Comments on: Non-Consumer Advocate Wedding

By: Delores Thomas

Delores Thomas — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:09:06 +0000

For my 2nd wedding I didn’t want anything big. I got a nice cream dress and my husband a white dinner jacket at Goodwill. My daughter was my bridesmaid and we also picked her dress up at Goodwill. The flowers were silk and done by a friend as her gift. The food was bought in bulk and laid out at our new home in the backyard. It was cold cuts, cheeses, different breads, different salads, BBQ baby back ribs, and of course the cake. It was made at Kroger and very nice. I had no gift registery, just suggestions and reminding everyone that we were melding 2 existing households. Very few duplications other than towels, and sheets both of which were needed.
The honeymoon was a camping trip with friends from the church. They gave us an old fashioned shivery which no one ever forgot. Our total costs rounded out to about $500. No that is frugal even in 1994.

By: BarbS @ 1 Sentence Diary

BarbS @ 1 Sentence Diary — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:43:18 +0000

“There were no rose petal strewn bedrooms, no engagement rings hidden in a glass of bubbly. Just two adults making an important decision together.”

I love that sentence. I wish all young couples would read it.

By: Tracy Balazy

Tracy Balazy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:36:25 +0000

Sounds like a great time, Katy! Ours was simple, too. We were married four years ago at 38. I wanted to center the wedding on Detroit because I grew up there, so we had the ceremony at the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory on Belle Isle, a beautiful, wooded island in the Detroit River off downtown. Because it’s a botanical garden, we didn’t need flowers. The city charged us $150 for its use, and we paid $150 for the non-denominational services of an Episcopalian pastor I know through the newspaper business (he used to write a column for the Detroit Free Press). He donates his wedding fees to charity.

The “reception” was at Honest John’s Bar & Grill, a quirky little bar in Detroit owned by a very quirky guy. The food/drink tab probably came to around $500 for our 30-some guests. We spent that night at a Victorian bed & breakfast in Detroit that my co-workers had arranged for.

My dress was $40 on eBay. The seller had paid $450 for it new in 1984 for her own wedding. It wasn’t puffy and hoop-skirted like the typical ’80s formal; straight skirt, no train, short, fluted sleeves, I actually liked it. It’s hanging in the closet now and is going on eBay any day.

A friend who’s a professional photographer took the photos throughout the day and evening as his wedding gift to us. One of my best friends is very creative and made my bouquet and the corsages for the mothers and groom and the two people who stood up in the wedding, for a total of about $25 in white roses from Kroger, accented by mesh she already had and English ivy from her garden.

We didn’t have a cake, as I didn’t care to have one. So, our grand total was around $1,000. That year, we went to a wedding the bride insisted she was forced into by her inlaws, and it cost in excess of $100,000. I’m glad we did ours the way we did!

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:47:40 +0000

Great wedding recap!
I LOVE that car. I want to go to an event in Portland, just to be in that car, if it’s still around

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:32:35 +0000

Your wedding sounds a lot like mine, too. It was a fall wedding, so lots of candles and autumn flowers just made the whole room seem cozy. Bought two antique vases for cheap and the flowers from Fred Meyer, and my sister arranged them in her hotel room. Got married in front of a nice big fireplace and decorated the mantle with little pumpkins and other squash and candles. Had a fledgling photographer friend (say that three times fast!) take the pictures in B&W and put out disposable cameras at every table. Great candid shots (oddly, quite a few of people taking pictures of other people taking pictures of them taking a picture… How much wine did people drink?) It was a great night. But it was only a night, and we both knew it didn’t make any sense to go over the top. We were just as married for spending $3000 and we would have been if we had spent $30,000.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:05:21 +0000

Your wedding sounds a lot like mine. I too didn’t really care about all the details of the wedding. Thankfully all the wonderful people at my church stepped in and took care of the food and flowers and music during the ceremony for free. My pastor officiated, and my mom and aunts made our wedding invitations. Thankfully my fiance already owned a tuxedo from all his years singing in a choir, so he didn’t have to rent one, and my grandma was able to alter my great-great-grandmother’s wedding dress so that it fit me.

In the end, all that my fiance and I had to pay for was our wedding license, and a tank of gas to get to the beach to stay at my family’s beach house for our honeymoon. Our expenses for the wedding were about $100. And everyone loved our wedding and said it was beautiful.

