My Two Cents on How to Save $ on Your Wedding

Who wants to have a beautiful wedding without breaking the bank? Who doesn't, right? I must admit that I'm still paying for my wedding and that was three-ish years ago.  Sad but true.  I banked on recouping much of the wedding costs through our wedding gifts (we didn't have a gift registry so most of our gifts were cash) and selling my wedding dress. My plan failed and my dress is still in my closet.  Well, enough with this sob story. I hope you brides out there listen to my lil' roundup of links from around the web and learn how to have a fashionably frugal wedding.  :) 

Wedding Advice: Budget-Friendly Wedding Cake & Dessert Options for Your Reception by Shawn Rabideau via SmartBrideBoutique

This article features a lot of great points but there are some things he recommends that I would be really careful with:

• Having a variety of desserts. Stacking a dessert bar with cupcakes, smores, candies, and/or cookies can add up especially if you're using different vendors. Just watch it. 
• Trick cake. I don't know one person who was able to do this. My cake vendor said it would actually take more money to create false upper layers and sheet cakes.  It does make sense if your cake baker does not usually make fake layer cakes.  
• Cupcakes? I heard they were going out of style.

SavvySugar - Weddings

Savvy Sugar is part of the uber-popular "insanely addictive" PopSugar Network. This site is full of incredibly useful wedding posts.

LearnVest's Ways-To-Save

LearnVest aims to help women take control of their finances.  Check out their 8 step checklist to wedding planning.  Don't be dissuaded by their first tip, buffet-haters!  I fed my guests buffet-style and my guests loved it but it might just be a cultural thing. See what Mr. Bailey says about Buffet vs Sit Down here.

Still want the Rolls Royce, open bar, and honeymoon in Monte Carlo? Platinum weddings are so 2007.

Wedding Report

A backyard wedding seems like the in thing to do these days and the wedding blogosphere is eating it up. Check out two beautiful backyard weddings at Recycled Bride and the Ruffled blog.

These last three links are sites are non-wedding-related but can help you now and during your post-wedding bliss:

The Cheap Chica's Guide to Style

Lilliana is featured in Elle's September issue which is out on newsstands today. 

Mint 

I use this online application to keep track of my spending. There were so many features I love like identifying what you spend the bulk of your budget on. It blew my mind how much we spent on food and drink (hey, what can I say? I live near Yountville where there's more Michelin Star restaurants per capita than anywhere in the world). The best part of Mint is that's it's free!

Oprah's Debt Diet

I haven't actually used this debt diet but there were tons of great pointers on the show. It's definitely worth your time checking out.

5 tools for Paperless Wedding Planning

#1  Google Docs  - Wedding

If you haven't started using Google Docs yet for your wedding planning, you're missing out! It's great if you don't want to trek around your wedding binder.  I recommend using Style Me Pretty's Google Wedding Docs. SMP + Google, seriously? Come on, who else can beat that?

#2 Evernote

Back when theknot let brides made their own bios, I copied links and pictures like crazy from wedding blogs, photographers, and planners' websites to create my ultimate bio. The stuff I saved from the web were scattered everywhere: on my desktop, my camera, Google Docs, and my wedding binder.  It was a chore to find everything.  With Evernote, I could have saved all those links and pictures in an online database indexed by notebooks and tags. You can even save pdfs and search for words in that pdf file! Check out how this bride used Evernote here.  There's even Evernote for cell phone and for twitter. You can capture information when you're up and about on your bridal tour, at your local bridal show or take pictures of your potential wedding flowers at your local flower mart.  Find a cool musician or hear a cool song you want to play at your wedding? Evernote will let you capture audio as well.

#3  Scanner

Another way to reduce paper clutter is by owning a scanner.  I learned how to do this from Unclutterer (a terrific blog about getting and staying organized).  Just from personal experience, I would recommend the Fujitsu Scan Snap.  I don't have to worry about faxing documents ever again if I can just scan and email them instead. The best part is that I can easily scan to Evernote. I scan my business cards so my rolodex is always searchable and accessible online. 

#4  USB thumb drive

Picture this - you are meeting a friend after your wedding and you want to show off your wedding pictures - Well, if your pictures are no longer on a website, you can always tote around a USB drive with tons of storage space. My favorite USB drive is the LaCie iamakey. It's sturdy, small, and fits easily on your keychain. There's even a 32 GB one.  

#5  Portable Apps

Or you want to show someone your favorite websites but you forgot the name or link-  

Not all is lost if you have your trusty USB drive and downloaded a portable app suite onto it.  I use PortableApps (one of Lifehacker's Best Portable Apps Suites)  which includes a downloadable portable Mozilla Firefox so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords wherever you go.  

A Wedding is a Day; a Marriage is a Lifetime: 8 Rules for Arguing Fairly

 Venice, Italy

Wedding planning is not all about pretty flowers and cake, right?  There can be lot of stressful times when emotions run high especially when money is a limiting factor.  To help you cope, here are some pearls from my Engagement Retreat that can help you and your honey whenever you are arguing about things like buying the new Xbox vs renting table linens.

Rules for Arguing Fairly 
1. No name calling. 
This includes using affectionate terms sarcastically.
2. No third parties.
The argument is just between the two of you.
3. No past history.
If it's already settled don't bring it up again. You can use the 48 hour rule.
4. Stick to the subject.
Identify the problem. Don't go on to other issues.
5. No cheap shots.
Don't use the other's weakness to gain advantage. You may win the argument, but injure the relationship. No hitting below the belt!
6. Don't go to bed angry.
Finish the argument or call a truce and agree on a time to continue.
7. Maintain a sense of humor. 
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Laughter is the best medicine!
8. Hold Hands.
This is difficult because it requires a "decision to love." This helps to keep your focus where it belongs, on the person who means more to you than anyone in the world.

Disclaimer: I don't know the source of these rules so if you ever find the author, let me know so I can properly credit them. Thanks!