September 6th, 2007 How to Have a Marvelous Wedding Without Losing Your Mind or Financial Security — Perspectives from the Parents of the Bride
We were not smart enough to start saving for our daughter’s wedding when she was born, but we were able to have a gorgeous memorable event without totally losing our minds or our financial security (well the wife did get a little crazy the week before the wedding). How did we do it?
Without a doubt, our number one recommendation is to use the power of the Internet. We had only five months to plan the wedding, and the internet provided a mass of knowledge, how to’s , and choices.
Below are recommended Web Sites that provided us a wealth of information, ideas, and links:
Sites/Venues: One of the most important decisions (besides deciding to get married) is where to get married. We were lucky to be retired military and were able to use a convention site on the water that provided an excellent wedding package at a very reasonable price. Alternatives to search for on the Internet are:
- Hotels - Some hotels offer excellent package deals that include ceremony, reception, flowers, cake, bar, etc.. With one of these package deals, you don’t have to worry about the individual rental requirements (which can add up quickly). Choosing an off-season time for the wedding is ideal. Hotels and restaurants are least busy around Thanksgiving and may offer special rates on wedding packages and accommodations for wedding party/out-of-town attendees.
- Your local church - Besides a reasonably priced conventional site for the ceremony, some larger churches may offer sites for receptions.
- Parks - Some beautiful and reasonably priced (recurring theme) venues are available at our national and local parks.
Wedding Dress: The Knot provides an extensive selection of wedding dresses by price, silhouette, and designer with links to various local merchants that carry your selection. Look for sales!!
Bridesmaids dresses: Numerous selections are available online, again from sites like The Knot, but by far the best selection we found was at Nordstrom’s Online Wedding Shop (Wedding dresses + other wedding stuff also available), http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/6005464/0~2376776~2374327~6005464?origin=srcontent. There is a huge selection and customer service is remarkable. Our bridesmaids were located all over the East coast, making it difficult for fitting. After finalizing the style/color, we ordered an array of sizes and had them mailed directly to each bridesmaid. They then selected their best fit and returned the others directly to Nordstrom with return labels provided by Nordstrom, making the whole process painless.
Cakes: We were lucky in that our cake was part of the reception package; we did review available selections online prior to going for that all important taste testing. The Web Sites above offer many online options/recommendations for wedding cake selection.
Invitations: We looked at many online invitation sites and ended up choosing PrincessWeddingInvitations at http://www.princessinvitations.com/. My wife loved this process with truly thousands of selections and excellent prices. Highly recommend ordering a sample to ensure you are happy with the pleased with the paper grade and make sure several proofs (verify font, wording, spelling) are included in the cost. We were delighted with the finished product.
Photographer: By far the best find on the Internet and lucky you, you’ve already found Lara. We were totally blown away by her wealth of information and expertise. Her enthusiasm was contagious and she provides a photographic memory tailored to your desires. After the wedding is over, the photos remain to provide memories that you will cherish for a lifetime.
Videographer: Besides the photos, a good wedding video will provide more cherished memories to relive over and over. Make sure the contract details what you want in a finished product to include key wedding/reception moments to capture and total length of edited video expected. The Knot provides links/recommendations in your area.
Musician: To keep costs down (again recurring theme), recommend using a single Harpist, Classical Guitarist, etc. vice a four-string ensemble. We found a marvelous Classical Guitarist via The Knot who provided an elegant, sophisticated air to the ceremony.
Officiate: If you don’t have your own pastor, priest, rabbi, etc. readily available, you can google for “wedding officiate” in your local area. Make sure you meet with them to make sure your styles are complementary and that the ceremony can be tailored to your desires.
Wedding Coordinator/Day-of Coordinator: Another huge savings can be the use of Day-of Coordinators vice a full Wedding Planner/Coordinator. If Mother-of-the-Bride (MOB) and Bride are willing/capable of doing all the major planning, use of Day-of Coordinators enable them to share those special wedding day moments without worrying about logistics.
Another recommended money/time/sanity saver is to do some of the required wedding “administrative stuff” yourselves, particularly if you are computer savvy.
Save the Date Cards: While you are waiting for your invitations, you want to get the word out to all your invitees to save the date to attend the wedding. We bought some good stock paper and envelopes on sale and modified some samples we found online. Need a good Laser printer for this. Sample hopefully attached successfully.
Sample Save the Date Card
Invitation Lists/trackers: This helps you manage invitation lists, mailing lists, who accepted, how many are attending, seating arrangements, gifts received, and track completion of thank you notes. We used an Excel format that enabled use of mailing lists (using Mail Merge) for addressing Save the Date Cards and Invitations. Sorry I can’t post the Excel file, but the basic format can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC101308531033.aspx?pid=CT101436151033 (I modified & enhanced a little. Use the Help menu in Microsoft Word or Excel and search for “Mail Merge”. We found it easier to set up the listing in Excel and generate the mailing list in Word. Other useful Wedding related Microsoft formats can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=Wedding&av=TPL000.
Addressing the Invitations: OK, we know etiquette indicates that you are supposed to hand address the invitations, but a good Laser Printer, the right font, and Mail Merge totally automates the process. The addressed envelopes looked great and it saved hours of time for the Bride and MOB.
Wedding Programs: We found excellent help at the site below and downloaded a format from Microsoft that we personalized. Again, a good Laser Printer (in this case color) and the right format and fonts did the trick. Sample is hopefully attached successfully. Sample Wedding Program
http://weddings.about.com/od/yourweddingceremony/a/WeddingPrograms.htm
We hope our perspective from a parents of the bride point of view has been helpful. Let the power of the Internet and your own resourcefulness save you time, money, and hopefully a little bit of your sanity so you can enjoy your daughter’s special day.
P. S. That’s our beautiful daughter and handsome son-in-law pictured at the top of Lara’s Blog site.