce, and as expensive as your wedding might be, a divorce will cost you too (maybe even more).  Why not take steps to make sure you have the foundation for a happy life?  WedAlert.com has a breakdown of what premarital counseling means: here.