Originally Posted by genuinegirly

Dlish, it's a bummer that you and your wife spent more on your wedding than you had readily available. Just don't be sexist about it...


Now that's an interesting perspective. I'm curious what you mean by "going all out."

Anyhew, back to the topic: No matter who runs the show, the first thing you should do is set up a budget. Right from the start, figure out how much money you have to work with and what you want to spend it on. Also figure out where the money is coming from.

Our budget was "As cheap as possible." We still sat down with a plan and decided what was important to us and what wasn't. We soon realized that if we were going to invite everyone we wanted, it wasn't going to be cheap. We spent 2 years planning and organizing our wedding. We needed every minute. I made every single invitation by hand to save on costs without sacrificing beauty. For those two years, my then fiance and I lived in sub-standard living conditions so I could pump every cent given to me from educational grants into the wedding. It was my project, I felt I should foot the majority of the bill. Very little of his income went into the wedding. We ended up ahead.

Little unexpected things will pop up, but they're not always good.

Good: My parents didn't expect to contribute much as we began to plan our wedding. As the date moved closer, my mother decided we needed a professional photographer and footed the bill.

Bad: My makeup artist (sister's friend) backed out on us three days before the wedding. That was an interesting mess. My maid of honor's little sister ended up doing makeup - it worked out amazingly, but it was a lot of stress on everyone involved.