Frugal Wedding Planning - Part 2 and Bridesmaids Dilemma...

Yesterday, I gave you Part 1 of my frugal wedding frenzy...so now I give you Part 2. You can probably plan on a part 3, 4 and maybe even 5 later on down the road...just depends on what else I can save money on ;) For now...We'll start with my dress. I went to David's Bridal for the Memorial Day weekend sale. I can't post a picture of it on here, just in case my future hubby happens to stumble across my blog and get a sneak peak ;) But I can tell you that it is simple, elegant, and almost exactly what I had in mind (which is saying something...my mind is a complex place...). I got my dress for $249.99 + tax...it was regularly priced $550. Yes, please :)

Future Hubby found a foreign guy to custom make his suit. He got to pick the fabric he wanted, and get it sized perfectly for him. He is really excited about it :) I got to see it last night, finally, via the webcam and Skype..it's pretty fancy ;) That was only $200, and it is something that he can wear again! :) His Best Man also had one custom made to match, but he wanted to buy it for it himself :)

I got my shoes on ebay for $19.99 plus shipping. I had originally planned on just going barefoot on the beach, but then I remembered that my groom is an entire foot taller than me, and decided that would probably make things a little bit difficult for our photographer ;) So I decided to go ahead and get shoes. I knew that regular heels would probably be a bad idea...you know, sinking into the sand and all...so I decided to get some wedge shoes. Normally, not my style at all, but I thought they'd be perfect for the wedding :) Plus they are just the right shade of turquoise to go along with our colors (turquoise and orange)! And...I've already got my "something blue" ;)

Now that the bride and groom are dressed...on to the rest of the bridal party!

I am planning on having my beautiful niece and nephew as the flower girl and ring bearer. I haven't gotten very far on clothes for Jaxon yet, but I am thinking some khaki linen pants, a turquoise button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and some brown flip flops. Now if only I could find linen pants for little boys...I'll keep you posted :) For Brooklynn, I have found the PERFECT little ensemble :)

Now tell me that's not precious! I found these at weddingtutu.com, and they are a bit pricey. So I asked my mom if she could make it for me, and she said she would! All I will have to buy are the materials :) I've looked around a little bit for plain white leotards, and have found some promising avenues, so we should be in good shape :)

Now for my most recent find! :) I had been on the hunt for some bridesmaids dresses...and was kinda going back and forth between having orange or having turquoise. I kinda thought turquoise would be better, because turquoise flowers are a little difficult to come by, so the flowers will for sure be orange. But then I had SUCH a hard time finding the right shade of turquoise that I was looking for! So I decided to start looking at orange dresses. I had originally found an Alfred Angelo dress that I really liked, but the cheapest I could find it was for $139 before taxes and shipping. YIKES! I really was hoping to spend absolutely no more than $100/dress on the bridesmaids dresses. Chances are, it's a dress they are going to wear one time, and they may or may not even like it! So as I was on the hunt for a dress to wear for a friend's upcoming bachelorette party, I found a great alternative!

I found these on charlotterusse.com for $32.99 + tax and shipping...BUT, I had a $10 off promo code from ordering the dress for the bachelorette party, so it ended up coming to about $31/dress after taxes and shipping. That's a price I like! (Disclaimer: I swear the dress is not as short as it looks in the picture...keep in mind models for these types of clothing stores are generally between 5'10" and 6'1"...my bridesmaids are not that tall :)

Now for my dilemma...future hubby is only having ONE groomsman, his Best Man, and he really doesn't want to add anyone else. I have done the best I can, but I really can't narrow it down anymore...I have FOUR people I REALLY want as bridesmaids. Two of the girls are two very dear friends of mine, and two of them are my older sisters.

