Wedding Inspiration Diet

If you’ve been planning for any amount of time, you might feel like

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 have some AWESOME news!

Even with unplanned travel across the state (boo high gas prices), a Jason Mraz concert and $14 margaritas, and buying many more calligraphy pens than I intended (a later post on that), I’m happy to say that this month I was right on budget and able to throw an extra $1,061 toward my car payment!

How did I do it?

Ditch the Fancy Bridal Blogs

My sneaking suspicion that the fancy bridal blogs influenced my spending seems to be true for me. When I was looking for invitation inspiration online in August, I saw many things we “had to have” to make the invitations “the best invitations ever.” Oh, and I needed this for my girls, and this for my guy and on and on.

Stick to Savvy Inspiration Sources

So, Sept. 1 through Oct. 1, I kept my bridal perusing to three sites: Budget-Savvy Bride, Offbeat Bride, and Pinterest. At first, I had to remind myself when I was home after work that I was not going to browse through my regular rotation of websites. That took about two weeks. And I think it freed up some spare time, and in addition to giving my wallet a break, it gave my stress level a break too.

Seek DIY Alternatives

I’m becoming pretty obsessed with adding in as many personal, homemade touches as I can to the wedding and the fancy blogs have some great inspiration for that. But, cutting out many and only looking at three sites, I don’t feel as overwhelmed. I realized I really can’t be in the ideas phase (with about two months to go at the time I’m writing this) because it’s time to start doing! Not looking at as many blogs means I’m not as bombarded with ideas and expensive inspiration.

I plan to continue my fancy bridal blog hiatus through December 15. I have plenty of ideas, a long to-do list and a craft project list with about 20 things on it. It’s time to focus and get crafting!

Have you tried a bridal blog diet? How did it go? Join us in the community to discuss wedding inspiration and savvy sources for wedding info!