- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Weddingbee boards
Just curious if there's ONE item all of you bees are splurging on for the wedding?
I've decided, as much as possible, to do what we can "DIY" ... but there's one thing I've alreay decided to splurge on (and have put down the $100 deposit on...) and that's our wedding cake topper...it will end up costing us about a total of $400.
I found someone online who creates these INCREDIBLE cake toppers in the image of you and your FI plus ANYTHING you want it to look like (sports, careers, etc.)
He and I are HUGE chicago cubs fans and so we're getting ours done in a Chicago Cubs theme - and he actually LOVES the idea.
This is what it will sorta look like (made to look like us, though) 
anyways - what are YOU splurging on?
wow, that's such a unique idea for a cake topper! :)
They look similar to "personalized bobble-heads" - is that the kind of vendor you looked for?
I'd say our photography, but that is a gift from my grandparents. I guess I am splurging on my dress because right now (besides the photography) it is the most expensive item we are going to have. Our flowers and invites will be DIY as will our food, and our venues just didn't turn out to be very expensive. Sometimes living in a small town can have it's advantages I guess.
Awesome cake topper!
My biggest splurge was the dress. I've been saving for a designer couture dress for nearly 2 years. I knew with my fashion sense, whatever I picked out was not going to be anywhere close to being "in budget." So I set up a separate account and deposited a little from every paycheck and it really added up. When it was time to start shopping for a dress, I was able to check out anything I wanted. I tried on Amsale, Christos, Vera Wang, Carolina Herrera, Oscar de la Renta and ended up deciding on a gorgeous Monique Lhuillier. I couldn't be happier with my purchase. :)
Those cake toppers are great!
Our splurge is the cake. Baking is a passion of mine so when it came to the cake I was looking to do something funky to represent us and be fantastic at the same time. I never thought this would happen but our cake will be about a grand. I have to tell you that I believe it will be worth every penny. The cake tasting was amazing and the baker is very talented so I am looking forward to the finished piece!
IMG_2115.JPG (3274 KB, 125 downloads) 1 year old IMG_2113.JPG (4450.8 KB, 51 downloads) 1 year old 
Omg, what are they made of? I'm looking for something like that. Could I have the website of who is doing it for you?
My biggest splurge yet, has been my dress. I went for my dream dress, custom and handmade overseas, duchess satin, swarovski crystals, french macrame lace and pearls!
IMG_3774.JPG (1472.2 KB, 41 downloads) 1 year old 
I LOVE the personalized sports topper! But I can't bring myself to spend the $$$ on it. :(
I would say my splurge will be my wedding shoes. I *really* want Jimmy Choos. I've been hounding eBay and sites like RueLaLa. I'm capping myself off at about 250-300. I'm no longer splurging on my dress or photographer so I get a really expensive pair of shoes! :D
MsHymanRoth
OMG your dress sounds INCREDIBLE! any pics of it yet?...
btw, i PM'd you the link
The honeymoon. Travel is really important to us as a regular part of our companioniship, and we wanted our honeymoon to be one of our "lifetime all important, check off the list" kinda trips. It is costing us about $6,000 per person, but it will be the most blissful 25 days imaginable, and is helping to keep all the guest-accomodating, party-planning aspects of the actual wedding itself in perspective.
juliet.jpg (30 KB, 92 downloads) 1 year old
love that cake topper!
my splurge is the photobooth... had to talk FI into it.... hope it's worth it!!
P1030939.JPG (2771.8 KB, 21 downloads) 1 year old Hairpins1.jpg (46.9 KB, 23 downloads) 1 year old P1030916.JPG (2069.1 KB, 20 downloads) 1 year old Haircombs4.jpg (37.8 KB, 21 downloads) 1 year old
@wedinred: Thanks! We're doing a luxury European cruise for 13 days, with several days free at either end in the first and last ports. The cruise starts in Amsterdam and ends in Barcelona. It will be West Coast Groom's first time in Europe, and the longest vacation we've both ever taken so we're really excited!
BOOOOZEEE...we are trying to get as many bottles of alcohol as we can for our money...we are definately not getting cheap alc but we want the best bang for our buck...
SalonStyle047.JPG (1751.8 KB, 28 downloads) 1 year old SS046.jpg (1912.5 KB, 28 downloads) 1 year old WAS-Five-Sizes.jpg (2352.9 KB, 25 downloads) 1 year old 
photography (for the memories) and the honeymoon (because we will deserve it!)
