Where in the world have I been?! Well, my husband and I have been going non-stop since the wedding. Even though we have been SUPER busy, I have loved every second of it!

Since I told you all basically every aspect of my wedding, I guess it’s about time I show you what all our hard work accomplished.

(All photos are courtesy of my AMAZING  photographer Jason Tucker Photography)

My dress was inspired by a Monique Lhuillier that would have cost my entire wedding budget, so I “made” it myself. The top was actually from Victoria’s Secret and the skirt is from a dress I wore my senior year of high school for a cotillion. I bought the sash (which matched the bridesmaids’) in bulk and I picked up the vintage brooch at a thrift store.

I have to tell you that although my wedding day was the most amazing day of my life, everything was not “perfect “. The biggest blunders happened during the actual ceremony. While walking up on our make-shift stage I actually slipped on my slip and fell, crashing my shin into the platform. Everyone gasped, I laughed hysterically (honestly it was the only thing that made me stop crying) and I made a joke to the concerned crowd about making a dramatic entrance. Then, as if my tumble wasn’t enough, my pastor forget to let us have our first kiss. He pronounced us man and wife, the music started, everyone stood up, and then I turned around and whispered “I’d really like to kiss him now”. It was really funny and made for a memorable ceremony!

Then it was time for the party! The tables were the perfect fit for our “turquoise/green, vintage and handmade wedding” theme.

Our cake was not only gorgeous, it was by far THE most delicious wedding cake of all time. I am not exaggerating. It. was. amazing!

And as a surprise to my meteorologist husband, I had a special tornado cake made for him — complete with a path of destruction!

There are so many people who made our day wonderful and we were so blessed to have all our friends and family members there to help us celebrate the beginning of our lives together!

I am proud to say we stayed close to our budget (has anyone really come in under budget? haha) and everything fit perfectly into the “feel” we were going for.

I have really enjoyed being a part of the Budget Savvy Bride and I’m honestly sad to say goodbye. But I hope my wedding DIY crafts and budget savvy-ness has helped inspire other brides.

_________________ Thanks for reading Final Wedding Recap from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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Guess what? I’m MARRIED! Will be back soon with recaps but wanted to share this post about how we thanked the men involved in our big day. Now that all the gifts have been handed out, I can share with you our awesome groomsmen gifts. I’ll start by being honest, I was all for buying cuff-links, an engraved flask, or a money clip… but Derek and I decided to go for something more unique.  We used The Knot  for ideas and once their cooler chairs went on sale, we pounced!

I mean how cool and functional is this gift?! It’s a cooler. It’s a chair. It comes with a shoulder strap! We just thought it was perfect for the guys who tailgate, the guys who camp and even the guys who just want to sit in their back yard and enjoy a beer haha.

It also came with FREE monogramming/embroidery for each guy’s name.

In the front pocket we put a couple extra presents….

A pocket square (that I sewed from material that matches the bridesmaid’s sashes)

Along with a tie we bought for each guy to wear on the wedding day.

We were super excited to give our favorite guys such a cool gift. (And I’m pretty sure Derek and I will be ordering these for us to use at football games.)

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Looking for more budget savvy weddings? Visit our Real Weddings gallery! Need to find some DIY projects to save you money and create beautiful details? Check out our DIY project gallery! Connect with The Budget Savvy Bride on the web: Pinterest :: Twitter :: Facebook ::

When I started the wedding budget process I said I would spend the big bucks on photography and a venue. I did. But as I got further into planning, I decided that I wanted to expand my budget just a little more on invitations. I know it is just a piece of paper, and I know most people throw them away before the wedding day even arrives, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized the invite sets the whole tone for the wedding. I still didn’t spend a TON on them (just a couple hundred dollars for close to 200 invites) but we did spend more than originally budgeted.

I have an AMAZINGLY talented friend who agreed to help design our perfect invitation…. check out the pretties!

I love that they are simple, adorable and laid back, just like we want the wedding to be! Plus they are unique to us because we got input on the colors and the font and everything!

