Venue: My home parish growing up. If you want to get married in a church, using one you have ties to usually results in some cost savings. I was lucky to grow up in a visually stunning church! I also rented the parish hall for the reception.
Wedding musicians: If you are Catholic, and you want a full mass, you will definitely want someone who is familiar with how the music works for a mass. I hired Kathy Valdez and her daughter. I wanted the music to be beautiful and simple, so I opted for the piano and a flute rather than the full organ. Expect to pay musicians at least $150/each (they put in lots of practice time to make sure your wedding sounds just so), unless you are friends with them and they will do it cheaper or free!
Dress: This is one of my favorite parts. Want to know where I found this fabulous dress?:
Consignment. $500. My alterations lady guesses that it would have been $1100-$1200 brand new. The shop I used was The Shabby Chic Bride in Salem, and I would highly recommend it. Janelle, the woman who helped me the day I went in, did a great job of helping me find a dress that was flattering and within my budget. For the best experience, make an appointment. (Also, take a few bridesmaids and/or your mom, and have brunch beforehand at Word of Mouth Bistro down the street.) The Shabby Chic Bride's website for more info. They also have veils and other accessories...but I did not wear a veil :) Buying a dress via consignment means that you are helping another bride recoup a small portion of the cost of her wedding, it is a more "green" way to go, and there is no stressing about whether the dress comes in on time, because you are buying right off the rack.
Photography: This was one of the things we spent the most on, but I think we did a reasonable job of not overspending. We used Remembrance Photojournalism, and our package included a 1-hour engagement shoot, 7 hours of day-of coverage (only one photographer, although I think adding a second is like $300 extra), 4x6 prints of each picture, plus a CD with all the photos on it so we are able to share them on facebook and make prints whenever. Our total was just over $2000. I do think the packages have changed slightly since we booked. We booked early enough that we were able to get the owner, Stephen. We really enjoyed Stephen's gentle and accommodating personality. If you go with this photographer, one thing to realize is that his real strength is more of a photojournalistic style: he is much better about capturing moments than setting them up, so if you have ideas for poses or specific pictures you want taken, speak up! If you need a photographer that is going to direct things a little more, this is probably not your guy, but the benefit to this is that he is very respectful and will fade into the background. You will not even notice he is there until you go looking for him!
If you are looking for something even more cost-effective, I have a cousin who used Matteson Photography, and was very happy with the price schedule as well as the quality of photos and the professionalism of the photographer.
DJ: One thing I found frustrating when searching for a DJ is that most DJ's did not list their prices online. Cost was a big consideration for me, so I would fill out an inquiry form, and invariably, they would not only write me back with a quote that was much more than I wanted to pay (over a grand for 3 hours of playing music??), but they would then proceed to continue to call me and send me emails several times per week trying to solicit my business. Then I remembered the DJ that played at my cousin's wedding. He was professional and did a fantastic job. I looked him up and found his website, which included pricing, which was crazy reasonable! Kevin Venables is the owner of Northwest Mobile DJ, and he is prompt in answering questions, respectful, accommodating, and did a fantastic job. When, 11 days before the wedding, my dad and I wanted a medley of songs for our father-daughter dance, he put them together within 48 hours so we could practice...this was during prime wedding season and right before Labor Day weekend.
Hair and makeup: Salon L, Canby. Lizzy is professional and has a fun personality. I knew her from high school, so I already knew the second part. I went in for a "practice" appointment, and I loved what she did, modeling a very intricate hairstyle I found on pinterest. However, there were a few things I wanted done differently, so we talked about it openly, and she was nondefensive and very willing to make the (slight) modifications on the big day. It came out perfectly! She did my makeup as well, telling me "I can do everything from fresh faced and natural to full-on drag queen!" I loved what she did, and the benefit of hiring someone to do your makeup is that if you don't normally splurge on expensive makeup yourself, you can have both the benefit of the high-quality stuff, as well as someone who REALLY knows what they are doing applying it. She also gave me some suggestions for what to do with my hair the morning of to make it more workable, and pushed me out of my comfort zone ever so slightly to make sure I'd look my best for my wedding. (Specifically, I was afraid that false eyelashes would not look like "me," but she convinced me to wear them and I LOVE the way they look in the pictures.) Prices also quite reasonable, and she was willing to travel. She also brought along one of her employees to work on a couple of my bridesmaids, and they were also both quite happy with their unique and beautiful hairstyles.
