I have a comment about the cheap weddings. I had a beautiful wedding with
200 guest catered and flowered with roses paid for the bridesmaids dress and
still spent under $2000 for it all. I looked up stuff online, talked
to other people, and even got a few books on planning your own wedding and
nothing helped me so I just did it myself.

*Bridesmaid's Dresses and Gift:* My bridesmaids were great sports for this
one... I took them all to Jo-Ann Fabrics and sent them to the pattern
section to pick out a dress they liked and could all wear, one of my
bridesmaids was only 14, one was really tall one was very short and some
were skinny, some average and even yes one a little bigger than the others.
I went and picked a fabric that I liked. I purchased 2 patterns for the same
dress (to accommodate the sizes) and the correct amount of fabric for all
the dresses, the trim zippers and the thread for under $200 for 5 dresses.
My mother in law loves to sew and was itching to get in on the wedding so I
set her to work on dresses. She wasn't the best seamstress in the world but
those patterns are pretty cut and dry and very easy to follow. Paying for
the dresses was my "gift" to them which also got rid of another expense.
I've also seen Brides buy the bridesmaids matching necklaces (doesn't have
to be expensive) as their gift to them

*Wedding Dress*: Now my wedding dress... GO SHOPPING AFTER PROM! I found an
awesome white dress that I preferred over any other wedding dress I tried on
and bought it for $5.00 yep 5 bucks for my wedding gown! All it required was
to be shorted because I'm not very graceful and didn't want my shoes getting
caught in it while I danced!

*Tiara and Veil*: I found a tiara with rhinestones on eBay but you can find
them in most craft store too. I bought a nice piece of sheer material that I
liked and some white ribbon. I cut the sheer material they length I wanted
my veil and sewed the ribbon around the edges to finish it. Then I simply
sewed the top so that it bunched up to fit between the ends of my tiara, put
eye hooks on either side and attached it to the tiara...  instant Tiara and
Veil. No one even knew I did it myself and it took me less than 1/2 an
hour... I'm not the best at sewing so if I can do this so can you!

*Tux:* Ask around at tux rental places to see who gives the best deal a lot
will offer a "free tux" for the ring bearer or the groom if all the tuxes
are rented at the same place and time. Also ask other people who they used I
got a great discount because my step uncle was friends with someone who knew
the owner of a tiny little men's shop in a tiny little local town that
happened to rent tuxes! I got the groom's tux free on top of it! The guys
did pay for the tuxes.

*Groomsman Gift*: All of the Groomsmen were Beer drinkers so I looked around
and found a really nice heavy duty set of mugs and bought a set for under
$20 I made a cute little paper tag to tie onto the handles and put them at
their place settings for the reception so they had glasses to drink beer
instead of champagne all night! They loved the glasses and still use them at
home.

*Flowers:* Okay I lucked out on that one of my mom's friend's owned a flower
shop! But I did do the flowers for a cousin's wedding for under a $100.00
that were yellow roses and lilacs. Use the expensive flower as the eye
catcher and a cheap one as filler. (Helps if the flower is in season locally
and you know someone willing to give up some of their flowers! That's how we
got most of the lilacs.) Wrap the stems with thick ribbon to make a
beautiful bouquet. Try using fake flowers for the throw bouquet. Also try a
dum-dum pop bouquet for the girls under 16 and a tootsie roll garter for the
boys! I have also done flowers for a friends wedding that were all fake
flowers and they were gorgeous. She uses the centerpieces to decorate her
home, donated the church flowers to the church as a thank you and let the
bridesmaids keep their bouquets. They still look as good as they day she got
married and that has been 7 years now. She has her bridal flowers in a
display with the candles, cake set a frame with their wedding photo, the
ring pillow and flower basket in a cabinet that just looks wonderful!

*Reception Hall:* Yep I'm a red-neck I had it in a fire hall. After checking
out all the event halls and places that a reception in November was possible
for I found a beautiful fire hall. Yep I said beautiful. This is how a lot
of volunteer fire companies raise money so they have very nice event halls.
This one had a kitchen that my caterer was able to use.  If you have the
wedding in warmer weather check out local farms, parks, and lakes a lot will
allow you to have a wedding and an out door reception for a small fee and
some of these place are breathtaking.

*Food:* I did use a caterer. She was the cheapest around and had wonderful
food. Look for a small time caterer that works out of their house. They are
usually cheaper and still make excellent food because they don't have to pay
the over head of having a building to work out of. The menu was a simple
with a buffet style set up. Green Beans, Pigs in blanket, ravioli, seasoned
potatoes, and chicken breasts.