By: namastemama

namastemama — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:11:16 +0000

What a great post! The Johnny Cash story sent chills up my spine! I am a wedding photographer and could write a book but I’ll just write what I did almost 12 years ago. We really wanted to elope and get married in front of a mountain, and if I had to do it all over again I would, but we did this instead. I bought a beautiful blue evening gown and gloves I didn’t see the point in buying a dress to only wear once although I did look in some consignment shops. My husband wore a nice suit, probably even got new shoes but again money spent on something we would own. Officiant was probably less than $100 and provided a nice 15 min. service. My mom wanted a unity candle so she bought that. We only invited our closest friends and immediate family. Purchased great food and had a friend of a friend man the grill. He was paid in free booze. Also spent money on decent alcohol. The reception was low key under a pavillion at the lake. Family decorated and we rented a pontoon boat and gave rides. Another friend was the DJ. I wanted a ‘fall’ wedding but it was record heat that year so we just went with it. Everyone got to wish us well and there were some funny moments shared by all. Maybe 30 people total. An ice cream wedding cake was purchased and we ate it first on account of the heat. I hired a photojournalist student to document the day and provided the film and paid for my prints later. This would be my biggest tip, even if you don’t want to pay a lot, hire someone that knows their craft. Even a hobby photographer can provide great photos but make sure you like the photos and the person since he/she will be with you all day. Don’t just go with the “cheapest”.
Finally, I asked my hubby one night recently, “What if our daughter ask for a $25 +K wedding?” He said NO WAY. I agree. There is so much meaning that gets lost in all the hoopla. My fav weddings are the small ones. The most important part of the day is to get married, and that cost little to nothing. A wedding is a day, a marriage is a lifetime. We did spend our money on our 2 week honeymoon trekking across the US to Jackson Hole WY. What a great and unique way to start a life together and a vacation we haven’t been able to top yet.

By: Cara

Cara — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:36:31 +0000

Most of the really fun weddings I’ve been to, including my own, were small and largely DIY. For ours we spent about $1500 total. We rented a dance studio at a local community centre for $250. I’m not into traditional wedding gowns, so I found an antique-gold and purple dress (actually meant to be a bridesmaid dress), on eBay for $50, and it fir perfectly! We only had 30 guests, and a friend of my mother’s made the food. She’s East Indian and said 30 people is a Sunday dinner at her house! Everyone raved about the food, served buff-style. We also decorated with out-of-style sari fabric donated from the same friend. It was gorgeous! We did rent the linens & dishes, but got a great deal. The cake was vegan (as am I), and was made by another friend of my mother’s for an undisclosed sum (Mum insisted on paying). Kirk wore a $130 suit, and my brother (who was my maid of honour), and the best man wore their own suits. They were our only bridal party. My mother and I did the flowers, which we purchased at Safeway for about $100, and I’d been collecting vases at yard sales for over a year. The only thing I regret is that Kirk’s mom’s boyfriend did the photography as his gift to us, and they turned out terribly. Other than that, everything went off without a hitch, and we weren’t saddled with debt (other than student loans!) going in to our marriage.

By: CindyC

CindyC — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:15:59 +0000

We got married in 2000 in San Francisco during the height of the dot com boom. $15k for 130 guests was extremely frugal at the time. I refer to it as a budget, Mexican wedding like the ones I grew up going to. The reception was held in the afternoon in the Church hall. Didn’t have to worry about limos — we just walked to the reception. We did a Mexican food buffet that we arranged without a contract. They delivered and brought servers, as well. I only bought my bouquet, 3 bridesmaids bouquets, about 4 corsages, and 5 boutonierres from a florist who just tacked our order onto one she was already doing for a bigger wedding. The centerpieces were done with flowers from the flower market the day before. My dress was off the rack for less than $500. I would’ve been fine with a simple dress and suits for the men, but my husband had his heart set on wearing a tux. Two family members took video. The cake was made by a family friend. My family flew in and decorated the hall, put together the centerpieces, and the favors. An uncle arranged and paid for the DJ. Another uncle brought the drinks. An aunt brought champagne. Another aunt sprung for the table linens. The big splurge was paying for a photographer to fly from LA. She was the daughter-in-law of one of my husband’s classmates. We paid for her lodging and rental car. She is now a popular photo blogger and we cherish her images.

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:07:59 +0000

I was kind of like you, I didn’t care too much about details but managed to have a beautiful wedding for about $2000. We got married on Cannon Beach and had the reception for about 35 people at the Surfsand Resort, which we we had never seen before in one of their conference rooms (they have since remodeled for weddings). We had beef and salmon in a really nice buffet and music from a mix CD too. My dress was a white $100 prom dress and my friend made the flower arrangements that day after buying flowers from a florist down the street. My husband wore a suit he still wears and my mom bought a cake with no input from me. It was all fun and it was kind of nice to have surprises rather than to plan everything to the last detail. We did have a few professional photos, which are nice. We spent the night at the Stephanie Inn which is amazing! We then splurged on a Caribbean honeymoon and a big BBQ party later on (another $1000 for that party). I feel like we spent money on things that are more important to me, like trips and food. I don’t care about dresses and engraved invites.