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Okay everybody. Over the last three days we've seen posts about budget, and it being too big or too small or too whatever. So let's do something a little different--because this applies to ALL brides. Short, personal answers please! I want to see a CONSTRUCTIVE budget post, not a rehashing of discussions (of which some have turned ugly) due to preconceived notions about your budget or others budgets or what have you.
What is the ONE thing that no amount of money is worth in your wedding? I don't mean the getting married part, but the part of the wedding--what is WORTH IT to you, no matter how cheap or how expensive?
Go!
Now, to answer my own question: the best part of my wedding that no one could put a price on will be my photography. Pictures are only worth as much as you get out of them, and as much as they speak to you. I booked a photographer today whose work spoke to me while being a bit of a splurge, and I'm excited to see the joy, happiness and love abound on our special day when we get those memories back!
I completely agree with you on photography. We totally splurged on the photographer of our dreams, our our photos are AMAZING! In my opinion, being able to look through all my photos in 20 years and re-live the day will be priceless :-)
Great post. :) For me, it's definitely a tie between photography, venue, and dress - but of course, it's real life so I do have restrictions on these, they're just our top priorities.
Having the 200+ people at my wedding. Sure, I want nice photography, who doesn't want to remember how stunning and gorgeous and happy they were that day? But my future in-laws spent almost nothing on photography and they still look happy and wonderful in their photos.
For me, it's being surrounded by the family and friends that I love and I just can't cut my guest list in any way. (Sorry cut-throat-Martha.) Even though feeding people and favors and a big-a** cake will cost me a chunk, I want them all there.
I guess photography was the biggest thing for me, but I still didn't go crazy on it. I kept it a lot less than I originally thought I would actually.
The food. We're doing semi-homemade, semi-catered for our picnic wedding, and I can't wait for the deliciousness.
I am like whitesonnet. It was totally worth inviting ALL the people we wanted at our wedding, including a few of my parent's friends that we don't know very well. It was such a great group of people, and there was a true sense of community on our wedding day. Awesome!
This is a bit of a hypothetical, because everyone has some sort of financial limit, so we really can't say "no matter how expensive" truthfully... but...
Music. We're both classically trained musicians, so mediocre music, to us, is painful... and great music can turn a moment from something special to something unforgettable. Also, I've played in quartets at countless weddings, so it has to be not only well-performed but also original! I used to love Pachelbel's Canon in D, but after having played it several gajillion times, I can't imagine walking to it. 
hands down photography. then food. then entertainment. (splurge wise)
- other top priorities are all paper products, the dress, & flowers.
I love these! I thought everyone would say photography, but I feel like i'm getting to know you bees better!
Hmm I guess photography was one of the things I was more willing to splurge on. And the venue, although it wasn't the most expensive of all the ones we looked at. And also a band--entertainment is important to us, so we wanted to get a well known band who would be able to play pretty much anything we could think of. And lighting--it's really important to me to have lots of candlelight, especially during the ceremony, and I'm willing to pay extra for candelabras, votives, etc.
For me it was my dress. I foolishly walked into the Bridal store to try on dresses and never told her my budget! Luckily the dress was MORE than under budget. For my FI it was photography and a band.
PHOTOGRAPHER hands down!! You're even flying ours (all 3 of them) from VA to Aruba!!
For me it was my HEADPIECE!! Does that sound crazy?? Hahahha. Years ago I was in an art museum and saw a beautiful, ancient golden wreath. I thought to myself: if I ever get married and have a wedding, I want to wear something like that. And I found someone on Etsy who could make, with the most amazing material! It ended up costing only $75, but I would have paid SOOOOOO much more. :)
After that -- the music!! We're having a string quartet for the ceremony and for the whole reception. I needed the strings for the whole thing, so much part of the experience!
I'm having a small wedding, but it makes me feel so happy to see the posts where people say the guest list is the most important splurge to them. How wonderful :)
Our venue - we're getting married at my grandparents house! My parents were married there 30 years before, so it is really special to me. It is also where my FI and I sorta first met. He came to a cookout with my cousin, but I barely talked to him other than a brief hello! (That was several years before we met again and started dating.)
Of course, we aren't paying for this venue, but I've been dreaming of getting married there my whole life!
Edit: We are splurging on other things, but getting married at a special place will probably stand out in our minds all our life.
I guess I would say nothing was worth ANY amount of money. The most important thing to us was having a meaningful ceremony that spoke to us.....and so I guess that, even more important than MONEY, that was worth any amount of TIME to me. I spent SO much time on the internet sifting through text, ceremonies, readings, etc.
Oh, and in the end, I guess that part cost about $35, for 3 books from Amazon that we used to help write the ceremony. Only used the one, but had to order the most promising 3 to see if any of them would be useful!
@whitesonnet I feel the same way about our guest list! It will be great to celebrate with our family, friends, and both of our "church families"!
For me it was the venue and the day.
