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What is the one thing that's pricey in your wedding, but you don't care -- it's a must-have!
And how about the one thing that you got an AMAZING deal on?
Our splurge is our venue and mini moon.
Our steal is the ring box that I made for our ring bearer to carry (47 cents).
Our venue is the splurge. It's $20 more per person that we wanted to go, but it's perfect.
Our steal is our photog! He gave us his $5k package for $1500.
for us,
SPLURGE was open bar (beer and wine) all night.
STEAL was my wedding dress...$125 (inc shipping!)
@Krissy - great job on the dress!
Splurge - photographer
Steal (free) - venue - my grandparents' beautiful farm and handcrafted cabin
Splurge - Having our ceremony in a synagogue and with a rabbi, even though we were getting married in MA and therefore had to pay the astronomical nonmember rates to do so. (We live near DC.)
Steal - Open bar for 60 people for five hours for $250.
Splurge was the venue!
Steal was the free honeymoon suite we get for our guests booking out all the rooms!
splurge- ha ha almost everything compared to my original ideas!
steal- the bm dresses were originally $160 we got them for 65 on clearance.
Splurge: Photography, for sure. $5K, but worth every penny.
Steal: our invitations, menu cards and programs. We had AMAZING custom print materials that featured us as a digital illustration. My cousin is a graphic designer and illustrater and designed them for free, and we had them all printed for $200 total. That included 100 each of invitations, two enclosures, menus and programs.
Splurge - Our photographer (www.stillmotion.ca). He shot my friend's wedding a couple years ago and I swore I would have him when it was my turn! He's so gifted I didn't care how much it cost to have him!!!! (Probably not the best attitude to have going into a meeting with a vendor, lol)
Steal - Our cupcake tower with two tier minicake customized to match our invitations. Enough cake/cupcakes to feed 80 (it's part of a larger dessert buffet). We came in at $387 which includes $130 delivery fee (our venue is far from the city) and a $30 cupcake stand rental! SCORE! I was so happy about this!
Oh and also my DIY lobster cake toper which cost me about $2.50 in Fimo clay I think. I'm rocking the cake table so far!
Our Splurge: the Ice Sculpture and the Venue
Our Steal: Our centerpieces, made them for $150 when the florist wanted to charge $700!
Splurge: Venue + food. Historic mansion on the river and gourmet stations menu.
Steal: Bridesmaids gifts. Retail value $300 and I got them for $80 :)
Splurge= ceremony site. If I had gone to a traditional church it would have been $500 with officiant. We are spending $2k. Just for the place, officiant, piano, and 2.5 hours.
Steal= DIY white hydrangea centerpieces. I'm getting mine for $3/stem with shipping and the silver plated vases were $8/each. $20 a centerpiece instead of $100 or so that the florists wanted.
Our splurge is our photog - our package is a little over $5k.
The steal is our DIY photobooth - it's going to be less than $300!
Splurge - Venue and Caterer. We tasted lower end caterers but the food just didn't compare!
Steal - Our photographer is a friend of my mom's (who's a wedding photog!) and he's shooting our whole wedding for $600.. and he's GOOD!!
Splurge ... our band! Way more than a DJ ... but we had to have it!
Steal ... my dress! From DB ... and it's just what I wanted! :)
Splurge is the venue-boutique hotel with gourmet dinner and 5 hours of open bar.
Steal-free dj from a co-worker, $200 couture wedding gown from a designer just gone out of business, programs done free by FH's aunt who is a graphic designer.
Splurge: Our TTD video, which I worried about spending so much on at the time, but I now feel was TOTALLY worth it!
Steal: Got my dress on ebay! Couldn't believe that I got a $2k dress for $300!
Splurge: The catering
Steals: Invitations were free (I won them in a contest) and my friend is baking cupcakes for the cost of supplies.
I'm with you vistagirl!
Keeping our original budget in mind.....
Splurge: Dress + Shoes!
Steal...errrr....ummmm......hmmm...I'm having a hard time with this one!
Splurge: my dress, venue.
Steal: Invitations! Definitely cut costs there.
Splurge - Photog
Steal - Our venue! We got a free upgrade to a plated dinner (usually $3 p/p), $500 off the venue, and 20% off of our per person charge!!
Splurge - $300 for 50 invitations (oh I know, terrible right - but I LOOOVE them)
Steals - tuxes are free, hair updo is free :)
Still in the budget tho!!
