Ok,ladies, here goes. You can make this happen. It is not necessary to spend all of your hard earned cash on your big day. You can save the money for a down payment on a home, or purchase furniture for your new home, or, even to start a small family business. If you count your pennies, and think everything through, you can plan an unforgettable wedding for under five thousand us dollars.
Wedding Venue - Your Biggest Expense
Home Wedding. Wait. Not your home or his, unless he's wealthy and has a mansion with a winding stair case. For your special day, you can "rent" a villa, probably on the beach if you live near the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. If you live in the middle of the US, you can rent an expensive vacation home, which will work just as well. Rent the property for three nights, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with departure for late Monday morning.
Cost: $900 a night for 3 nights = $2700, (Does not include the deposit, which you should get back) Sleeps 18+ people, more with sleeping bags. For this amount of money, you should have a villa or home, with a pool and a sauna. Make sure you have a responsible adult to watch the pool area when children are playing.No one should sleep in the master bedroom on Friday night. Make it a slumber party for the wedding party, guys in one room, girls in another.
Depending you your taste, you can have the wedding inside or out. Depends on the location, the weather and your choice.
If the carpet is really light colored, or the villa is a beach front property, you may want to suggest a "no shoes" policy, after all getting your deposit back is an important part of the wedding plan.
Wedding Dress
Affordable Options: What about making your own dress? Signing up for a sewing class, and making your own dress is doable. Or you can find beautiful dresses, online, for under $500. And of course there is that online site, where brides re-sell weddings gowns which they may not have worn, because they purchased two wedding gowns.
Cost: $500. Don't forget the shoes! ($1800 remaining)
Flowers for the Big Day
Six months to a year before the big day, go to the hardware store and purchase planters. You are going to grow the flowers for your big day. It is best to select a flower that you can grow well in the region which you live. And a flower that will refrigerate well when transported to the wedding destination. This is NOT a major issue, if you can't accomplish this task, you can ask a green thumb family member, or you can budget in the cost of flowers.
Food for the Reception
Everybody that you love will cook a dish. This will be a buffet! The trick here is to visit your local dollar store and purchase 30 or so identical dishes which the food can be served from. This will make your buffet table look professional, Get a book on how to make a buffet table beautiful with very little money. And don't forget to purchase around 50 large bottles of soda. (In California they have the 3 Liter Bottles of Soda for $1.00 each) The Sprit sodas can be mixed in with punch and fruit for a wonderful beverage.
While you are at the dollar store, you can find all sorts of decorations for the big day. Your table should be set in whatever color that you like, and that the dollar store has available. (Try to match the decor of the villa) The table cloth, matching paper plates, spoons, knives, etc are ok, especially if you have the actual wedding outside. You should also be able to find all the wedding notions, such as champagne glasses, knife to cut the cake, etc, at the dollar store.
Cost: $400 ($1400 left)
Now Head Over to the Wine Discount Warehouse Store
Purchase 2 to 3 cases of sparking champagne, to mixed into the punch. Make the punch as strong as possible. The drunker you can get the guest, the more they will enjoy themselves. And when guest can feel a buzz, at no extra cost to them, your wed
Cost $100 ($1300 remaining in your wedding account) (Cheap sparkling wine/campaign, but not too cheap)
Entertainment
For $900 a night, the villa, or vacation rental should have a dynamic music system. All that you will need is a pre-taped music DVD.
For this you can go to your local DJ and ask him or her to create your special wedding and entertainment music DVD,to include the wedding march, wedding song, before the wedding music, first dance as husband and wife and dance music for the reception.
Cost $200 ($1100 left) You will set the entire tone for your big week-end by the music you select. .
Invitations (Free)
Facebook. Have a special Fan Page designed where guest can "like your page" and say yes to your invitation. Register yourself for a Honeymoon Travel Package, so rather then receive gift, allow your guest to help you with your Honeymoon cost.
Is it ok to invite people to your weeding using Facebook? Why Not! For the older crowd, you might have to send them a hand written note about the wedding, date, and location. (Allow around $20 for this task and place under Misc)
Be sure to add the location on the FB wedding invite page.
Flowers, Photos, Wedding Cake and Misc.
Ok, so you didn't do well when it came to growing your own flowers. You have approximately $1100 remaining in you wedding account.
First things first, you will need to pay two teenagers to clean the villa, (or you won't get your deposit back) after the Saturday afternoon wedding. Then of course you can budget for your wedding cake. Wedding cakes can be expensive so shop around and even consider learning how to bake your own wedding cake.
Don't forget the cost of fuel to the villa, or vacation rental home, some real booze to calm your nerves, gifts for the bridesmaid and ushers, and any additional cost that may arise. Plus you will need food for snacks for Friday night, and Saturday morning. Don't forget extra tissue. Guest may want to drive up Friday night or come early Saturday morning, it depends on how you schedule the week-end
You can slip your future brother-in-law a $50 and ask him to take official wedding pictures. To make sure you have a lot of good pictures from the wedding, ask everyone take pictures at the wedding and post to your wedding Facebook page And don't forget the minister.
The important thing, is NOT to over spend. Part of the fun is having a great wedding without going over Five thousand dollars.
Enjoy your honeymoon. If you choose not to do your honeymoon right away, you can put everyone out of the villa by 11:00 am on Sunday morning and after the house is cleaned, you and yours can get started on the honeymoon until late Monday morning. In the near future, be sure to check the Xica Love Story Blog for more postings on how to have a luxury wedding and honeymoon for free!
You can find short and free love stories at http://xicalovestories.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment