Background
I’m writing about planning a wedding. Where you can get less expensive decorations and flowers, where you can find cheap wedding gowns and where you can find your food that won’t leave you broke after purchasing. When I got engaged I never thought it would be so much work. I always heard people say how stressful it was but I just thought to myself it can’t really be that hard all you have to do is find a venue, a wedding gown and flowers. None of the other stuff make the wedding as long as you getting married to the man of your dreams nothing else matters right?
Why am I writing?
I’m writing this because much to my surprise wedding planning wasn’t as easy as I thought. There were a lot of unanswered questions that I had. I asked couples that had already gotten married and have went through the wedding planning process. The only problem I came to with asking them was I always got a different answer and never knew which answer was right, or is there even are right answers? The questions I had were
-How many people is the right amount of people to invite?
-Is there a right amount?
-How do you pick the wedding colors?
-Can you have more than two colors?
-How many flower girls can I have?
-Do you need flower girls?
-Can you have more than one maid of honor?
-How do you pick your maid of honor?
-How much should you spend on flowers?
-Can you make them yourself to save money?
-How can we keep under budget?
-What if we go over budget?
What do I know?
My knowledge about planning a wedding is very limited. I have been to a couple of weddings and was also in a wedding when I was four but for that reason I don’t remember much of it. I was also in a wedding a year ago I was I was a bridesmaid but lived an hour away from the bride so didn’t get to help with much of the planning. I do know that it isn’t cheap planning a wedding.
The search
After looking at many magazines and not finding any of the answers to my questions I decided to move onto the internet. After searching the internet for about an half an hour I found a website that had everything I needed to know. It’s called theknot. It has everything anyone would ever need to know about planning a wedding. It gives you colors ideas, local venues, honeymoon ideas and so much more. There was also one lady that was able to help me. She had actually helped my cousin plan her wedding. Since my cousin couldn’t afford very much she helped make a lot of the decoration for half the price it would of cost her to buy them.
What I’ve learned
Before I started researching about wedding I knew nothing besides the basic wedding planning. I’ve learned where I could get a less expensive wedding gown, how I could save money on flowers and decorations and where to buy the food for the reception that wouldn’t leave us broke. I have also learned about colors, how many flowers girls and maid or honors you should have
Wedding Gown- When I was looking into getting my wedding gown I first started looking at a local Bridal salon called Avanti’s. It’s what located right in the town I live in. While looking at gowns at Avanti’s I noticed that the dress were in the higher range of my budget. So I decided I was going to travel an hour to look at other bridal salons and see how their prices were. After I started looking I noticed that there wasn’t much of a difference in the prices, there was normally only a $50 difference and by the time I had to pay for gas to go back and forth to my fittings I figured I would be better off just to spend the extra money and get it in the town I live in. I also learned that there are many different types of wedding gowns. There are A-line/princess, mermaid, empire, and ball gown style gowns. I learned that if you’re shaped like an hour glass and have a big chest, big hips and tiny waist then A-line is going to look the best on you. A-line is going to show off you figure. The A-line dress is fitted around the hips and flows out to the ground. A-line can hide a rounder lower body. The Mermaid style is a sexier style that highlights your curves. It fit tightly to just below you hips then flares out. Normally people who are confident with their body and are slender, short and even tall women can pull this style dress off. Last but not lease is the Ball Gown. The Ball gown has a full skirt it can be either one piece or separate. Slender and pair shaped women can pull the ball gown off best. The ball gown is normally for traditional weddings and can be paired with either a long veil or white long gloves.
Guest- After doing some research I found out that there isn’t a right and wrong amount of guest to invite. Everyone has a different amount of family and friends. As long as you get a venue to fit everyone that it doesn’t and you can stay in your budget feeding them all then you can invite as many people as you want.
Wedding Colors- A lot of people pick their colors by which time of year there getting married. I got married in October so I chose Orange and brown, my sister got married and September so she chose summer clothes such as bright pink and orange. On theknot.com it gives you many different colors to help you choose the right colors for your wedding. You can have as many colors as you want.
Flower Girls-After looking into how many flowers girls your suppose to have I found out that you don’t even have to have them. When it comes down to it’s your wedding and you can do it they why you want to right? It just means you’re going to have to buy two flower girl dresses and pay for two girls to get their hair done.
Maid of Honor- I found out that everyone is different and you can definitely two. What if you had two best friends that are there for you whenever you need someone to talk to or a shower to cry on?
Decorations- After spending a lot of research I found out that you can do as much decorations on a small budget as you can on a large budget. You may have to try a little harder to find what you want at a lower price but it’s possible. A site that I found was very affordable and nice quality merchandise was Oriental Trading. I also learned if you watched for the flyers in the Bangor Daily News there was normally an Ac Moore flyer that had a 50 % off one regular priced item coupon. I also realized that making your own flowers would save you tons of money and look just as good as the ones that people have professionals do and the artificial ones you will have forever.
Food-What I thought was going to be the biggest expense to our wedding turned into almost the cheapest. Before I bought anything I did some research to see where I could get what I needed for cheaper. I did find out that Wal-Mart was the cheapest place to get your meat and Sam’s Club was the cheapest place to get your vegetables, butter, and salt and pepper just because you could buy everything in bulk.
Bibliography
“theknot.com.” Wedding planning Wedding Dress and Engagement
You can find anything you need to know about weddings on theknot.com. You can find wedding color ideas, cake ideas and many more ideas. This is a very useful website and would recommend it to anyone that is planning a wedding.