Catering: We used Gary's Barbecue on Wheels. This is a very local catering company, and you will not find a website for them! I know about them because they are old neighbors of my parents. However, they are so down-to-earth, nice, and easy to work with, their food is very tasty, and their prices are beyond reasonable. Keep in mind that they are friends of my parents, but they provided us roasted turkey, potatoes, green beans, rolls, condiments, punch, and coffee...for $10/plate. We used hefty paper plates and silver-painted plastic flatware so there were no cleaning costs, no overhead charge, just $10/plate. I HIGHLY recommend calling them, their names are Gary and Mary Stenger. 503-871-3079
Drinks: We bought wine from Hanson Vineyards, and hired Jason, the owner, to serve for us. He also served some beer that my dad had bought. This was another splurge, although I'm not sure how much it cost exactly since my parents took care of that. Their wine is not cheap, and it tends to be on the drier side, but it is high quality, carefully crafted, with distinct flavors. So good!
Bridesmaid Dresses: One of the first things I came up with for our wedding, design-wise, was the color scheme I wanted: Teal as the main color (dresses, tuxes) and bright orange for an accent (flowers, other details). With that in mind, I also wanted to keep the dresses reasonably affordable, and I didn't want them to look so "bridesmaidy" that they could not be re-worn. Part of this my solution in all of this was choosing a color, fabric, and length and letting my ladies choose their own style. I checked into the old standby, David's Bridal, and they just didn't have many options in jade, plus wearing taffeta is always going to make you look like a bridesmaid. So I went with Alfred Angelo dresses, in chiffon. I think it was a little bit more of a hassle (only certain bridal stores are Alfred Angelo retailers, you can't buy off the rack, and it takes about 3 months for the dresses to come in if you don't want to pay a rush fee), and 0-50 dollars more expensive than DB, but the dresses looked stunning on my ladies and several of them said that they would wear their dress again! (I believe one of them already has!)
Tuxes: Men's Wearhouse. Black by Vera Wang in (ironically) gray. So handsome! On the pricier end for renting tuxes from MW, but the fact that 10 guys besides my groom rented tuxes (his 6 groomsmen, our dads, my brothers) meant that Zach got to rent his tux free, AND he got a $500 voucher toward a new suit to keep.
Decor: This is where it was SUPER HELPFUL TO HAVE HELP. If you are lucky like me, there will be lots of people who will want to help you make your wedding special. If any of those people have artistic skills, you better take them up on their offer! (Plus, it is exciting to be involved in a wedding--you can bet that if someone offers to help, they genuinely want to.) That said, all the decorations that I used...everywhere...except the bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres...cost me far less than most brides. Early on, I got this idea that using wine bottles (labels on, all Oregon wines) as vases for our centerpieces would be a great idea. My wonderful mom helped me expand this idea: white tablecloths, teal meshy material (see picture below) all fluffed up, small mirror on top of that, 3 wine bottles, a teal ribbon tied around the wine bottles, and dahlias from Swan Island Dahlias (orange and a few white) in the bottles. Here is how it turned out:
In addition, I have some aunts who made some beautiful arrangements for the altar:
Bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres: It is tempting to think "they are just flowers" and to believe that they should not be expensive. Flowers on their own are not that expensive (see my post about decorations and how we bought flowers from Swan Island Dahlias), but you are also paying for the florist's expertise in arranging them in a beautiful way (sometimes spending hours wiring things together so they sit just so) as well as timeliness. If you think that you are going to have the time to put together beautiful bouquets the day or two before your wedding...think again. It is worth paying someone for this. I used Distinctive Designs by Denice, and not only was she friendly, helpful, and creative in helping me achieve the look I wanted, the flowers turned out beautifully. As you will see from the following pictures, she also fashioned my mother-in-law's corsage into something that could be worn in her hair, since she was concerned about the fabric of her dress not being able to hold up a corsage.
Let them eat...CAKE!: Huge cost-saving option: Go for a smaller cake (we just did 2 tiers), and then get your flavor or flavors in sheet cakes to feed everyone. Your cake will still be pretty. We went with Lamb's Thriftway bakery in Wilsonville. Their cakes are really tasty, and you get to do a taste test of 6 different flavors with no commitment...for free! (They give you a little plastic container with 6 large cupcakes, each with a flavor you want to test out). Every tier or sheet of your cake can be a different flavor, and one of the best parts: On your one year anniversary, they will bake you a new "top layer" of your cake so you don't have to keep it in the freezer for a year!
