Frugal Weddings

Compared to the average wedding, mine was relatively inexpensive. My parents said that they would give 5,000 dollars for us to spend, and if we wanted anything above that budget, we would have to pay for it ourselves. My now husband and I agreed that we would do everything it took to keep it at that 5,000 mark. We are pretty laid back people, and already knew that we did not want a super huge gala black tie affair. It would not have fit us, and we would have felt out of place in such a setting.

We had hoped to have a very small wedding- 50 people absolute maximum, and hold it at a Victorian teahouse or bed and breakfast. If the weather was nice, we could have married in the garden, if not, in the parlor. But my parents nixed that idea pretty quickly. They wanted to be able to invite everybody they wanted, and my parents list alone would be more than 50 people.

So my husband and I started by going over things that we absolutely had to have and what we did not care so much about. We discussed what reflected our personal values. By talking about these things we were able to make lots of cuts right away, before the wedding planning really got underway. Deciding what is really important to you can save you a bundle.

Here's what was NOT important to us:

A big wedding party-I had two people, my husband had three. We also chose to pay for the clothes for our people, because we were all just graduating college. This was our gift to them, rather than mugs or other wedding trinkets.

Flowergirls/ring bearers- We had the only kids old enough hand out our homemade programs at the door. They were thrilled, and we avoided a lot of the hassle and expense of having small children in the wedding. It would have been cute, but I don't regret not doing it.

Limo/Rented car- we drove off in my 1994 Toyota Carola. It was fun trying to stuff me and my huge dress in the passenger seat!

DJ- I have found that they are often too loud for my taste, and I was not interested in being forced to dance to music I did not like. So we spent months before the wedding compiling mix CD's. We put the word out that we were doing this, and to forward any requests to us, so that there would be something for everybody.