Real Brides: How to trim your wedding budget?

Our poll may be over but we had such great responses including a wonderful story by a recent bride, Annie Packman. Annie has been so kind and generous to share her real experiences about how she had to trim back her wedding budget. Annie continues to write a blog, MarryYouMe.blogspot.com, and is currently doing event planning. Annie lives in Bend, Oregon with her husband Brandon and their, guinea pig Murphy. Here is their story.


How I Trimmed My Wedding Budget
I m sure that we're all aware of the economy not being so -ahem- robust these days, and no one knows this better than a bride attempting to plan her wedding right now. But what do you do when you are in the midst of planning, or even almost done with your planning, and something happens forcing you to cut back on your wedding?

It does happen, and I know - it happened to me a year ago. Last May, my fiancee and I had just returned from a trip down to our destination wedding location of Carmel, California to have our final vendor meetings and tastings. I was a little shocked on the plane ride home that all the decisions about the wedding were now made with three months to go! Or so I thought...

My parents appeared unannounced on our door step in Seattle about two weeks later, having to break the terrible news to us that our wedding might have to be cancelled due to personal financial reasons and health problems. My first concern was of course for my parents, and then I was crushed and kept thinking in my head "but everything is planned!" After one or two miserable days, my fiancee and I were determined to still have the wedding as planned, even though that meant having only 1/3 of our original budget to work with. I snapped into action:

• I called all of my vendors to re-negotiate our contracts, had all our deposits re-applied, and only lost the deposit for the band.
• We moved our ceremony location from the church where my grandparents were married to our reception location, La Playa Hotel, which was hard, but I wouldn't have any other way given the chance now. We saved about $1000 doing this.
• I got a great deal on a wonderful DJ, who three months out didn't have a wedding that day and passed the savings on to us.
• We already had purchased our decorations of faux magnolia garlands and wreaths, which went much further in decorating our smaller reception room.
• I kept the same flowers (peach Juliet garden roses, blue and cream hydrangeas, and freesia) but they cost much less since we were using less (no church and less reception tables).
• For the centerpieces, to keep with the vintage chic theme I was going for and save on vessel rental, I used antique silver pieces pooled together from my mom, aunt, and my personal collections.
• Instead of having the florist make the cocktail hour centerpieces, I ordered only one curly willow branch and one blue hydrangea from her and paired these with a cylinder vase and limes bought at the store. This saved me $75!
• We did have to give up the dream of having silver chiavari chairs, but the venue's chairs fit in perfectly with our colors - they were a mint green! People even asked if we rented them to match!
• I bought the programs and menu cards from Paper Source and had them printed at a print shop, then assembled them myself, saving over $50.
• I had to re-order my invitations from Invitation Consultants, since they were already printed with the old information. We used the old invitations as bar menus, table numbers, and seating chart.
• We bought our own wine from a local Carmel Valley winery and got a good case discount, and two days before the wedding went to Safeway and bought Chandon champagne at over 50% off! Even with the $18 corkage fee, we saved money over buying the cheapest bottles from the venue, and I negotiated to not have sales tax, service fee or gratuity added to the corkage charges!
• The hotel was charging $20 a gallon for juice, punch or lemonade. I ordered lemonade, but went to the Farmer's Market and bought organic strawberries and mint, sliced those up and delivered them to the hotel the day of the wedding, and they added them to the ice water (which was free). It was the hit of cocktail hour, and guests kept asking our servers for it during lunch! I saved $40 doing this.
• I found my dress in Arizona while visiting my aunt, and didn't have to pay sales tax since I paid with an out-of-state check. This saved me almost $200 over buying it in Washington.
• Instead of Brandon, his groomsmen, the ushers and the dads all purchasing suits (he was adament about not wearing a tux), we found destination style rental suits by After Six at The Tux Shop, and were given the "cruise package" pricing which was for a week and a half and was cheaper than a two day tux rental! We saved $600 on Brandon's suit this way.
• I still had my hair done by a hair stylist who came to the house, but I did my own makeup and lashes, saving about $150.
• Instead of a vintage Rolls Royce for our getaway, we had a groomsman with a nice black Chrysler 300 chauffeur us away. It sort of looks like a Bentley, it was black, and it saved us $800!