Weddingbee boards

you can find some awesome prices on certain things - you just have to look! do you have ANY "hook ups"?  i found our INCREDIBLE photographer through work...in our cafe there's a board where people can put business cards - and one woman's daughter who's still getting into the wedding photography business, is who i went with - and when most places around here charge 3K for the "all day / all photos / + rights..." I got all that for $1500! AND she threw in engagement pictures!

we I DIY'd most of our stuff - programs, centerpieces, FLOWERS (silk, and found a friend at work who arranges them as a "hobby" - she did them as our wedding present!)

so my suggestion - find out exactly what it is you want, first, then ask around and network!

good luck!

#1 Photographer- make sure they give you your digital negatives included in the price so you can have copies made whenever you like!

 #2 food- This is easy to work into varying budgets and a full stomach of good food makes people happy

You don't really need a wedding coordinator but it helps to have an MC. Which if the DJ is good he can do this part. Make sure to walk him though how you want the evening to unfold ahead of time! 

My big three were food, photography and the dress.

1. FOOD: It was really important to me that we have good, interesting food. We first settled with doing a seafood bake, but with the crisis in the Atlantic prices have already started to skyrocket, so we changed our menu. Now we're doing squid ink pasta with a recipe that my FI created and a few different tasty apps to go along with it.

2. PHOTOGRAPHY: I thought I knew what I wanted when it came to photography, but I realized that all I was looking at were prices, so I changed tactics and picked everyone that was in my price range to look through. Then, after contacting each one and weeding out the ones that were either extremely late in responding or who never responded I was down to just a handful. From there I started looking critically at their work and ranked them by how I liked them. Finally, I set up a meeting with our number one choice and after talking with him, picked and booked him. I'm extremely satisfied even though he is on the high end of our budget and we will likely have to pay for a bit of extra time with him.

3. DRESS: I had in my mind exactly what I wanted for a dress and was determined not to settle (well as long as it was within a reasonable price range). I didn't want to spend more than $1k with alterations and I wanted a very specific look. My dress ended up being the first one I picked out in the first store I went to. I tried on other dresses at David's, but couldn't help but to fall in love with that first one. I super lucked out here because my dad eventually revealed to me that he was paying for it as a birthday present.

The photographer is the most important aspect to me, because people don't seem to remember the flowers, cake, or food very well afterwards, but those pictures will last a lifetime, and I hope to be lucky enough to show some of my Grandbabies some day with stories about my beloved!