Wedding in less than 2 months

Can I just say how flipping sick I am of trying find solutions for all the things I need for my wedding and the only thing out there are pictures of $250,000.00 weddings?! How is that helpful to me at all? It seems like every wedding site on the internet is very eager to be liberal with MY money. Watching those wedding TV shows isn't any help either. I just watched an episode where there WAS NO BUDGET. Hello! I'm planning a wedding with a guy who's original budget was FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. I think I need it reigned in a little.

Last night I got some catalogue called "Exclusively Weddings" which might as well be titled, "Nothing you actually NEED.' Do I NEED 7 kinds of frosted beer mugs and 23 kinds of totes for my wedding party? DO I NEED IT!?

I'm freaking out here.

Wedding Under $2,500.00 - The Caterer

We knew right from the beginning that we wanted to have a BBQ for our wedding menu. At first, looking for a caterer was awesome! We went to every BBQ restaurant and every Hawaiian restaurant and cart within 25 miles of our home. If you're wanting to know which was the best I'll tell you as a side note. Goldies BBQ in Vancouver, WA is the best BBQ. Noho's Hawaiian in Portland, OR and Da Kine Cafe in Vancouver, WA are the best Hawaiian places around.

But I digress. Although they are very affordable places to dine, the catering menus were outside of our budge. I was struggling to get the food that I wanted for under $10 a person. That's when I approached my mom. These were my questions.

Can you make a BBQ dinner for 100 people at or under $10 per person? Are you willing to work the food station for the wedding? Will that ruin your experience of my wedding?"

Mom came back with the answer that she could make a BBQ dinner for 100 people at $6.00 a person, and if she had some help, it would be just fine for her to spend 2 hours of the reception serving food. This was awesome news! And since Travis's mom was the cook at the Police Station, she is just the kind of help my mom was looking for. With their food-service know-how it should be a cinch for them. My Aunt will be visiting for the Summer and she is also willing to help. Everything will be set up buffet style and with all the help everything should go smoothly on the wedding day.

Here is the menu:

• Pulled Pork Sandwiches
• Hotdogs
• Coleslaw
• Potato Salad
• Pasta Salad
• Baked Beans
• Sliced Watermelon
• Iced Tea
• Punch

It's pretty much the same menu we were going to use when our budget was much higher; slightly tweaked.

For dessert we are using the wedding cake. It seems obvious, but some people don't do that. My sister can make some mini cheesecakes for about $1 each. If we can get the price down to .50 each by buying in bulk, and I have enough left over in my budget, I might add those to the dessert menu.

I am also trying to trim down the cost of the wedding menu by asking a few people to bring menu items as potluck dishes. The punch is being made by my Bridesmaid, and my future mother-in-law is making both the potato salad and the pasta salad. Hopefully that is enough to make a dent in the cost.

Wedding Under $2,500.00 - The DJ

I kept holding out hope that I would be able to afford a DJ. Even with the savings I had with the dress and alterations, I still don't have enough for a quality DJ. I have enlisted the help of my youngest brother who is very computer and music savvy - a great combination.

Meet my DJ

I have spent at least 3 days loading this bad boy up with songs and separating them into playlists. My playlists are numbered and labeled so they will be easy for my brother to identify.

• WED1 - Prelude
  • 5 songs
  • 16 minutes
• WED2 - Processional
  • 1 song
  • 3 minutes
• WED3 - Bride Entrance
  • 1 song
  • 4 minutes
WED4 - You May Now Kiss The Bride
• 1 song
• 4 minutes
• WED5 - First Dance
  • 1 song
  • To Be Determined
• WED6 - Reception
  • Currently 39 songs
  • Currently 2.2 hours
  • Needs to be doubled at least

Creating the playlists aren't difficult, but they are time consuming. And since I have been listening to love songs for 3 days straight, and working them into my wedding, I have been nonstop teary-eyed. It turns out that I didn't have enough love songs or wedding appropriate songs in my music collection already and so I have been on the search for songs that I hadn't thought of or don't own. I have been using Pandora internet radio for that. I created a station called "wedding music" and it is working great. Some of the songs are a little sappy for my tastes, but there are a lot of great ideas and wonderful songs that I have either heard for the first time or been reminded of. I wish that I could skip songs more frequently though. I may upgrade to the ad-free version just for a month so I can get through the songs a little faster.

So far this is proving to be a real money saver. By the time we get to the reception, my brother will be able to put the last playlist on shuffle and join the party. Pretty sweet deal!

Wedding under $2,500.00 - The dress

I bought my wedding dress! I paid a whopping $89.00 for it. It fits perfect and doesn't need any alterations. I bought it off the rack so it will need a clean and a steam.

What's my secret for the inexpensive wedding gown? I bought a bridesmaid dress! The consultant at David's Bridal said that it is sold more as a wedding gown than as a bridesmaid dress, and I can see why. It's an ivory color, that most Brides probably wouldn't want their bridesmaids to wear. It's very subtle and informal, which is perfect for our weekday afternoon wedding in the park!

Wedding under $2,500 - the venue

It turns out that the $6,000 wedding is a little too rich for my blood. I am scaling it back over 50% and doing the wedding for $2,500.

I have reserved a charming little picnic shelter at a local park for $100. The rental is good from 7am the day of the even until dusk when the park closes. It is in a secluded area, near parking, and it looks like its made of Lincoln logs. I like the look of it a lot more than a grange hall because it gives us the "barn wedding" feel we were looking for without the steep price.