We loved the results so much that we even begged Caity to make our rehearsal dinner invitations too!

Here are some of my tips for ordering your wedding invitations:

• Skip the outer AND inner envelopes. Do you really need them? If not, you could definitely save some money.
• Opt for a reply postcard instead of the card and envelope. Again, saving money per card.
• Forget the lined envelope. If you absolutely can’t live without it, make them yourself. There are tons of tutorials online for cutting out your own liners.

P.S. Does anyone else get totally giddy when they go over to a friend’s house and see their invites hanging on the fridge? I just love it.

_________________ Thanks for reading Our Wedding Invitations from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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I just have to brag for a minute about the AWESOME deal I got on (part of) my gift to the bridesmaids. I told them they could wear any type of shoe they wanted, they could fix their hair how ever they wanted, and they could all show their personal style in their bridesmaid dresses. But to keep a little “same-ness” I wanted to get them all similar jewelry. If you have shopped for 8 sets of jewelry, you know it gets pricey!

That’s when I turned to my good buddy etsy! I saw plenty of pieces I loved, but again, the price was reaching limits unknown to my bank account. Then I stumbled upon exactly what I wanted

Did you happen to see the price tag on these beauties? 99 cents! I immediately contacted the seller and asked if she could make duplicates. Not only did she agree, but she also designed and made my earrings for the big day!

I was thrilled to work with such a crafty person who was willing to sell her goods at such a great price!

I wrapped them up and put them with the other great gifts fr my bridesmaids. And yes, I did get them other gifts besides the less-than-a-buck jewelry!

_________________ Thanks for reading Budget Savvy Wedding Accessories from: The Budget Savvy Bride

Looking for more budget savvy weddings? Visit our Real Weddings gallery! Need to find some DIY projects to save you money and create beautiful details? Check out our DIY project gallery! Connect with The Budget Savvy Bride on the web: Pinterest :: Twitter :: Facebook ::

It is getting so close to wedding day (less than 20 days away now) and I had one last DIY project before I hung up my scissors. I decided to make our wedding programs!

Remember when I took on the giant task of making our save the dates?

As much as I loved the project, I knew I wanted something less time consuming, but still equally “us”. So I turned to my old buddy Martha (Stewart for you non-DIYers) for inspiration. On her website I found TONS of programs that I loved and knew I could ealily make. I picked the bow programs because I could use my wedding colors and print them myself.

Honestly the most difficult part was formatting and lining up the four columns. After printing them out…

I cut them in half.

Then I took the middle part of my bow…

wrapped it around my program and taped it up.

Easy peasy! I literally made all 200 of them in two nights.

Since this is all about budget-savvy-ness… all of these programs cost me a whopping $15. I got my packs of paper on sale and I had a TON of leftovers which I will for sure use for scrapbooking and making thank you cards. I would definitely urge anyone who has the patience to make your own programs because I really felt like it was a nice relaxing project before the final stretch to the big day.

Taylor

_________________ Thanks for reading Wedding Programs… Get Your Programs! from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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(If you are a guest at my wedding please stop reading now or you will spoil the surprise. Thank you! haha)

I must say, the out-of-town guests at my wedding are getting quite spoiled. (And I have to take a minute to give my mom the credit for it. She has some GREAT ideas). When they check in to their budget-friendly hotels they will receive this bag:

 With this little tag on it:

 Inside the ladies will find a nice pair of “dancing shoes” in our wedding colors

 They will also have a packet of tissues for their “tears of joy”

Along with a customized bottle of water

** Let me just take a minute to brag on these adorable little bottles. Above you will see our “wedding logo”. Look closely now. Not only is it an apple core, but the outline is actually the profile of my husband to be and me! A friend of mine helped me execute my vision for this and I am thrilled with how it turned out! On the opposite side of the bottle is our names…

And on the back is an idea I totally stole from another wedding website (sorry I forgot which one). Where the nutrition facts should be, I typed our relationship facts: our first date, the date we got engaged and our wedding date. The bottom says “Percent Daily Value based on a long and happy marriage” **

Moving right along….

