$10,000 For A Wedding? Not In My Family!

They say that June is the month for brides, but there seems to be more weddings in all the summer months than there used to be.

Lately, I have seen a trend that makes me very sad --- the bride demanding a costly wedding, no matter what sacrifices her family may have to make in order to provide it. It is HER wedding, and she is determined to make it a production that none of her guests will ever forget. I think this is not only a foolish waste of money, but it makes one wonder if a person so self centered and selfish with her family, will carry those traits over into her marriage.

I have read articles that describe $10,000 as a bare minimum to do a passable wedding, and that $20,000 is really a much better goal to shoot for.

I say, Hogwash!

A wedding is, or should be, an intimate pact between two people who have committed their lives to one another, witnessed by a few of their very closest relatives and friends. Does anyone really have to invite 250 plus wedding guests and treat them to a wedding dinner of filet mignon and imported Champaign?

First, we started early. About 6 months early.

We ordered engraved invitations at a small stationery store for less than $50. A roll of stamps for mailing the invitations set us back a few more dollars.

I made my daughter’s wedding dress, the bridesmaids’ dresses, and flowergirl’s dress. If you do not sew, ask around to see if some of your friends have had experience at this kind of thing.

The dresses were beautiful. The bride’s dress was of white lace over lustrous white satin, and had a fashionable zig-zag pattern at the bottom. The bridesmaids wore daytime length dresses of rose colored lace over satin, as did the flowergirl. The bridesmaids’ dresses cost less than $35 each, and the wedding dress, less than $100.

Because we kept our guest list to about 75 people, we were able to use the small church we attended for a small rental and cleanup fee of $50. Many summer weddings are held in parks, or in home gardens and costs for this kind of arrangement would be even less.

For the bride, I glued silk roses, rosebuds, and greenery to a large fan and attached flowing, rose colored ribbons to the bottom. The bride’s attendants carried smaller fans with similar silk flower and ribbon arrangements.

For larger displays, I used leftover lace from the wedding gown to stretch over huge embroidery hoops. Then, silk flower arrangements were glued onto the lace. These hoops, about 20 inches in diameter, were hung along a wall of the church. The bride, after the ceremony, presented each Mother and Grandmother with one of the hoops as a keepsake to hang on her wall. The whole flower projects came to less than $200.

Some artificial flower arrangements were provided by the church. (Always ask. You'd be surprised at what most churches have lying around unused.)

Today, especially for a summer wedding, I would probably go with real flowers since they are so abundant at this time of year. There are even online places to buy flowers so you can save time and money looking. One such place, Dot Flowers, has a huge variety to choose from at very competitive prices, and they promise prompt service.

We ordered a gorgeous wedding cake from Albertsons, for $125. It was several tiers high, and looked as good as any catered cake we had ever seen. The church provided tables in their multi-purpose room where the guests gathered after the ceremony to partake of wedding cake, punch, and a few candy mints and nuts. No fancy reception was scheduled, but no one seemed to miss it.

The photographer was from the yellow pages, but we did go to view some of his pictures. His ability to catch just the right poses impressed us, so we bought a fairly reasonable package for $250 with the right to order additional pictures later. This was one of the most expensive items for the wedding. If we had had a photographer friend, we might have eliminated most of this expense, but, all in all, we were quite satisfied.

Shortly before the ceremony took place, the bride presented her three attendants with small individual baskets of their favorite toiletries. I recently saw a web release about Gift Baskets, an online company where you can order specialty baskets for special people, and thought that might have been a nice touch, and have saved a lot of time in making selections for the individual young ladies. We could still have stayed under our $1000 budget and had a little to spare.

There were, of course, the usual honorariums for the minister who performed the ceremony, the organist, who played the beautiful music, and the soloist, who turned out to be the perfect choice.

Please, if you are the bride-to-be, enjoy your wedding, but don’t do it at the expense of your parents’ future. Give a lot of thought to the planning of that wedding. Is your goal really to stage the extravaganza of the year, for the benefit of all of your friends, or to exchange simple and meaningful vows with the person you love?

Make your wedding the kind of event that you and every member of your family will remember with joy.