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A beautiful (budget) bride!

By Sydney's Bargain Queen, Sara. August 30, 2007. Advice, Formal, News, Shopping, Style

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wedding dress imageToday’s guest post comes from Sabrina from New Zealand, who’s about to get married. Congrats Sabrina!

Kia ora,

I am totally behind your “Stop $30,000+ weddings” campaign! I came across your site just a few days ago and couldn’t agree more with your posts or the readers’ comments.

My partner and I keep coming up with ideas of how to cut costs but still have a gorgeous wedding, because we think it is wrong to spend the same amount that many people earn in a year on one day!

Some of our ideas so far are:

  • Bridal party: My brother, and my partner’s brother and sister. Three people instead of six or eight!
  • Dresses: I will get my dress made at a suburban dressmakers (I will only be wearing it on one day for a few hours!), and my sister-in-law’s bridesmaid dress from a High St store when they start stocking ball dresses (from $130). Or I might find a pretty bridesmaid dress to wear myself: they are normally about $400 as opposed to $1,000+!
  • Suits: we are going to ask the groomsmen to wear black suits and white shirts that they already have, and provide them with matching ties and boutonnieres. It really doesn’t matter if the suits aren’t exactly the same!
  • I am going to do my own nails and makeup (this will save about $150-$200!), and wear jewellery that I already have which has sentimental value.
  • We will drive to the ceremony in cars we own, nicely cleaned and decorated of course!
  • We are limiting our guest list to 60 people max. It is more important for us to be able to celebrate properly with our guests than have a huge crowd there.

We are also very lucky because we know people with diverse skills who are able to help us out:

  • My mother will do the flowers (bought wholesale!)
  • My sister-in-law is very artistic, and we have asked her to design the invitations and programs.
  • Some friends of ours are classical musicians, so they will play music at the ceremony.
  • A family friend is a professional photographer (very lucky!)
  • My brother trained as a chef and he will whip up something resembling a wedding cake.

I refuse to believe that I will look horrible just because I didn’t spend $3,000 on a dress, or that we didn’t have a “proper” wedding because we didn’t spend up large on ice sculpture swans.

I couldn’t agree more, Sabrina!

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Comments

Nadine said,

August 30, 2007 @ 9:11 am

Go Sabrina! I would love to see pictures once it’s all over - does your photographer friend have a website/blog?

Sara Goldstein said,

August 30, 2007 @ 9:20 am

I second that request for photos — yes please!

t said,

August 30, 2007 @ 10:16 am

excellent! this sounds excatly what i want mine to be like. can i ask - are you holding it in a reception centre, a church, outdoors, etc? did you splurge on the venue cost or not?

Meg said,

August 30, 2007 @ 2:26 pm

Ours was definitely a budget wedding, though no one would have guessed it. One thing I wish I had done, though, was to get my makeup done professionally. I tried using my normal makeup, but for the big day it takes some extra ‘wow’. In addition, a good professional makeup artist knows what types of makeup to use when there’s going to be a lot of photographs. I had my makeup done for a photo shoot this summer and it was weird seeing the difference between mirror and photo because what looked a bit heavy in the mirror looked fabulous in photos. If only I had known my makeup artist friend when I got married. He did my graduation makeup for free even though I had just met him the day before. It also turned out great.

My advice to brides… take time to meet and greet at local makeup counters. Don’t pay just to try things, though. Make friends and hopefully you’ll find someone who’s really talented and willing to do your makeup for the big day for cheap or free.

KC said,

August 30, 2007 @ 2:39 pm

Wow, your ideas and plans for your wedding sound just wonderful. Your approach is just refreshing!!! My hubby’s cousin (let’s call him K) and his wife to be (we’ll call her T) are spending well over $35,000 for their wedding which is at the end of Jan 2008. T is a totally spoiled bridezilla. I will be very honest…I think K is making a big mistake by marrying T. All she talks about is money and how much this wedding is costing and has made hints that she is expecting at least $300-400 per couple for their wedding gifts. How rude is that! She has already said they are treating like a business and expect to profit from the gifts. They have invited 250 people. A single wedding ring is not enough for her…she’s wants 2 and is getting what she wants…they cost $2000 each! Oh, it gets even better. T brags all the time about what each part of the wedding is costing such as: $3500 for pictures, $5300 for honeymoon, $3000 for a fancy dessert table. She has never even tried to save any money on anything. Here is the big kicker, neither K nor T make a lot of money. Well, they are sweet talking K’s parents and T’s mother for the majority of the money to pay for their wedding. I also know for a fact that neither of the parents/parent can afford to do this. The parents are either remourtaging their homes or borrowing against their 401K’s to help pay for this expensive wedding. Look, I have no problem if you can afford and pay for an expensive wedding, more power to you. But if you truly cannot, don’t pretend you can. I am not looking forward to going to this wedding…can you tell? I much rather attend yours because yours is going to be a million times better!!! You don’t need to spend outragous money to have a beautiful wedding. Congrat to the two of you and best wishes. Please post pics if you can.

Sara Goldstein said,

August 30, 2007 @ 3:01 pm

KC: It sounds like T is treating the wedding as her chance to be someone she’s usually not, i.e. the princess who gets exactly what she want, cost be damned…

Maybe she hopes that’s how the marriage turns out too… poor K! :)

Meg said,

August 31, 2007 @ 6:31 am

K.C.,

T is going to get a rude awakening when she finds out what she really gets for wedding gifts - if anyone even bothers, considering her attitude. Those that did give us monetary gifts, generally gave $20-50. One very wealthy family member gave $200. Many guests gave gifts that were worth less than $20, but of course that didn’t bother me. Our parents gave us some nice gifts of course, but sounds like her parents are going to be tapped out for a long, long time.

I just can’t imagine why she thinks that the gifts will be so large.

Sabrina Muck said,

August 31, 2007 @ 7:35 am

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your comments! Having my e-mail as a guest post on this website is really exciting :) Thanks Sara!

The pics might be a while in the making, because we are not getting married until roughly this time next year, but thank you for your interest and your kind words.

t, we are planning to have the wedding in a small church in the countryside north of Auckland, and then the reception at a funky little restaurant which we often go to. It is laid-back and casual with delicious food, but still the reception will probably be our biggest cost - we’ll try not to go overboard though!

Meg, thanks for your make-up tips. I agree, normal make-up in photos looks like you’re not wearing any! So something for me to keep in mind… :D
KC…oh dear. I think we all know someone like the woman you’re talking about, and it just makes me cringe! It is so sad when your wedding day becomes all about materialism/consumerism. I’m not really comfortable with the whole “gifts for getting married” thing (although I know it is a long-established tradition!) I would really love it if our guests made donations to charity or bought Oxfam gifts (i.e. goats/sacks of grain/bicycles for people who need them). We have so much, and although we certainly appreciate people’s generosity, I can’t help but feel we don’t really need more glassware, towels, vases, mugs etc.

Thanks again, it is great to read everyone’s comments!

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