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I couldn’t be happier with the way our winter wedding invitations turned out. I think mailing out your invitations is the ultimate realization that “OMG I’m getting married … soon!” We were aiming to send them out at the three-month mark. But, the major project they became got started one week late because the small letterpress [...]
Hello Readers! About one month ago I gasped when I saw that I went about $300 over my monthly budget because of wedding “necessities.” As you may remember, I made a pledge to not look at those beautiful, shiny, designer bridal blogs for one month and see how my spending was affected. And I [...]
After recently purchasing gifts for my maids, I realize how budget savvy I was being by having just two maids of honor. Of course, this is a personal choice. Here is my story: I have a soul mate. No, not my dearest man. I love him with all of my heart and soul, but since [...]
I’m a small-town bride. Like, really small. Like, 1,200 people small. After living in this sweet, wheat farm, rural, wild turkeys in our yard, town of Waitsburg, Wash., for one year, I actually know 90 percent of everyone in this city. And it’s wonderful. But, being in such a small, rural area, I knew it [...]
Ladies, your men don’t need to dip into their retirement fund or put $$$$$ on credit cards to find a beautiful engagement or wedding ring. There’s plenty out there that won’t break the bank — you just may need to step beyond the fancy jeweler. Here’s the story of my ring and the rules my [...]
Let’s talk about M-O-N-E-Y. I’m kind of passionate about my finances. Currently on my nightstand is a book by Charles Schwab on investing. I just finished “The Millionaire Next Door.” Heck, if I’m home on a Saturday night, I’m watching “The Suze Orman Show” and I’m making dear fiancé Dane watch it with me so [...]
As the last couple of months leading up to the wedding are passing quickly by, I have stumbled across a couple of items that aren’t usually listed on wedding budgets — but they should be. Here are some of the costs that have caught me off guard. Postage: Holy cow, after shelling out $$$$$$$ for invitations [...]
I have found so far in the wedding process that the most important tool to have to keep costs down is the confidence to tell vendors your budget and to ask for price reductions to meet that budget. My photographer was great at lowering her $3,000 wedding package price to closer to my $2,500 budget. [...]
This is a tale of warning for all brides out there. Be careful when ordering! Less than one full month of being engaged and I had already made a rookie mistake. I fumed, I may have thrown things, I may have needed a cocktail. So here’s my story. Please learn from it as I [...]
While it was entirely easy to say yes to Dane when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, saying yes to the dress I would wear on our wedding day was not so easy. For about four months, I pored over wedding magazines and websites trying to find the perfect, [...]
I am very proud of one of my more budget-savvy projects – my $4.80 card box! I purchased the black box online in early February it sat, unassembled and un-crafted, until July 28. There seems to have been an interesting phenomenon that has come over me lately. It’s less than five months to the wedding [...]
In late October 2011 at a wedding expo, Dane (darling fiance) and I stumbled across a local, small-scale letterpress company. We were having a heck of a time finding any stationery for our winter wedding that wasn’t cheesy. After spending hours online looking for save the dates and coordinating invitation suites, everything had love birds, [...]
