The Oblivious Bride – Budgeting Blues

2 Written by jenny on May 24, 2010 – 5:00 am

Weddings are expensive.

It’s like buying a brand new car that you’ll drive for one day.  I like the car analogy because every couple is different.  Some like to splurge on a one-of-a-kind Aston Martin while others are happy with a Chevy Aveo.  I also like the analogy because it is important to know what you can realistically afford.

My fiancé and I are both paying off graduate school loans and don’t have a lot of money to throw around.  In the end, you could say we’re looking at a Toyota Camry.  But since we are having a large wedding (and we really can’t imagine cutting down our guest list at all), we know that we will need to be very creative to pull this off.

To really grasp where the money will be spent and to figure out how to make this wedding work on our tight budget, I started with a spreadsheet template I found through Google Docs – http://docs.google.com/wedding .  They teamed with Style Me Pretty to provide a wide selection of useful tools including a Wedding Budget Estimator.  The estimator was a great place to start as we could begin discussing our priorities and shifting our money from one item to another.

For example, I can’t imagine spending thousands of dollars on a wedding dress that I will wear one time.  I don’t mind finding a beautiful used dress or bypassing the name brands.  I do, however, want my guests to have a great time.  So I reduced my dress budget and funneled that money towards the reception.  Chris and I continued to go down the list and decide where we would splurge (shuttle transportation for our guests so they don’t drink & drive) and where we would spend less (traditional stationary – most of our friends work in the tech sector so we will utilize the web whenever possible).  There are still many details to work out, but we have given ourselves some constraints to work with.

Capturing the Memories

I consider myself a practical girl, and there have been times where I’ve considered taking all the money for a wedding and putting it towards our first home.  But while the house will last longer than the wedding, the memories of our wedding will last forever.  For this reason, many people encourage splurging on the photographer.  Photographs document the day’s events and going through them will also help you relive the memory of your wedding day.

However, I’ve also heard good arguments for the other side.  I know a couple who has been married for 4 years and haven’t even picked up their professional photos.  My own parents have a few (less than 10) beautiful posed pictures of their wedding day which they framed and placed in a photo album, but they rarely look at it themselves.  I have heard of several couples who adore their photos, yet the album simply picks up dust on the bookshelf.

I think I land somewhere in the middle.  I definitely want a professional photographer to take our posed pictures, but I think my friends and family will take wonderful candid shots throughout the day.  Working for The Wedding Lens, I know that I’ll be able to collect all these photos and find a few gems that I will treasure forever.  So the plan for now is to hire a professional photographer for the minimum amount of time, focusing mostly on posed photos with the bridal party and family.  Then, we will supplement the professional photographer with photos taken by our friends and family over the course of the evening.

A New Direction

On a related note, while Natasha and I will continue to contribute articles on general wedding planning, we are going to focus our attention more on capturing your wedding memories.  As your wedding memories last longer than the wedding itself, we’ll be taking an in depth look at photographers, videographers, and projects to help you document and remember your special day.

If you have a great idea on what to do with wedding photos or would like to contribute to the blog, please send me an email at jenny@theweddinglens.com.

Next Week: But She Looks Awful in Yellow!