We’re back with another lovely wedding for you this week! First off, how can you resist the men in uniform? Accompanied by friends in navy blazers and red bowties?? I just LOVE it. I love the color scheme and the fact that they were able to pull of a wedding for nearly 200 people for $5,000! They really pulled it together with the help of family and friends. I think the ‘it takes a village’ approach to the big day is one of the best ways to save money! They were able to have a lovely wedding without putting themselves in the poor house. Congrats Zach and Neidy- and thanks for sharing your day with us! xoxo- Jessica

Zach & Neidy

March 19, 2011
Sandy Springs, Georgia

 

What was your budget? If you are able, give us a rough breakdown of how you spent your budget.

Photography- $1,500; Tessa with Light Love Laughter Photography is EXTRAORDINARY!
Invitations- $170; a friend designed them and we printed them out at Alpha Graphics!
Flowers-$300; flowers for the reception, bridal/bridesmaid bouquets, and boutonnieres were all handmade. (everything, except the flowers for the reception were made out of tissue paper. The flowers for the reception were made from Canson paper. ) I got the idea here.
Ceremony flowers were $250 provided by Atlanta’s Finest Flowers
Make-up and Hair- $200 done by Authentic Beauty
Ceremony Venue- Free; the church I grew up in
Reception Venue- $950; The venue itself was $750. Tables and chairs were included as well as trellises and there was a security deposit of $200.
Linens- borrowed from a family friend
Music and DJ- My uncle DJ’d for free
Centerpieces and decorations-$50 All handmade; I went to Binders Art Supplies and Michaels! We also had tealights, small clear vases, and red ruby jewels sitting around!
Wedding Dress- In total was $1000; I got it on sale for $700 and alterations were $300.
Wedding Veil- $60
Hair piece- $2.00; I handmade it.
Groom’s wear- It was issue to him by the Marine Corps
Groomsmen- They had navy blazers in their closets along with khaki pants! Their bowties were each $14.00 from a small store.
Catering-$800; my mom, family friends, and I cooked all the food. We went to Costco to buy all of the food!
Cake- Free; my sweet aunt made our cake!
Flying Lanterns- $50.00; www.amazon.com

So in total, almost exactly $5,000!

How many guests did you have?

About 150-200.

What creative or personal aspects did you include in your wedding?

Since he’s in the Marine Corps, we didn’t want our wedding looking too patriotic with our color choice so we added a bit of raspberry to even things out! Also, all the flowers were handmade out of tissue paper which took a lot of effort, but worth every little bit!

What was the biggest thing you did to save money?

I would definitely say asking family and friends to add their talents; you never know what people are capable of doing for you! Also, we have saved a large amount on flowers just by making them.

What’s the best advice you have for planning your wedding now that you’re on the other side?

Definitely don’t stress about what details get done or don’t get done. It’s beautiful in the end!

What was your biggest splurge?

Photography! It was the first thing that we decided on before planning anything! What good are weddings if you can’t remember them?

What was your favorite detail?

Definitely the giant paper flowers. They were hard to make, but I had fun making them and they looked gorgeous walking into the venue

What is the most memorable moment of your day?

Seeing my husband for the first time dressed up in his dress blues. I’m glad we didn’t follow the superstition and saw each other before our wedding! And our first look pictures definitely show it!

VENDORS:

Photography: Light Love Laughter Photography
Invitations: Alpha Graphics
Flowers: Atlanta’s Finest Flowers
Hair and Makeup: Authentic Beauty
Venue: Sandy Springs United Methodist Church (Ceremony), Georgetown Ballroom (Reception)

I hope you all are ready for the newest BS-WOW! This one comes from GA, and has such a great spirit to it. The couple pulled off this beautiful wedding for around $5,000 by enlisting the help of family and friends!

What was your budget?

Our budget was $5,000 for our wedding of about 130 guests . That didn’t include our honeymoon (our wedding gift from Jason’s parents) , or Jason’s suit (we bought that). I think we managed to stay very close to the budget that my mom set (she is amazing for putting this whole thing on for us). In fact, at the end of the day we might have even been under budget!!

What creative or personal aspects did you include in your wedding?

Our first dance was to Bob Marley’s “Is this Love” which was played by the bluegrass band that we had for the first two hours of the reception (the singer was a friend of the family and he got a few guys together to create a band just for the occasion). Jason is very particular about music and this was perfect.

We made sure that our wedding was a clear representation of our personalities. It was on a horse ranch in a dance barn but we decorated it with loads of fabric, candles, and vintage lamp shades to bring in the elegance. It was so simple and elegant all at once.

What was the biggest thing you did to save money?

We enlisted the help of friends!!! My mom’s boyfriend designed our amazing wedding invitations, a friend, Emily Woodall, was our photog and she gave us an amazing deal ($800 for our engagement shoot, our rehearsal, and our entire day of with a second shooter), and a friend of the family did all of the decorating (she scoured thrift stores while I wrote ten page papers) and she did our food ( We only spent about $200-300 on food not including the cake). My girls and I made our own bouquets with flowers bought from Harry’s Farmer’s Market. Basically, we did every DIY thing you can imagine with the help of amazing friends and family.
I also hunted high and low for the perfect venue and every other aspect really. Sunset Ranch is owned by a sweet couple that just wanted to create a place for people to be able to have a good time without going broke. We paid $450 and had it the entire day before, the entire day of, and even part of the day after to finish cleaning. There were no restrictions put on what vendors we used (the few that we did), we were allowed to bring our own alcohol and we were able to decorate any way we wanted (to include removing a deer head from the wall)

What was your biggest splurge?

Ummm…. we didn’t really have one… The most expensive aspect was our photography and that was the one thing I wanted to be perfect. It was followed by my dress which was $600 from Group USA at an outlet mall in Virginia. I saw it in the store window the day before Jason proposed (I had a sneaking suspicion it was coming) but they only had the dress in stock in black. After trying on a million dresses I decided it was worth the risk to order it in the “candlelight” color even though they didn’t even have a picture of it in any color but black! Biggest risk I took by far but COMPLETELY worth it!

What was your favorite detail?

My dress! And the draped fabric and lampshades from the ceiling… and basically the whole thing!

What is the most memorable moment of your day?

When the double doors of the Barn were opened and I saw Jason standing at the front waiting for me =)

What's the best advice you have for planning your wedding now that you're on the other side?

Don’t stress about anything! At the end of the day, you are marrying the one you love and that is all that matters. We planned our wedding in less than six months while both of us were in school (I was finishing up my last semester and graduated the week before our wedding), needless to say, we had plenty of reason to stress but we tried to maintain the best we could. This was key with my type A personality and Jason’s type…Z laid-back personality! We were supposed to get married outside, that was the most important detail to me, and then the day of it rained all morning.

Finally I just took a deep breath, closed my eyes, imagined the ceremony in the beautifully decorated barn, realized that the rain also meant the horse show scheduled for our wedding day would be cancelled (yay for no horse manure smell) and smiled and told my mom I was excited to have the ceromony in the barn. It stopped raining before we ever got to the ranch but we still had the ceremony inside (the ground was very soft) and it was PERFECT. When we got back from our honeymoon a friend told me that when someone asked her how the wedding was she used laid-back as the main theme, that made me so happy. We didn’t let anything get to us that day and that made all the difference for a type A girl like me!

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I just love the barn and the glass jar details! Hope you love the pics as much as I did! Thank you LaShanna and Jason for sharing your special day with us! Tune in next Wednesday for another edition of BS-WOW!