Planning a wedding for $6K

by Becky
(Worcester, MA, US)

My fiance and I are paying for our wedding all ourselves so finding deals all the while trying to be unique and creative is our top motivation. Our wedding is over a year away but I'm already trolling the web nightly to look for deals and signing up for blogs, contests etc. We immediately kept our guest list small 50-60 max and opted not to have a bridal party. Our reception site has a chapel on the property and is 5 minutes from where we live so we are saving on a limo and possibly saving on gas for our guests - the furthest of which is 40 minutes away (and as they said on the news recently 'no relief on gas prices until about 2010'). One great thing about our reception place is that they have no additional service fee (the avg. in our area is 18% on top of our state tax).

One big way I am trying to save money is avoiding fresh flowers. Our wedding is going to have the whole sage and brown rustic feel so I'm going to be incorporating twigs/branches, silk flowers and river stones into the center piece. Most of which I can get on my parents property if need be. I also found out that that my local dollar store has a 'bulk' website http://www.dollartreedirect.com which will be handy as well. For my bouquet I was totally inspired by a huge Stargazer lily bouquet from Martha Stewart weddings. At home I already had some silk stargazer lilies and for the heck of it I picked up a $2 bouquet holder for silk flowers. I trimmed up the silk lilies with wire cutters and I was really surprised how great it turned out. I might buy a few more to fill it out which will probably cost me an extra $5 - all totaled a bouquet for $7!

For my dress...I'm not a big pouffy dress person or into the idea of shuffling around in something for half a day. My calves are one of my best features so I decided on tea length and casual. I just happen to come across a dress I really loved at an online store which is also a retail store at some malls and they had a small bridal line. The dress was on clearence and had the exact neck line and casual'ness I was looking for. I also looked around for an online coupon code and found one that worked for 20% off. I got the dress for $110 and had it in my hands 3 days later. After the wedding I will take the dress to have it dyed black for formal parties.

For our favors we are donating to the ASPCA. To go along with that I will buy a couple of containers of sugar cookie dough online and a paw print cookie cutter. My future MIL has already volunteered to take on this project a few days before the wedding.

Photographer, food and DJ are taking the majority of our budget but so far we are on track.

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Wow Becky sounds like you are on track to have the wedding of your dreams and at a great price!

Love all the details - the centerpieces and the favors sound fantastic.

Thank you for sharing your ideas, it will help other brides save money too.

Suz