The day you became engaged was one of the most exciting days of your life. You’ll never forget looking into the eyes of the love of your life as he knelt on one knee in front of you and held the ring up. You felt like you were in a whirlwind of emotion, excited, nervous, and happy all at the same time. However, now that you’ve ecstatically announced your engagement to your families, your friends, and even that random person you shared the elevator with, you feel like you’re floating. You have a big guest list and a tiny bank account – what do you do now?
After all, there’s a reason that most brides have earned the reputation of turning into a “bridezilla” during the planning stage. Flowers, invitations, and food costs mixed with the added stress of family drama, stubborn bridesmaids and additional hours at work to pay for the wedding would make anyone crack. I’m not saying it’s okay to turn into a bridezilla yourself, though. No one wants to be remembered as “the girl who went crazy,” and weddings are one of the top times best friends and brides split. To avoid becoming that bride-to-be, though, you need to remember that there are some things that really aren’t that important, no matter how much they seem to matter now.
Be Prepared to Adapt
While every new, happily engaged couple dreams of having everything perfect for their special day, the reality is that some things might not go according to plan. The average cost of a wedding is a whopping twenty thousand dollars! Depending on where you live – for example, if you live in New York – that price can skyrocket to an astounding seventy thousand dollars. That’s more than the deposit required when you buy an average-sized house! This causes a lot of couples to start their future together in debt, causing tensions and grudges and planting the seeds for divorce later on. Placing wedding costs into perspective, then, what do you want to remember about your marriage or your wedding when you look back fifty years from now? Do you want your stomach to coil in guilt and apprehension, remembering The Flower Fight, or do you want to remember staring into the eyes of the person you love, saying “I do?” What really matters about this most important day is your relationship, and the promise you’re making to the other person. In the end, your love is more important than lace or the colour of a flower.
Get Beauty and Elegance without Looking Cheap
You don’t have to worry. While there may be some aspects of the event that you’ll have to compromise on due to cost, there are actually a number of ways you can save money on your wedding without compromising on style, cost, or elegance and looking, well, cheap. An example of one of these things is wedding invitations. Making your own invitations can save you hundreds of dollars. The average cost of invites is $500.00 – imagine being able to put three or four hundred dollars of that amount on your honeymoon or towards your new home instead! What most people don’t realize is that on top of that base cost for the invitations are hidden costs, too – which you won’t be expecting, but you’ll definitely be expected to pay – such as postage stamps or shipping, depending on the size and weight of your package and where your family members and close friends live. If you want to look classy, don’t give them out by hand – mailing your invites is much more stylish. Part of the excitement of being invited to the wedding of someone who’s important to you is receiving the beautiful invitation by snail mail, especially because messages are just sent by text and email now.
Wow Your Guests, Wedding Party, and Love
What’s great about making your own is that it can be cost effective if you form the right plan and the right wedding party to help you. Actually, DIY wedding invitations offer the most flexibility if you’re feeling creative. In fact, you don’t even have to feel creative to bring your dream wedding invitation to life for fewer dollars. There are a variety of apps and programs that can design the invitations for you, or you could host a girl’s night, uncork the champagne and ask your bridesmaids to help you brainstorm a list of ideas. Then to achieve the beautiful, elegant looking invitations you want, find a website, for example, that sends you all of the pieces and a template for the invitation design you want. Choose from lace, ribbons, flowers, elegant fonts, and a variety of colours. Most offer a pre-designed template online, or you can design your own and pay per piece. They then ship you everything you need. You save money because you assemble them yourselves, and it gives your bridal party a great chance to bond. You can put on your favourite music or your favourite chick flick, pass around the invitation pieces, form an assembly line, and get to work. Your invitations will be completed and beautiful before you know it.
Of course, weddings and groups of girls can be a recipe for disaster, especially if two of your bridesmaids like to be the boss or are know-it-alls. Give each girl a duty, be it gluing flowers, tying ribbons, or licking hundreds of stamps. That particular aspect of invitation-making will be their specialty, making each girl feel like an expert. If anyone has any questions, you can look online from the place you ordered them from for a tutorial. What’s even better is that isn’t just a one-time project for the bridal party. You can do the same for your menus, table plans, programs, or anything else, choosing matching colours and a matching style. In the end, you’ll save thousands of dollars on the cost of your wedding. When you look back on the day, you’ll remember beauty, teamwork, and love.