Missy is my best friend from college. I can truly say that she is the very first "Best Friend" I ever had where the best friendship actually went both ways. Even though we live far apart now, I know I can trust her with anything, and she would not hesitate to drop everything for me if I really needed her. She will be my Matron of Honor, just like I was her Maid of Honor when she got married :) Jesse is one of my closest friends now. She has been there from the beginning of Walter and I's relationship, and has been such a blessing to me through all of it. Her and I have always had a special bond and have had the opportunity to help each other through some difficult times, with both of us dating, and now marrying, military men (she's getting married in September to her love, and I get to be there to stand up for her! :). She is someone that has already been such a great friend, and I know for the future, I can really count on to help support me and my husband in our marriage because she will understand exactly what it takes to make a military marriage successful.
I have also always wanted to have my sisters in my wedding. Sarah is my oldest sister - the one with the beautiful flower girl and ring bearer :) - and in a lot of ways, she has been my rock. I'm not sure that there is anybody that understands me the way she does. For most of our adult lives, we have lived hundreds of miles apart...but even still, she's almost always the first person I call when I need to vent, or when I have some excited news and just want someone to be happy with me :) Cassie is my other older sister. She has probably had one of the more profound impacts on me than just about anyone else in my life. She's been the person I've almost always looked up to...I even wrote a paper for my Comp class in college about her (our teacher made us write about someone who we looked up to)...haha...I don't think I ever told her that. She can be very sassy, but she's got a huge heart and will do just about anything for someone she cares about. In fact, in the 3 months I've been engaged, she has been the most willing to help me with wedding stuff, and was the very first wedding guest (and only member of my family or friends to this day) to book her stay for my wedding. AND she's even been after all her friends, trying to get them to come to Cozumel, just so we can get our wedding for free! haha :)

So...since I can't narrow it down anymore, how do I make four bridesmaids and one groomsman work? I am open to suggestions! Walter really doesn't want to add anybody, and I feel like asking him to add someone is just as lame as asking me to give up someone. I just don't want it to look weird or be overkill at a small wedding. I thought about having Walter, his Best Man, and Kyle (our minister, who also happens to be Missy's hubby) just walk out to the front together at the beginning of the ceremony...then having Cassie, Sarah, Jesse and Missy walk down the aisle individually during the processional, maybe having my sisters sit in the front row with my family (really, who likes standing for the ceremony anyways?...haha) once they get to the front, and Missy and Jesse stand next to me. Then for the recessional, having Sarah walk out with her two kiddos, Marlon (best man) escorting both Cassie and Jesse out, and then Kyle escorting Missy out. Is that dumb? Or does anyone else have a better idea?

I guess the good news is, this has really been the only "stressful" thing about planning this wedding so far...

Do you have any frugal wedding tips? And do you have any ideas for making uneven numbers of bridesmaids vs. groomsmen flow? I'm always open to new ideas :)

Frugal Wedding Planning - Part 1 :)

So...a long time ago, I told you all about my dream wedding. And then back in April, before I took my temporary leave of absense, I told you about the proposal. Now, I am officially getting to actually plan the wedding! Some of it is complicated, some of it is just frustrating...but overall, I am having a good time and trying to enjoy every minute of it :)

Now if you've followed my blog in the past, or really even know me at all...you probably know I am a bit of a penny pincher. I hate wasting money, and LOVE finding a good deal. I posted a blog a while back about my goals for the next 365 days. Some of them, I have not gotten very far on, and two of them I have thrown out completely. But the wedding planning part...well it's coming together...and I'm getting there :) But one of the main ones for me was getting completely out of debt. We are well on our way to this one...my soldier and I have been sticking to a strict budget lately, and just in the past 2-3 months, we have paid off three credit cards. Two of which, I actually called a couple of days ago to close the accounts completely. I hate the idea of being in debt and owing someone else money. I would much rather be having opportunities to save and invest our money, and plan for our future, rather than getting sucked into a hole by having to pay debts from our past. Now we are focusing on getting his truck paid off. All that to say, I am trying to be as frugal as possible with the wedding planning. I want it to be as perfect for us, but I am a firm believer that it doesn't have to cost us a fortune for that to happen!