I would say my reception 246/head plus tax; it's at the Waldorf Astoria I wanted it to be special, I saw so many places, when I went to the Waldorf I had the a-ha moment, the only way I can afford it is to limit to 50-60 people and everything is serious DIY and hard bargaining and looking to some serious deals and asking personal favors, Photographer (1000) a friend and free-lancer photographer, hair and make-up free a friend from the John Barrett shop on fifth Avenue is doing it, flowers and bouquets $400 wholesale florist will do it and I'm doing my own bouquets, transport for guests $160-found someone on a shuttle walking down the street and he wanted a commission so is going to give me the best rate, invitations were $35 It was DIY still have to mail it, car is $50, I'm paying a co-worker to drive around int he city from church to hotel and to central park I'm going to just clean and spruce up my beamer, I also struck a deal for my brother to split a shortterm 3 bedroom apartment for all 14 members of my immediate family-the others will stay at my apartment, so I don't have to worry where they'll stay and I dont have to pay the full 880 (in exchange I added her daughter as flowergirl, veil and tiara gloves free, mom's getting it in the Philippines, cake is free through the Waldorf, they are throwing in candles, a free honeymoon suite, a dancefloor and discounted hotel rate for guests. Videographer for $250, they do MTV videos and weddings on the side, MTV is not doing well now, works fo rme, and 595 for DJ.
so even if the reception is lavish, everything else is deeply discounted!
definitely the photography!! its most important to me to have awesome photos and albums to look back on for the rest of our lives....second might be the venue... then the dress!
bridesmaid_dress2.jpg (7.1 KB, 32 downloads) 1 year old bridesmaid_dress.jpg (7.7 KB, 29 downloads) 1 year old 
Well, our reception (including food, DJ, ceremony) is 61% of our cost....the other 7K is everything else. I'd say our HM is our splurge but my parents decided to gift it to us! So our next big-ticket item is our $2800 phtoographer....who hasnt' returned any of my phone calls or emails in about 2 weeks. And our engagement pics are still not done and it's been over 2.5 months.
Yeah.
Also, ME! I'm taking this all as a chance to get my nails done, massages, pedicures, waxes, facials, body wraps, etc. Things I NEVER do for myself b/c i never have a *good excuse*
I am actually kind of splurging on favors. We're having a very abbreviated guest list so I decided to put the effort and money into nice favors. We ordered a glass beer mug for each person and are filling them with the special gold shimmer and pearl white colored M&Ms so that they look like they're filled with beer! I think I paid as much for favors for 2 dozen people as I would have for favors for 150 but hopefully they will turn out awesome and be well-received.
our biggest splurge i think would be the horse and carriage i just put a deposit down on...yikes!! it is going to cost 600 bucks!! but you know, when will i ever have the opportunity to ride with my dad in a horse drawn carriage to my wedding?? never!! also, since i've been on this board, i've been checking out those awesome button and felt flowers in the weddingbeepro by princessleserton and i am interested in maybe getting one of those...this way i can always have my flowers!
awesome cake topper by the way!!
Our biggest splurge is our photographer. He is amazing, but does come with a high price tag. My justification is that I will have these pictures for the rest of my life and I dont want to look back 10years later and regret not spending more on pictures!
well, big money wise would probably be the photographer (as we'll be spending above and beyond what thekn*t budgeted we should in our personal breakdown on their site) but for me personally, I really want nice designer shoes which compared to the photographer won't be expensive...but will probably end up being the most expensive shoes I will ever own!!
I've splurged on the photographer (3,300) and the venue (4500) and the food (8,000). I think all three were very impt to me. Ok we also splurged on jewelry for me, but that was a gift from my grandmother and its important for Indians to splurge on real jewelry because they're heirlooms going forward.
I thought it was going to be the venue as I mentioned earlier in the thread, but after hearing the prices from another friend looking, I think it's going to be photography. Yay! The prices we're basically half of what I thought.
Oh and shoes! There is no limit for those!
wedding5_001.jpg (34.7 KB, 148 downloads) 1 year old wedding5_004.jpg (46.4 KB, 156 downloads) 1 year old wedding5_005.jpg (62.6 KB, 137 downloads) 1 year old wedding5_003.jpg (50.6 KB, 131 downloads) 1 year old 
Our biggest splurge was photography, which cost about 4x what we budgeted, but we cut back in so many other areas (thanks to DIY and my willingness to abandon formality when it came to invitations) that it wasn't a huge deal. Also, I really splurged on shoes, and got myself a pair of those Cole Haan's with the Nike Air sole. Totally worth it.