Papery-type stuff: I wasn't completely sold on even doing save-the-dates, but since we had a lot of out-of-town invitees, I thought that sending them would be the polite thing to do, to give folks a heads-up. I used Vistaprint and created a simple, pretty card with our names, and all the important "when and where" info for the wedding. For invitations, I went with Ann's Bridal Bargains. They were some of the least expensive invitations I found, the person I spoke to on the phone with questions was kind and helpful, and though the invitations were not especially fancy (no indented lettering or anything like that), I found a design that I just fell in love with, and I got lots and lots of compliments about how pretty they were. The programs were my favorite part. I went with a tea-length design, no folding just front and back, in a design that matched well with our invitations. I had them designed by Danica of Maya Graphics. They were so beautiful that when I saw them, I got teary-eyed! She was willing to work with me on wording things just so, and they came out just perfectly. I cannot speak to price because Danica is a long-time personal friend of mine so I got a special discount ;). But, I can tell you that they were beautiful and captured things just perfectly.
A few other tips and tricks: #1 is get this book:
That book is how I found out about Alfred Angelo and Ann's Bridal Bargains, and has lots and lots of tips for getting quality products without caving to the wedding industry.
Invitation related tips: One of the most fun things I did in preparation for the wedding, other than the bridal shower and bachelorette party, was addressing the invitations. "WHAT?" you say? "That sounds like it takes hours of labor." Well...it did. If you added it all together. You see, I spent $25 on Panera bagels and mimosa makings, and 7 people came to help me assemble and address invitations. I had a system set up ahead of time, and I kid you not, it took 45 minutes. That was with eating, talking, goofing around. I don't think anyone had to do more than 10 invites. Part of the preparation for this was that on the response cards, lightly in pencil, I wrote a number on each one. That number corresponded to a person who was invited, that way if the person forgot to put their name on the response card (and a few did), I could have a quick reference to be able to figure out who it was. Finally, the last part was a little more indulgent, but after addressing and assembling all the invites, I made a day trip up to Bridal Veil Falls in the Columbia Gorge to mail my wedding invitations. It was a GORGEOUS drive, and there was the cutest little post office:
and the invitations came with the sweetest little postmark:
One thing to keep in mind is that Bridal Veil is very small, and the only reason that the post office is able to stay open is that they are able to sell postage stamps. So when you go up there, do future brides a favor and buy some postage stamps for your thank-you cards!
Other tips: For your own sanity, pick out a few details that are really important to you, and focus most of your energy, attention, and resources on those. If you try to make your every detail perfect, you will go crazy.
Be good to your bridal party. They have spent a lot of effort supporting you emotionally, giving you a kick-ass bridal shower and bachelorette party, buying dresses to look just so, getting the right shoes, the right hairstyle, the right jewelry, etc. And they are giving up a whole Saturday to be there for you and help you look amazing! Some of the things I did for my bridesmaids was: Make sure that their bridesmaid gifts were meaningful and special (for me, this meant personalizing each gift), making them necklaces to wear the day of, sending them thank-you cards when they agreed to be my bridesmaids, having goodies for them the morning of the wedding so they wouldn't have to worry about getting up extra early to get breakfast...but what you choose to do is up to you.
If you are blessed with a supportive mother, include her as much as possible in the planning. Someone gave me that tip, and I'm glad they did. I am likely to want to not burden anyone, but my mom only has one daughter, and only got (had?) to do this one time. I made sure she was available for dress shopping even though I paid for it myself. I bought her brunch the morning of the day I bought my wedding dress. We shopped together for fabric and ribbons for the centerpieces. She helped address invitations, tie ribbons around the napkins containing the plastic flatware for the reception, headed up the reception decorating the day before the wedding...in short, if it wasn't for her, I don't know what I would have done. I know that the day before the wedding, I didn't have the emotional wherewithall to make ANY decisions, so she kindly and generously encouraged me to go hike Silver Falls with a couple bridesmaids while she finished things up. (And honestly, that hike was amazing and stress relieving, and just a great thing to do.)
Finally, enjoy every minute! Don't forget that you have a spouse that you should be spending time with, but all the people are in one place celebrating you! Throughout the reception, try to make the rounds and say hello to as many people as you can.