At the wedding, guests will get a goody-bag with mini-take-out boxes to fill up at the candy bar.

The final item is a wand. Our venue will not allow sparklers (my first choice), I didn’t want bubbles, and if the guests throw anything our contract says that we have to clean it up before we leave so we came up with wands for the guests to wave as we make our final exit. I can’t wait to see how they turn out in pictures!

Guests will also walk away with a cd of all our wedding songs. (A friend of mine did this at her wedding and it is one of the BEST cd’s I own. I just loved the idea so I “borrowed” it.)

I feel like our guests are totally getting spoiled, and I love it. I think the favors are a great way to thank everyone for traveling and making our special day a priority. I mean, just look at this loot…

  Are any of you brides including favors? I must admit it would be an easy thing to save money on my skipping or downsizing. What are your lucky guests walking away with?

_________________ Thanks for reading Wedding Guest Gifts from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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If you’re going to have a party (which our reception will certainly be), you need to have some alcohol. But if you want alcohol, you have to pay the price. And as budget savvy brides, we don’t want to fork over the cash. So it is time to get creative.

This process took a lot of math and numbers and stuff I don’t love, but in the end we made it work. We took the number of guests (that is growing by the day) and figured out how many would drink, and if they drank how much they would drink (more for groomsmen, less for relatives haha) and then looked up how many glasses are in a keg of beer and a case of wine.

Eventually we came to the conclusion that we would need two kegs and six cases of wine. Doesn’t sound cheap does it? But that’s when we had the idea to visit the mecca for inexpensive, yet delicious wine…

We got three cases of white wine and three cases of red wine and only spent about $200!!

My parents are keeping it in the dark, cold basement until the big day (and we are crossing our fingers they don’t get thirsty haha).

So that leaves us with the kegs. And after searching high and low, it’s going to cost us. Does anyone out there know how to get a discount on kegs? The cheapest I can find are $150 a pop, plus a deposit. Good news is we get the deposit back, but I just don’t want to spend full price. Call me cheap (or call me budget savvy instead)!

_________________ Thanks for reading Budget Wedding Booze from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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I wanted a “wow” piece to show off when the guests come in to the wedding to sign the guest book.  And you may remember I mentioned that the venue we are getting married at has a huge wall of old windows and doors at the entrance…

so I decided to play with that idea. I found a window at a thrift store (what, you thought I was going to pay full price? haha) and put our engagement pictures on it.

There was also a missing pane, but never fear! I used coordinating fabric to cover it and add an initial.

It was already painted that lovely shade of turquoise and I just had to glue some of the wood back in place. I love it! And I love that we have a way to display our engagement pictures in our future home when the wedding is over.

p.s. My future in-laws threw us a shower this past weekend and after seeing the window they asked if they could use it in their decorations! I felt honored.

_________________ Thanks for reading DIY Wedding Decor from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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Call me crazy (well, please don’t, it might hurt my feelings) but I did NOT care about having real flowers for my wedding.

I’ll pause for the gasps…

It’s just that when I listed out my priorities for this wedding, spending a TON of money on something that would literally only last a few hours was NOT what I wanted. I have also been in and to enough weddings to know that said bouquets usually turn brownish or whilt before the ceremony is even over. That’s when I went on the hunt for something more practical.

I’ve said I was going for a vintage feel so I wanted bouquets to match that. And so began THE biggest DIY project thus far, (Yes, even more time consuming than my Save the Dates) DIY coffee filter pomanders.

If you interested, stick around for the tutorial. If not… enjoy your real flowers! haha

I started with approximately 1 million coffee filters. I may be exaggerating, but not by much.

Then I boiled lots and lots of tea. Being a southerner, it took a lot of restraint to not pour a few cups of sugar in there and drink it all up.

Depending on how dark and how light you want your coffee filters to be, you’ll adjust the amount of tea bags. I did several different batches to get a variety of shades. Then dump in your coffee filters.