I feel like everything is a splurge! our photographer and my dress are the biggest deviations fro the budget but i got a little carried away with bridesmaid jewelry too :)
I feel like I have a few things I've splurged on! Photographs were really important to us and we wanted to have an artistic feel to them! We went with www.jkhphoto.com. The photos are beautiful and our cost is $6,000. We also splurged on our florist. The florist is a friend of mine and she's giving everything to me at cost. But because of that we decided on more! We have all white flowers, 12 foot tall birch trees with glass globes w/ votive and white flowers wired in...she is $5,700. And then our venue just to rent is $4500! But again, gorgeous! very rustic! http://www.herbanfeast.com/venues-sodopark.html
A photo booth- It will be $795 and will print out doubles of each strip. The guests keep one strip and the other will go into a scrap book with a note from the guest for us to keep. Sounded like so much fun. We really shopped around for the type of booth we wanted and then were able to negotiate both the price and the amount down. This wedding is pretty low budget even with the booth. We should still be under $6000 for 120 guests. That includes a cool venue, food, the booth, rentals, etc.
Our biggest splurge is our photographer. We are not having a videographer and that helped justify the cost. Our package is around $7K but we feel worth every penny. Our photographer has worked with several high profile clients. If you are in the west Michigan area, check out Jenn Kroll Photography: www.jenkrollphotography.com Her work is AMAZING and she is such a sweet person.
I also got a wedding planner which I paid for myself. Since our wedding will be held 3 hours away from Chicago, I needed assistance with all the details. Cheri, from RSVP Planning, is worth her weight in gold!!! I purchased the complete package and it was $2500. In Chicago planners start at $4K and go UP!
Photography! It was definitely the best thing we splurged on b/c our pictures came out amazing and our photographer ended up being featured in a ton of bridal magazines.
Besides that, it tied with our honeymoon...nothing like relaxation after the wedding!
My biggest splurge was my dress and our honeymoon! Well, actually my mom is paying for the dress, so I guess it would just be our honeymoon, which we are paying for. It will cost us about $5000 to go to Hawaii!
Our splurges will be our venue and our cake topper too - one of the monogrammed ones covered in rhinestones (about $200-300)
I'm an encore, but it's his first wedding. We both have huge families and our guest list was nearing 200 with just them - so we decided to bite the bullet and invite all of the people we want to and have it at a place we love - about 300 (at about 60 a head)
To balance it, We've saved on photos- 2 friends (free), the flowers (DIY Silk), my dress (ebay), get-a-way vehicle (a friend's - free), and and the invites (DIY)
We're paying for it ourselves so we set the date way out and are really saving every penny we can.
shoes10.JPG (55.9 KB, 68 downloads) 1 year old 
I stayed within our budget for nearly everything...except my dress! Total splurge and totally worth it! I fell in love with my Jim Hjelm wedding gown and after I tried it on, I couldn't go back!
It doesn't really feel like we're splurging of much of anything as weird as that is! But after some thought I decided the local beers and wines that we'll be featuring will be our splurge. We definitely could have gone with cheaper drinks (and oh was it tough to pass up on my favorite $6 Spanish white!) Oh well. It will be worth it, right?
Photography. Not that our photographer is expensive, we actually got a deal for her talent; but I know of plenty photographers that are much cheaper. I just reallllly love her style. She is so good, I wouldn't think twice if she charged $5,000 for what she is only charging us $2,000 for... but when my budget is $10,000 that is quite the amount!
:)
Linens. Our place provides them but they're all white, so we're splurging for something with more pop! I'm an artist and couldn't stand for just white!!
dress.jpg (62.2 KB, 26 downloads) 1 year old 22.jpg (60.2 KB, 17 downloads) 1 year old Bridal%20gown_020_2.jpg (73.4 KB, 18 downloads) 1 year old 
Our venue (which includes the food) for sure. We have 200 guests, and in Northern California, anywhere will cost you a pretty penny.
We're splurging on our honeymoon. Funny as how it was the one thing we said we could put off if the budget got out of control, but I just sent in the deposit yesterday. We've never been to Hawaii, so we rented a house right on the beach on the north shore of Kauai. This will for sure be the nicest vacation we've ever taken, since we usually just go camping, but I feel it's justified, since we'll need to de-stress after the wedding! And the best part, the house we're renting is called the "Love Shack," how perfect is that for a honeymoon?
Probably my linens and chairs - Im getting floor length satin tablecloths and chiavari chairs (Ive always wanted them). And my venue :)
jayne5copy4.jpg (1857 KB, 21 downloads) 1 year old 
Our DJ...... we both love music and have decided to hire a DJ who we feel is "iconic".
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Sorry, there are no users yet.
Sorry, there are no users yet.
