Planning a wedding

This times a million. People are going to have fun if you're having fun and not freaking out. You don't need to break the bank to be memorable. After spending a day or so discussing rice vs. sunflower seeds vs. bubbles or whatever, we ended up buying a box of cheap chinese noisemakers for $25 and just had everyone make a ton of noise on our way out. We piled all the stuff up at the door labeled "Cacophony Box" and people ate it up.

We also did our own invitations on the cheap (WAY cheap). I designed a PDF at work and we printed them out on 8x5 "large postcards" from vistaprint. They came out pretty, glossy, blank on the back and we just got large envelopes to go with them. They weren't fancy or super classy, but they told people when where and everything and cost about $35 before postage.

 

I am in the middle of this, and we're going to be well under 5K.
We're getting married and having the reception in one place, a beautiful house just off a public golf course. Has two large rooms (one for dinner, one for dancing/inclement weather wedding location) and we can do whatever we want as far as catering and such.
The future Mrs. Appgrad05 scoured the Internet for a dress and, I am told, came out well in terms of quality. We're having a catered buffet dinner, but what we wanted out of their menu is coming out to $10 a person.
My parents are picking up the tab on the open bar, because we're doing a big rehearsal dinner for everyone (90 percent of guests are from out of town) at a good friend's house.
Oh, and I am wearing a suit. So is my dad, who is my father (best man), my brother (usher), future father-in-law (a minister who's preciding over the ceremony) and two stepsons (who will walk Mom down the aisle).
We're going with the iPod DJ, and I spent Sunday canvasing town in search of half-price candy for the candy buffet.
All in all, I am very pleased. And, because we're being sensible and paying as we go, I am paying cash. That makes me even happier.

 

Another great piece of advice. The last thing you need is $20k worth of debt hanging over your newlywed heads.

 

Did ours for about $9K, and the wife couldn't have been happier.

 

"Planning a wedding," to me is the definition of high maintenance. No one is "entitled" to Her Special Day. What's to plan? Official, bride, groom, witness(es). Party at the watering hole of choice. In-n-out for less than $1K. Blow the budget on the honeymoon or your first house.

Oh, and the engagement ring? Also a marketing tool. Third item in.

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21211.html

 

I still turn and kiss my wife every time we see a couple where the wife/fiancee has a huge rock on her hand.

 

Wife: Does planning, inviting, decides on decor, chooses menu, picks ushers, selects a priest/minister/judge, chooses hall, finds DJ, picks "your" wedding song, cuts your drunk friends from the guest list, arranges seating, bitches about bridesmaids and maid of honor, stresses about money to you.

Husband: Shows up on day of wedding.

End. Of. Story.

Enjoy!

 

On a related subject, are the bride & groom expected to pay for it themselves now? Is the traditional breakdown of expenses (groom & his family for engagement ring, rehearsal dinner & honeymoon, bride's family for everything else) still the norm?

How did you guys do it? Just curious.

 

Wedding planning should have been Dante's seventh circle of hell.

Put on a suit and go to the courthouse. Seriously.

Cynicism aside, I will say this: it's not a good sign that you two can't talk about wedding stuff without a meltdown. You need to figure out what's going on and address whatever issues there may be. And the younger your girlfriend is, the less you should believe her if she says everything is fine.

 

No. 1 way to save money on the wedding -- get her parents to pay for it.
No. 2 way to save -- marry someone who is connected where family friends own a catering company and give a discount on the price; a band leader/DJ who attends the same house of worship as the in-laws, is good friends with them and gives them a discount; have a family friend who does invitations for a living; etc.
No. 3 way -- Do it all in one location. For our wedding we were able to rent the entire synagogue for the entire afternoon relatively inexpensively.

To answer Suburbia's question -- got married two years ago. Very unusual situation in that my father and her father are dead. Her mom paid for the bulk of it. My mom helped out a little and we chipped in a little as well. Being Jewish there was no rehearsal dinner, so we didn't have that expense to worry about.

 

Wife and I paid for everything ourselves in 2007. We told both sets of parents to stay the hell out so, as my wife put it, "they couldn't bitch about the way we did things."

Then, my parents and her parents both gave us a check in an envelope as a gift on our wedding day. Combined, they didn't quite cover everything, but my wife and I didn't care.