Pics are good but they are just reminders of the day.. I want to be present in the moment and for the day itself to be perfect.
The venue sets the mood for the entire night and I was very against the wedding factory type of place. I wanted a venue that felt intimate & private and wasn't a traditional wedding hall. I didn't have a particular date in mind--but I knew I wanted a Saturday evening in the summer time because this would be the most convenient for my guests. and although that was going to be a challenge with a guest list of only 40, I managed to get everything I wanted!
We're both pretty cheap so were not really "splurging" on anything, but thats just our style. 
Whats worth it to me is being surrounded by people we love and having a wedding that reflects US no matter how off beat it may be! The thing I'm looking most forward to is seeing his face when I walk down the aisle!
The photographer was the one thing I was not willing to compromise on. Although, surprisingly, our top pick came in under budget. That was fortunate because I way over budget on the band.
The rings....it was very important to both my FI and me to have wedding rings (and e-ring) that reflect our individual tastes. We have no plans to do any upgrades/ring changes in later years so we wanted to really get each other rings that we would be comfortable wearing forever.
After that...definitely photography and/or videography.
It's photography for me as well!!! I will have three and I'm so so so happy about my decision :)
The part of the wedding that was most important to us as a couple was the entertainment. It was such a great thing to see almost everyone getting up one or more times to dance. We had a variety of great music (picked out by the hubs) that got everyone going.
Now for me was the photography and cake. Worth every penny!
The venue. We're even getting married out of season to afford this gorgeous winery wedding. It's still a big expense, but I'm so so excited to celebrate there.
We're kind of splurging on our venue. Then the food. I thought we'd have to splurge on photography, but I was able to find a great photographer at a great price.
The one thing that we really splurged on was travel, and I don't regret anything about it. We paid to fly four friends/family in with us from England, and paid for a week's holiday for them in the US after the wedding (since they'd never been to the US). It was definitely a splurge, but we wouldn't trade having them there for anything in the world.
My first thought was photography (because we definitely splurged on that), but in reality I think it's about being able to have all of our friends and family there.
If we weren't worried about being able to have everyone there, we could have had a smaller wedding this year. Our friends and family matter, so we pushed the wedding back a year to be able to afford a larger guest list.
Awesome responses, everyone! I really enjoyed reading these so far :)
@ tea and toast - lol! I like a wedding that shows love with second helpings :)
For me, photography was most important. Everything else was secondary.
Oh gosh....I guess for us it was the food. My FI is a total foodie (read: food snob) and in order to prevent him from catering it himself, we had to get the best caterer we could find...money was no object. Luckily, we found a great caterer and she wasn't outrageously priced--the more expensive part of that splurge was deciding to go with an outside caterer when our venue charges if you don't use theirs. But, totally worth it. This is sort of tied to the other priority--venue--because, obvi, we could have saved some money if we'd switched to a venue that didn't charge for outside catering. But I was so in love with this venue, there was no talking me out of it. ;)
I think I'd have to say our three top priorities are: photography (we're going for talent and skill, not just because somebody charges $4k for the same thing that somebody else charges $1500 for, that the $4k people are $2500 better). Secondly, I'd have to say food/cake, and thirdly I'd say venue (both for the ceremony and after-party). Our theory on this is that photos are great and all, but without a wonderful background and guests who are enjoying themselves... the photos aren't as special. We know wedding food/cake can have a bad rap, so we want to make sure that our guests enjoy their food as well as the time they spend with us. Since our after party is in a restaurant, there is no 'fee' just to have our after party there, so that's nice. It has a wonderful 1930's Hollywood Glam feel to it, and is very romantic (and hence will make fabulous photos!).
Bella
I think it's a close tie between photography and the DJ. It's hard to remember the day without one, and hard to enjoy the day without the other. But if I had to pick, I'd say the photography tops!
For me it was having an Outdoor Summer wedding. Even though it's a lot more expensive than getting married in January, I am SO happy we pushed it back to June and I get my dream wedding!!! :)
The food! We love to cook mindblowing meals for people and treat them to deliciousness, so it was super important to us that we treat everyone to an awesome meal-- so we let the rest of our budget suffer so that we could ply people with locally caught fish and a raw bar and mini lobster rolls and heirloom tomato/mozzarella salads!
Photography came in a close, close second though in terms of our priorities. We spent more on our photographer than I thought we would (though I still feel we got her for a wonderful price for our area).
This is a tough question for me. Like alot of people have said, photography is very important to me, and it took me a while to find a good photog I felt comfortable with- luckily, i found one who was suprisingly affordable!! Right now, we are looking for classical musicians for the ceremony. They are lot of money. We have accepted that they cost alot, are net 'necessary' at all, but I really want them, and FI is ok with that. So for us right now, the luxury of live classical strings at the ceremony is something we are going for regardless of expense!
I have always wanted to get married at my parents' house. It's ending up costing a lot more than going to a traditional venue would, because we have to bring everything in, but it is worth it to me.
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