I have been to so many weddings that have been so extravagant that I think, "Gee, I bet this wedding is costing more money than I make in a year." And I've even been to some that I didn't think were all that fancy, just to find out they still cost over $20,000. No, thank you! As of right now, I am planning our wedding on a budget of about $8500 total, and that's including our honeymoon! Depending on how our debt snowball goes, we may end up having more to spend, but I really want to stick to this budget. So I thought I would start sharing little "tips" I am learning along the way on how to plan a wedding on a small budget :)

First of all...we are doing a destination wedding...and let me just say, that is a HUGE way to save a bunch of money up front. I have gotten some flack from a few people, and some of them have been downright rude. But honestly, I don't care. This is one of the best decisions I could've possibly made about our wedding, and while I understand that it is going to be impossible for some people to come due to the cost, it is OUR wedding, it is what WE want, and it is saving us a BUNDLE of money! For the most part, I have actually gotten really positive responses regarding the destination wedding...I mean really, who doesn't want a reasonably priced vacation to the Caribbean?! A lot of our family and friends are really excited about it, because the wedding is still 10 months away, everyone still has plenty of time to save up :)

As I told you in a previous post, we have chosen the Iberostar Cozumel for our wedding-moon. This is an all-inclusive resort, which means all of our (and our guests') food and drinks (including cocktails!) will be free. Now, their prices are already pretty reasonable, but because we are booking so far in advance, we saved another $500 because they have an early booking special going on right now! On top of that...our guests that have kids under 12 will get to bring their kids for free...they have to pay for a plane ticket, but kids stay free at the resort :) The wedding itself is going to cost a base price of $1750, which includes a wedding coordinator, flowers, decoration and set-up for the wedding, dinner for us and all of our wedding guests, a wedding cake, sparkling wine for everyone to toast with at the cermony, and they even decorate our room and give hubby and I chocolate covered strawberries and champagne on our wedding night! Really can't be that! Now...we do have to pay an extra $20/person for every guest we have over 10 people, but even that won't end up being too bad. PLUS, if we get enough people that 20+ rooms are booked for 3+ nights, our entire wedding is FREE and still includes all that stuff! So I've got my sister and a friend trying to recruit random people to come to my wedding just so we can get it for free...HA! :) It would not hurt my feelings to get a free wedding...not one bit.

Aside from the fact that we are saving tons of money just by doing a beach wedding, I have come across some other great finds to save us some money.

First off, since we are going through a travel agent to book everything for the wedding, the travel agency sent out trifold brochures for free that had information about the resort, our wedding date, and contact information for our travel agent...so we didn't have to bother with paying for Save the Dates or the postage!

Then I was looking online the other day, trying to decide what to do for invitations, and came across these fun little guys:



I found these and several other examples on etsy.com, and got really excited. I also found some RSVP cards that look like mini boarding passes.

I think they are perfect! A.) Not only are they cute for a destination wedding, but B.) They will also have plenty of room to include all the information we need about the resort, and itenerary for the weekend of the wedding, and we are still considering the possibility of doing either a pre-wedding party before we go or a reception when we return, so that we can still celebrate with our family and friends that can't make it to Cozumel, so we could just add another page and include that information, rather than sending out completely separate invitations. I got really excited about these...then I looked at the prices...they ranged from $3.75 to $6.75 PER invitation. EEK!

Fortunately, I have a really talented, creative sister with lots of fancy computer software that was more than happy to help me out...she's going to design them for me! :) I'm planning on paying for all the supplies she needs to make them (paper, ink, etc.), and then maybe exchanging some work on her house when I get back to the midwest for her design services ;)

Another idea I got from etsy, was doing these program fans :) Most of them are going for $2-3 per fan, but I figure this is simple enough that I can just type it up myself, print it on some card stock, glue it to a paint stick and tie a ribbon around it. Can't be that hard right?! :)

These are just some of my ideas so far...I have a whole other post coming up about our wedding attire along with more frugal finds :)

Do you have any good beach wedding ideas? Or just simple ways to save some money when it comes to wedding planning? I am always open to new ideas!