Working on My Wedding!

I have been neglecting my blog lately because I have been busy working on my wedding (vow renewal). I am down to just under one year before the big day! I was thinking maybe I should share my money saving tips and tricks. I am on a tight budget, but really want things to be nice.

We have all seen how beautiful and over the top weddings are now. In fact my favorite wedding planner is David Tutera and you can't get more over the top than that.

I had the big dreams of big centerpieces, gold chargers, draping fabric, chair covers and on and on and on... Ummm.. my budget didn't allow for any of those things;( When I started pricing venues, rentals, flowers, centerpieces and yes, gold chargers etc. my budget of $5000 was completely blown and I hadn't even gotten to food, wedding cake, DJ, drinks, dress, photographer or anything else. I decided if I couldn't have what I wanted I just wasn't going to get my "big wedding", besides we were already married. We had a simple courthouse wedding, but don't we all dream of the fancy dress and dancing the night away?

Just when I thought there was no hope, I started googling "all inclusive wedding venue packages". I learned that I could have my dream wedding with all the bells and whistles if I went with one of these all inclusive locations because weddings are ALL they do. We scheduled a tour of Cafe267 and it was everything I imagined for my wedding! All inclusive really means all inclusive. It includes the on site ceremony, choice of decor (gold chargers included), lounge, hors d' oeuvres, dinner, cocktails, DJ, photographer, cake and day of planner. All you do is show up a couple hours ahead of time with your favors or your own added touches and your dress! They had several different packages to choose from at different budget levels. Best of all you can make monthly payments! That was a blessing for us since we don't happen to have a few thousand dollars just laying around. We chose to go with a package that didn't include a photographer because my sister is an incredible photographer! Also, I do photo editing, so I figure I can get some great shots from the guests thanks to digital cameras and do my magic. We also decided to have our wedding on a Friday evening. Not only was it a thousand dollars cheaper, but all of our guests are coming from out of state, so we figured it would be a way to free up Saturday for sight seeing.

Pictures we took during our tour.