Splurge: Photographer, but after much research is worth it even if it's $500 over our budget.
Steal: Video, We're getting 2 cameras for the price of one!
Splurge: Is looking to be my dress as I can't seem to find it whole sale anyway
Steal: Our invitations. We did them DIY and are saving over $5 each.
Splurge: My amazing Jim Hjelm gown - LOVED IT! But it doubled my budget - yowza!
Steal: Our cake - a a four tier cake which would feed 250 with a different flavor and filling in each tier for less than $400!!! And it was delicious - I am not biased, really. People were actually raving about it on our wedding video AND my BFF ordered from our baker for her daughter birthday cake months later. Yay for Steals!
Splurge: Photography (over 4K) who did a GREAT job.
Steal: MY DRESS! James Clifford silk gown, price tag said $2,375, I got it for $250 at a sample clearance sale!
So far our splurge is our venue... $4700 for the venue, tables, and chairs. Yuck, but it's SO worth it!
Splurge: FOOD (yum!)
Steals: My dress- $100, our cake, bm dresses-$30, grooms tux (free!)
Splurge - Photobooth for 4 hours - so worth it
Steal - Free videographer I found on-line
I have several of each:
Splurge:
1. A custom made bolero for my dress, it'll end up being about $250
2. Our honeymoon! It's going to be very expensive, but it's where we wanted to focus the majority of our budget.
Steal:
1. My dress! It's a bridesmaid's dress in ivory, and it's costing less than the bolero :)
2. My earrings; I had an Etsy seller custom make me a pair of earrings in quartz and sterling silver, and they were only $25.
3. My veil/headpiece. I combined a headband and a birdcage veil for under 50 bucks.
Splurge - hmmm . . . almost everything? Venue, Full open bar all night, Shoes (Valentinos), Gown, the list goes on :( Tough to have a tight budget with a 400+ person wedding.
Steals - friendor photographer (less than $1,000 for e-pics, wedding day pics, all photoshopping/editing and digital files), flowers ($2,500 for 50 centerpieces, 5 bouquets, 2 ceremony pieces, 40 moss ball pomanders and 6 cocktail centerpieces)
Biggest splurge: videographer. I blame Weddingbee in full for making me fall in love with high-quality wedding video, and I managed to convince myself and everyone that since the photos/video are all we'll have to remember the day after it goes by in a flash, it's worth setting aside some fat sacks of cash for.
Biggest steal: I feel like we've lucked out on a lot of our stuff! The biggest one that comes to mind isn't one that saved me a ton of money but saved me an infinite amount of labor, frustration and grief; I got Mrs. D'orsay's beautiful cut-glass wine bottles for $20! Woohoo! She was amazing to sell them to me for that price, and I feel like I got away with murder after reading about all the work she put into making them. Thanks Weddingbee, okay I guess this makes up for the fact that you made me fall in love with expensive videography.
Our splurge is our honeymoon.
My personal steal so far has been my dress!
mine are just steals :-)
I bought a pearl necklace from Overstock for $50
I got a real pearl bracelet from ebay for $5!! When it came...if you looked really close at the pearls, you could see some damage, BUT from more than a few inches away it looked PERFECT. So I had a 3 strand bracelet from China for $5! :-)
Splurge - Photography, which is costing us more than our catering
Steal - Tons of DIY projects that are anywhere from free to super cheap. Table numbers and escort cards being made by my FFIL out of wood scraps from his shop, favors are homemade jam made from hand-picked berries. OH and I won my shoes from a blog contest (free is definitely the ultimate steal!)
Splurge: Photog (but totally worth it), my dress (750 over budget), FH's Prada suit
Save: Our DJ (a friendor who is charging us 1/2 his regular base rate and is including all the "extras")
Splurge: our reception venue (it's pricey, but we couldn't live without it and it's a block from where the FI and I met) and my dressES (i loved them both - they only came out $150 over budget though)
Save: Cake is only $220 (fam friend owns a wedding cake business) DJ is only $300 (another family friend owns his own DJ business), DIY favors, made the STDs for under $30, and my BFFL is a professional wedding planner!
Splurge (I'll let you know when the venue quote comes in ;)
Steal: STDS they were $0.00 (that's what I call saving on costs!!! I am also probably ending up with a drop cathedral veil of some sort and perhaps will be scattering rhinestones myself with a tad bit of jewel glue because I'm comfortable placing rhinestones, although I wonder if the self stick ones will stick??
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