A Frugal Wedding is a Labor of Love

courtesy of James & Winnie

Ahh, a frugal wedding for the lucky frugal bride. What a dismal way to start off a new life right? Wrong. Not entering a marriage with the bad habit of debt is one of the smartest things the new couple can do.

Traditional weddings can run into the price of a new car, $20,000 and up if you can believe it, and more in hot cities like New York, for example.

So what? You don't need to take out a loan or break your parents over your wedding. All you need for beautiful Frugal Weddings is to get informed, get creative, stay flexible and refuse to spend over your budget, no matter what.

Chances are great you have talented family and friends who will be honored to help you come up with inexpensive wedding ideas, and help you create or find the many things that make for a beautiful wedding day.

*The amount of money your wedding costs has nothing to do with the success of your marriage.

Frugal Wedding Tips for the Frugal Bride

*Make everything you can. Wedding Cake , flower arrangements, decorations and the menu can be made by family and friends willing to devote their talents to helping you save on your wedding.

*Written materials such as the wedding program, wedding vows and lyrics to music can all be professionally done by the non professional, using cheap online resources.

*Use online resources frequently and often. Remember to shop ebay , craft stores, sewing stores and online flower wholesalers.

*Plan ahead and remember to be creative and flexible in your wedding plans. Every element will line up beautifully when you envision and work through every detail in advance.

courtesy of Mike Ocampo

Cheap and Frugal Wedding Favors

Search online for a dizzying array of wedding favors for very little money.

Table Centerpiece Ideas

Concoct a gorgeous centerpiece using materials that spark your creative juices. Use Water, Crystal, Fire, Roses and Petals, large Gerbera Daisies, Sand, Shells, Photos, Crystal beads, Candleabra, Polished Stones, Silk and Ribbons. These materials can be the starting point for some very gorgeous table centerpiece ideas for your wedding day.

courtesy of realsmiley

The Frugal Wedding Cake

You will spend 450.00 to 5000.00 depending on where you live on a custom wedding cake. Can you arrange for a family member to take a class on making specialty cakes? Or maybe she is willing to devote her time to practicing at home until she is proficient in the art of making a wedding cake, complete with faultless frosting and topped with flowers.

This can be beautifully done by a non professional with practice, and will cost only for the cake stand, cake pans, cake boards, foil, mix, filling and flowers.If making a wedding cake is not in the cards, you can also buy a large one at warehouse clubs and dress it up with flowers and candles and a topper.

courtesy of Vicky Hugheston

Frugal Wedding Reception Food

A great idea to save money on a luncheon wedding reception meal is to get help from family and friends and make a pasta bar. For 100 people you will need three salads and five different types of noodles.

Pick your favorites- Ziti, Farafelle, Tortellini, Lasagna, Linguine, Fusilli, the options are endless. Simply offer four different sauces, a marinara, a meat sauce, a pesto sauce and an alfredo version. If you want more variety make up a delicious calamari/bacon creme based white sauce as well.

Guests can make their own pasta plate and add fresh vegetables, meatballs, chicken breasts and Italian cheeses to top. Breadsticks, garlic bread and hot baked cheese loafs will keep everyone happy and blissfully well fed.

As your budget allows you can add Fruit trays, Condiment trays, Crabmeat puffs and other nibble foods, Tea cookies and a beautiful tiered Candy dish for the real sweets lovers. Remember the coffee, tea and punch as well.

The Limousine, or Not

Not many of us actually have a friend in the limo business, or the horse drawn carriage business, but you can approach these companies and offer to barter them for your services if they will show up and give you a ride to and from your wedding.

We tend to forget that these small business people are just like the rest of us, and they need the same services you may provide others at your regular job. So if you can do their taxes, landscape their home or fix their roof, by all means talk with the limo and carriage folks and arrange a trade.

courtesy of jimw

Wedding Apparel

The subject of the perfect wedding dress and where to get it is huge, but here are some things to consider. Online there have sprouted entire resale wedding dress sites that offer discounted dresses for the bride and maids that have been used once and are in perfect condition.

You may want to buy a gown off the rack and have it altered, preferably for free by a seamstress family member that knows alterations.

Finding a dress that fits from your Mother or Grandmother, or other family friend is dicy at best, because everyone is a different size, body shape and height. If you are so blessed, a few alterations can make it perfect for your wedding day.

If not, you need a larger source such as a listing service that matches buyers with sellers. You can search by size, condition, style category and designer. Keep in mind that while listing websites give you much more in terms of style and options, it is far more expensive than making your own wedding dress or borrowing a friends.

Bridesmaids can be organized into evening sewing parties and create their dresses together in some ones home in the months before the wedding. Each dress will be the same, although sewn in different proportions for each bridesmaid. This way, much like a quilting bee, they can help each other with the sewing and create lasting memories for all of the bridal party!

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