This is a guest post by my fiancée Marie, a.k.a. Miss B.  We’re getting married in August 2010, and are planning a small-ish wedding on a budget.  Marie agreed to write and/or help me write a series of posts about the things we’re doing to save money on our wedding.  This is the first in that series.  I hope you all enjoy!

For as long as I can remember I’ve been planning my wedding. My earliest memory included some kind of beautiful church backdrop with cascading stairs out front that would lead my future husband and I down to a waiting horse and carriage that would whisk us off to our grand reception filled with red roses, snow flakes, glitter and white lights. From the mention of snowflakes, you may have guessed, I dreamt of a winter wonderland wedding. I would adorn a long brocade ballgown, preferably off the shoulder with minimal glitter. Instead of a veil I would be revealed to my groom by removing my white fur lined hood and regal cape. I hadn’t nailed down EVERY aspect of my wedding, but I had a vision and it included favors. For them, I would put in extra leg work and learn how to knit. I would meticulously knit a pair of mittens for each guest and cross stitch my groom’s name, as well as our wedding date on them. And, if that didn’t work out, I could always pay someone to make them for me.

I’d like to say that my wedding dreams changed when I started attending weddings after 2002, but that wasn’t so much the case. My ideas of colour schemes may have changed, and I may have no longer wished to be draped in brocade, but the root of what I determined would make my wedding spectacular remained the same. What was it? Spending lots of cash. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t consciously think “if I spend 10,000 on a wedding dress, it’ll be the best ever”. In fact none of it was conscious, it didn’t even occur to me that all of my bloom adorned decorations would have to be paid for, let alone the price.

So what has changed my wedding tune? It isn’t just the getting engaged and actually planning my own wedding. It had more to do with having to write cheques and swipe my credit card. Actually having to pay for a wedding has morphed our nuptials into stark reality. Weddings are pricey. Do they have to be? No, but that all depends on what kind of wedding you want and if you have the resources/contacts to make it happen.

So what am I getting at here? It’s about how Mr. B and I are planning our “B” wedding. No, it’s not going to be some shoddy horror movie that will become a cult classic. It will be a ceremony uniting a Mr.B and Miss.B in love, a celebration with friends and family, jars of honey for favors, with a side of bee theme. All of which will be on a budget.

I’m hesitant to call our wedding cheap, because I don’t think I am cheap (at all!!), and I hesitate to call it frugal, because we could probably be more frugal. But what we do have is a budget. Now the term budget is totally relative. One persons budget may be having to work with $50,000 and an others may be $6500.

In B land, our budget is $15,000.

In actuality, we may be two or three thousand over that. To think we could actually not go over at all, would be a little insane. We are just under a year out, there is no way we could predict exact costs due to inflation etc etc. Plus, come on, things come up. Nonetheless, we are going to try our hardest to stick with this budget by deciding what is most important to us on our wedding day (other than the two of us showing up). This is ‘oh so’ logical, and ‘oh so’ difficult to stick with.

The first thing we both agreed that was important was delicious food. The food has to be delicious at an affordable price. Next, we really wanted an “all in one” venue, one where we could have our ceremony, and reception. Approximately 99% of our guests will be coming out from of town, so we wanted to make travel as easy and enjoyable as possible. We also agreed very early on that we wanted a somewhat small affair, with no more than 100 people, which would inevitably cap costs. Beyond that Mr. B didn’t have many requests, no special suit or shoes. Perhaps his only real request was that I stick with the budget!

A couple of details that are important to me include, finding a dress I love, and getting the wedding party bouquets professionally done by a florist.

So how are we getting what we want and staying on budget? Focusing on what is important and being creative about what is less important.

We managed to find a downtown venue/restaurant that was within our budget and was a space that we both fell in love with. One other aspect we really liked was that the facility operates with a required minimum bill policy, every penny spent would go towards this. This includes our ceremony fee, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert and all drinks, as well as our day of coordinator fee. This to us was a huge score. Not only did we find a great “all in one” venue, but it also has a great downtown location that will be great sight-seeing for our guests. Moreover, the venue is large enough for 80 guests which contributes to us keeping our numbers down in more than one way!

Our venue is definitely by no means cheap, it is a higher end restaurant in the city. But what makes it work into our budget is how we are able to save money in other areas that include, but are not limited to: decoration and rental fees.  Our venue is a beautiful heritage building that is full of character, so it requires little to no decoration.  We save money here by putting decorations money towards delicious food! When we first starting planning I was looking at back drops, aisle runners, chair covers, coloured linens etc etc, and while all of it is beautiful, who is going to notice the chair cover once someone is sitting down? Next, centerpieces. Don’t get me wrong, I love a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, big luxurious blooms spilling over a milk glass vase. What else do I love? Mason jars. I’ve seen many weddings featured on various wedding websites and blogs that have used old mason jars as vases to display beautiful bouquet’s of market blooms. After a couple of trips to the Goodwill and Value Village, as well as garage sales, I have managed to collect all of the jars we will need for flower vases, as well as house candles that will be spread throughout our venue. I have over forty jars, which cost a grand total of $25. To keep our floral cost down we are going to look into ordering/buying bunches of flowers from local farmers and putting the arrangements together ourselves. As for the candles I mentioned, we picked up 48 candles for the tables from Michael’s using 50% coupons, paying less than $10 for all of them.

Not only does the restaurant provide us with a beautiful setting that will require little to no decorating, but it also saves us from various other rental fees.  We originally thought about having an outdoor BBQ type event.  What we didn’t realize was the expense of renting tables, chairs, dinner ware, and the list goes on!  At the restaurant we are provided with all dinnerware, tables/chairs and basic white linens.  This is an enormous savings when calculated-I would venture to say minimum $1000 savings.  So if you are fine with white linens and and can accept chairs of a mediocre pretty factor, a favourite restaurant may be a venue worth researching.

In the world of wedding planning, this is really the tip of the ice berg. In future posts I will continue to reveal how Mr. B and I are planning out one very special day in our lives, and the various ways we are ensuring it will not ruin us financially.

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