I’ve been thinking about my post yesterday, and trying to decide what are the most and least important wedding-related things I will be spending my money on.
I know I want great pictures of the event. So my plan is to either 1) invest the money into a great photographer with the hopes the small amount of photos I get will be perfect or 2) invest in a two-photographer team in the hopes that there will be great photos in the larger batch.
I really want my ceremony videotaped, but I’m not sure I’m willing to spend the money on a videographer, so unless it is somehow included in the photography package, I might save some money by asking a family member to tape just the ceremony for us.
But what about you all? I know that many of my blog readers are married, so I’ll ask for your help. Let me know what you skimped on and what you saved on. Also, let me know if there is something you changed your mind about after the event. Did you skimp on an item only to wish you would have splurged? I can’t wait to hear from you!
Hi Erin – congratulations on your engagement! So exciting 🙂
I will go ahead and confirm what you already said – good, professional photos are so completely worth it. We had a two-person team (husband/wife) who were so friendly and easy to work with. We paid them between 2-3k (i can’t remember now) and got our full wedding day covered, including more than 700 pictures, and a fine art album designed by one of the photographers. Most packages also include engagement photos and/or a bridal session, but we had a friend take our engagement photos so they knocked a bit off our price. Honestly though, that’s the best money we spent on the whole wedding.
The other major amount of money we spent was on the food. We didn’t do a DJ, and the whole wedding/reception was out in a park, so we wanted to do something that sort of livened up the atmosphere – so we hired a food truck to cater. That cost us about the same as the photographer did, all of our guests raved about the food, and to me that was totally worth it.
In the end, we just really wanted our wedding to reflect us, we picked the things we knew were very important to us, and figured out how to fit the rest into our budget. I bought my dress on etsy, made my own veil, and my husband (who definitely spent more than i did on his clothes) bought items he has been able to wear over and over again. We rented chairs, blew up balloons, and purchased several vintage or vintage-inspired yard games, some of which we resold, and some we kept.
I have no regrets! Even the things that went wrong weren’t such a big deal in the end, and it was a perfect day. At the end of the day, you’re married, no matter what else happens. 🙂
I LOVE THE FOOD TRUCK IDEA! Unfortunately, I don’t think that will be feasible for us, but I do love it so very much. I’m so glad you did it! I’m considering making my own veil (unless I can get it for free in this after-Thanksgiving sale I am going to.
We’re torn on three places- partially because of food-one venue has “fun” food, another we know has good food, the third has good food too, but different atmosphere. so many decisions. Thanks so much for sharing your day with me!
I agree: DO NOT SKIMP ON PICTURES! Nathan’s parents hired a friend of theirs without running it by us – we ended up with a horrible photographer (horrible as in he was rude and as in he had no skill whatsoever!), TWO pictures out of the hundreds that he took that we actually liked – and he didn’t know how to edit anything, so yeah. I keep saying we were going to get retakes but it’s been five years already … maybe we’ll get a decent photographer when we renew our vows 🙂
We did a lot of things ourselves to save money – we made a lot of our own decorations, centrepieces, etc. and decorated the reception hall ourselves. Nathan’s cousins used to be part of a catering company so they helped! We designed and put together our own invitations too. The biggest expense was by far the food!
Yeah, I’m definitely going to focus in on pictures, especially since we have so many photo albums/scrapbooks, etc already of our time together. Pictures are important to us. Now to find a photographer!!