Let it be noted that you will NOT get the job done with a teeny-tiny pot like this. Once you figure out the proportions, it’s time to upgrade!

Then you take each coffee filter out of the pot, squeeze off the extra liquid, and lay (or is it lie?) them flat to dry. I used a combination of towels and drying racks.

While they dry you can start to cringe over the HUGE mess you are making in your kitchen.

(nice little assembly line I have going, right?)

Once they are completely dry, it’s time to put your “flowers” together. Like I mentioned, I did several different shades so I mixed them together for each flower. Here are my steps, and I’ll try not to lose you.

Lay them out flat…

Cut them in half.

Accordion fold each half (and admire your BLING! haha).

Then staple at the flat end.

Then you have to “fluff” them. Basically just open up the bloom.

Put all those aside and start working on the actual ball. I put mine in a ramekin to hold it upright while I worked on each one.

I tied a loop of ribbon (you’ll want to do this first so it can be secure).

Then I glued and pinned it onto the Styrofoam ball.

Now it is (finally) time to start putting it all together! I stuck a floral pin in the stapled end AND used a line of glue just to make sure they all stuck.

Then pretty soon you’ll have ONE completed pompador!

And if you have 8 bridesmaids like I do, try not to let your fingers bleed (after turning brown from the tea) before you finish!

But seriously, it was a lot of fun to experiment with colors and styles and I have a great feeling of accomplishment from making these. I have seen some made with colored tissue paper, so there are a lot of options.

I would love to see any other tea dye projects you brides-to-be are using. Or if you tackle this same project with tissue paper, I’d love to see that too.

And as for you real flower brides… congrats on your decision. haha

_________________ Thanks for reading DIY Coffee Filter Pomanders from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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I know it is silly, but one of my favorite parts of the wedding ceremony is the choice in music. It is the perfect opportunity for the happy couple to show off their style, creativity, and share new songs with their guests. When it came time for us to put together our playlist, I knew there would have to be some work put into it.

You see, Derek is 80′s rock, the hard stuff. I am top 40, and poppy. We can’t very well have Iron Maiden mixed with Selena Gomez, now can we? One thing we do share a love for is classic rock (and rap, but that doesn’t work here either).

With help from my parents, who, let’s face it, know classic rock, we came together with what we consider the BEST wedding playlist ever!

Seating of the Mothers – “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles (who doesn’t want to kick things off with the Beatles?!)

Wedding Party – “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen (one of our favorite bands and an appropriate song)

Bridal March – “Canon in D” on a solo guitar (by the way I can’t listen to this song without crying)

Announced as Husband and Wife – “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes (how cute, right?! Derek said this song reminded him of us)

Wedding Party and Mothers Exit – “Oh, Happy Day” by any gospel chior (I want the REAL soulful version!)

Now on to the reception!

We will be introduced, followed by the wedding party to – “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey (this is OUR song!)

First Dance – “Feels Like Home” by Chantal Kreviazuk (I dare you not to cry)

Father Daughter Dance – “My Little Girl” by Tim McGraw (again with the tears)

Step-Father Daughter Dance – “I Loved Her First” by Heartland (and my step-dad will be crying harder than anyone. haha)

Mother Son Dance – “Memories” by Elvis Presley (Derek’s mom is a HUGE Elvis fan)

Farewell Song – “Jackson” by Johnny and June Carter Cash (our other favorite!!)

Others (that we kind of took ideas from web searches):

Cake Cutting – “How Sweet it is” by James Taylor

Bouquet Toss – “I’m Just a Girl” by No Doubt (I get my “pop”)

Garter Toss – “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC (Derek gets his rock)

Don’t you feel like you’re already there?! We have also included cd’s with all our wedding songs in the out-of-town guest bags and as part of the favor bags at the wedding!

I LOVE hearing other people’s unique playlists. What songs have you picked? Anything crazy?

_________________ Thanks for reading Our Wedding Playlist from: The Budget Savvy Bride

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