I could have done the food much cheaper by asking friends and family to make
the dish for me, but I planned my wedding very quickly (less than 2 months)
and everyone was already busy getting ready for the holidays. I had my
wedding the weekend before Thanksgiving. I would really recommended asking
others to at least help with the cookies and appetizers if that suites you.

We had lived together for over a year before we got married so we didn't
really need anything. I asked a few people to help with things like a meat
tray, decorations, and music as a gift instead of giving us bath towels or
something we already had or didn't need.

*Music:* a friend agreed to be our DJ for free instead of giving us a gift.
In fact all of the music was on the computer all we had to do was pick our
songs and he set up the play list hooked everything up to DJ speakers and
was still able to enjoy our wedding reception.

You can rent the DJ equipment and do the same with your own computer just
use windows media player. Download your songs or rip them onto your computer
from CD. I do recommended a dry run with the DJ equipment though just to
make sure you have it all set up correctly. Helps to have someone willing to
do the announcing and monitor the computer for you.

*Bridal Shower*: We had a Halloween themed one because of the timing... It
worked out great though decorations were cheap and I used the centerpieces
as prizes for games. You can make your own food for this so easily, it was a
"lunch" shower so we served Wedding soup and croissant sandwiches. I
researched games on the internet and made up a "how well do you know the
bride" quiz myself, I printed out a master copy and one with the answers, I
took the blank master copy to a copy shop and ran off all the copies I
needed. I put a cardstock cover that said "welcome to Melissa's Bridal
Shower" on the front with a cute little poem my Dad wrote (he loves writing
little poems for stuff like that). Then I hole punched the top left corner
and strung thin ribbon in my wedding colors through the hole, tied it into a
nice bow and I had cute "programs with the games for my shower. I also a
page made of card stock printed with 2 blank recipe cards for the guests to
write down a recipe for me, they just took off the page and left it on the
table at the end of the shower. (It was written in the invitation for each
guest to bring at least 2 recipes to help build the new couples cook book!)

The girls that brought their kids brought them in costume and they had a
blast, I made up little trick or treat bags with goodies from the dollar
store to occupy them. Just some snacks and a few "party favor" type toys.

*Flower Girl and Ring Bearer:* My Daughter was my flower girl and my
cousin's son (only a few weeks younger than she is) was my ring bearer. They
were 8 and 7 months old at the time. Since it was closer to Christmas,
finding a suit for Bryar wasn't hard and I found a beautiful white
Christening Gown for Danielle very cheap at a warehouse direct type store.
My Cousin carried the two kids down the isle and she wore a pretty red top
with a black skirt so she matched the wedding party but didn't look like a
bride's maid. We considered having her push them down in a decorated
stroller but we couldn't find anyone with a double stroller so she just
carried them and sat with them up front near my parents so they could help
with the kids. I did buy them both  a toy and a photo frame to put their
picture from the wedding in.

The colors were White, Red and Black for the wedding so it was easy to find
what we needed in the right colors because of Christmas being so close. I
decorated the church with white Christmas lights and kept the light in the
sanctuary low during the ceremony. I used rose garland from the dollar store
to decorate as well. In addition to the wedding candles, a few nicely placed
pillar candles made a beautiful display. I used some pretty ribbon Christmas
bows to put on the ends of each church pew to make it look nice but still
simple.

*Last but not least a few tips for me to ANY bride...*

1. NO Bachelor or Bachelorette parties the night before the wedding... do it
at least a week in advance.

2. Take the # of people that RSVP for the reception and subtract 10% order
that much food, if you are worried about  not having enough make a few pans
of ravioli or something like that and freeze it. If needed it can be thawed
and cooked quickly. But generally 10% of your RSVP guest won't show or stay
for the food for one reason or another.

3.Keep in mind that this wedding should be a joint venture between your soon
to be hubby and you so its both your ideas that count, but try to find
tasteful alternatives when the idea is too costly for the budget.

4. MAKE A BUDGET AND STICK TO IT CLOSELY!! The last thing you want to do is
start out your new marriage in debt from the wedding. Anymore parents can't
always afford to pay for the wedding. And even if they can do you want them
to be able to spoil the grandkids or pay off the debt from the wedding!

5. Have fun and enjoy yourself, you run the biggest risk of ruining your own
wedding from stressing out over the small stuff!

6. Ask for help and assign someone to certain tasks, make sure they know
what their job is and how and when to do it. Have a meeting a few days
before the wedding so that you can be sure everyone is on track and then let
them do their job!

~M