The restrooms are near, but behind a line of trees so they won't be in any of the pictures. And I saved so much on the location that we are getting a bouncy house for the kids!

I am also paying $20 for a permit from the county to have a special event in the park. That covers the wedding, reception, and the bouncy house. It even lets us have a champagne toast when alcohol usually isn't allowed in the park, but we haven't decided if we are begging to take advantage did that yet.

Wedding under $2,500. Oh yes, I think I will.

Wedding Under $6,000.00 - The Dress

You get engaged - or in my case - your boyfriend merely mentions the words "marriage" or "wedding" and you lose your flipping mind. You buy a bunch of wedding magazines and flip through the pages over and over and over, just in case you missed something. All the while being bombarded with high end product, some of which you don't even need.

Let's face it, it's hard to shop for a wedding dress when you've been spending months looking at designer gowns worn by models. Can I squeeze my lumpy, stumpy body into a strapless mermaid gown? It's probably physically possible. And while you do want to look beautiful on your wedding day, isn't it possible to do it without spending a few grand? Yes!

I've never been a fan of short wedding dresses. To me, they just don't look like wedding dresses. But then I saw this cute little number and I swear it spoke to me. Maybe I am going a little nut-so from working with the budget all week, but I'm telling ya, this is the one.

This dress is under $600! And I LOVE it... in my HEART. And I can't wait to wear it and dance in it. A great thing about short dresses, I have realized, is that they are a great opportunity to show off your SHOES.

Wedding under $6,000.00 - Food and Venue

Although my original wedding budget was $5,000.00 I decided that I would probably need to budget in an extra $1,000.00 for unforeseen circumstances, impulse buying, general loss of mind, and possibly a day of coordinator to hold it all together. I have increased my budget to $6,000.00, but if I can cut savings anywhere, I won't be reallocating them back into the budget.

First off, my mom has agreed to do the food. I'm sure she will enlist some help from friends and family members so she doesn't have to work all day on my wedding day. We decided to have the following menu buffet style:

• Pulled Pork Sandwiches
• Hot Dogs
• Baked Beans
• Potato Salad
• Coleslaw
• Cornbread
• Seasonal Fruit Salad
• Lemonade
• Southern Sweet Tea

If it sounds a little rustic and down-home; that's because it is. We have been looking around at several BBQ joints for catering. The least expensive we could find was $14.75 a head and it was just for drop off, not full catering. My mom says she can do this for $6.50 a head, but I think that is too good to be true so I budgeted it at $7.75 a head. Again, if I can save anything on it, I won't be reallocating it back into the budget. It will go right back into the savings account from whence it came.

The Marshall Center

An all day event at "Portland's Best New Wedding Venue, 2011", The Foundry At Lake Oswego? Whoa, yeah, that was our first pick. Did we want to have a wedding on a Tuesday in October so we could afford it, or would we rather have our family and friends available to join us? We're going with the guests.

Bouncy Houses, Swimming Pools, and Paddle Boat rides at Alderbrook Park? We wanted all that too. It's not totally un-affordable, if you don't mind sharing the park with a million other people. And hey, for a cool $10,000 you can have the whole park to yourself for the day. I'm unwilling to blow my budget on the place. I decided that a grange hall or community center like The Marshall Center in Vancouver, WA would work just as well and cost a lot less. $120.00 an hour, a refundable deposit and a full kitchen are awesome! Even better is the stage and piano that are included! Perfect wedding venue for us and it fits in our budget.

Why I Want to Elope

I don't even have a ring on it yet and I am already calling it quits on wedding planning. I'm a smart girl and capable of planning many a shin-dig, but I just can't deal with this wedding stuff... No matter how casual I try to make it, I just can't stay under $5,000. Just to try to ease my mind I googled "what does the average wedding cost for 100 people". It was my expectation that the average wedding would cost $100 per person and therefore, $10,000. All I would have to do is cut that in half. Boy, was I wrong. After several attempts at rewording my Google search bar the verdict was in. The average person spends $29,000 on their wedding. AVERAGE person. That's the average! I can imagine it. I can certainly imagine having an exquisite wedding of my dreams. A charming barn house wedding with twinkle lights and pony rides and endless food and drink and music and dancing. The problem is that I could barely cover the venue alone with the price range I am working in. So I started to think, what is the most important thing on my wedding day.... Marrying the right person. I have already married the wrong person, and had the wedding with the flowers and the music and the open bar and whatever whatever. It's clear to me that the amount you spend on your wedding in no way reflects the happiness you will have in your marriage. I would rather have a lifetime of happiness with the right person than one fabulous party. That doesn't mean that I don't want a wedding at all. I do. (no pun intended, but well done.)I want to be able to share the beginning of my marriage with my family and my friends. But why do I have to pay so much for it? The minute you start looking for a wedding the price of everything sky rockets. Is it too much to ask that I start my marriage with a little cash left in my pocket? I just want to run away from all this senseless spending! I want to stand on a beach, or in a field, or on a little hill and marry my best friend in front of my closest family and friends. Then I want to eat some BBQ and jump in a pool. Why does that have to cost so much? I wish I knew someone with a BBQ pit and a pool. I could make it well worth their while and still save a big lump of cash.