Comments on: Nine Ways to An Unconventional, Frugal Wedding

By: Susan

Susan — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:57:27 +0000

Great tips. My fella and I are also getting married (to appease parents, etc.) We’re neither religious nor traditional, and also quite political. Love that you decided not to go with diamonds for progressive reasons! We’re also limiting it to 50 people, and some peoples’ feelings might get hurt, but so what. We’re doing a “winter” wedding in mid-March. $600/venue (a nature conservancy), $65/head (including a 4 hour open bar, service, and a cake). We’ll rent some speakers and connect our netbook. My friend (payment will be the plane ticket) will be doing the photos and very personalized, quirky invites. We’re planning in this in 4 months with an expect $4500 price tag. We are really in love and I hope that it goes without a hitch (haha). Oh, and no gift registry, but I will ask local folks if they’ll put up out of town guests as a “present.”

Feebie Schultz seems like a very stupid and reactionary person, but perhaps that’s just my interpretation.

By: Daisy26

Daisy26 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:22:25 +0000

What a great & encouraging article! It is nice to hear someone with the same view on the wastefulness of traditional weddings.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 9 years and would have been married long ago if not for the exorbitant cost, the majority of which we would be shouldering. While we both make a good living, I just can’t justify spending so much on a single day. It’s insane!
We would just go to the courthouse, or do a destination wedding, but the level of family disappointment would be massive. Since my boyfriend is an only child we would be single-handedly crushing his wedding-crazy mother’s only chance. So we are stuck between the “pleasing the family” rock and the “I won’t spend 20 grand for a wedding that I won’t enjoy” hard place.
These are some great ideas on how we could do a wedding our own way – Thank you.

By: Designer Cake Lady

Designer Cake Lady — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:32:45 +0000

I was searching through Google doing research for a blog when i came across this article and I found it very informative and interesting even though it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it certainly made an interesting read on how to cut costs in these difficult financial times but still have the wedding day of your dreams! Thanks Lynette xx

By: jojo

jojo — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:37:44 +0000

Good ideas – I’ll definitely use some at my own wedding.

That said, you’ve never in your whole life seen anyone but the bride/groom/drunks/kids dance at a wedding? How many weddings have you been to? Did you go to the high school in “Footloose”?

In the past 3 years alone, I’ve been to over a dozen weddings, and every single one of them had scores of sober, adult, non-bridal-party people on the dance floor and having a good time – and two of those weddings included one side of the family that doesn’t dance at all.

By: Jerome Conner

Jerome Conner — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:10:24 +0000

Having been one of the “fifty” that attended the wedding, I must say it was alot of fun. The food was great (nice local Italian resturant), music was fine (there was even a small fake dance floor/area.), and all the guests took pictures and videos that were later given to the happy couple.

One of the costs that is least talked about is the photographer and the florist. With todays digital cameras (heck even back then), most of them taken great pictures and videos. Even the cheap cameras and photoshop can turn any pic into something that looks professional.

Concerning the florist, a friend went to the local supermarket and talked to their florist. They got great flowers that lasted several days (I know, I helped clean up later) and the colors were bright and sharp. Yet one of the most important part here is that it cost about half of a “professional” flower shop.

With my own wedding coming up at the end of Sept, I plan on using the info meantioned here. Thanks.

By: Feebie Schultz

Feebie Schultz — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:16:48 +0000

I have never heard such a bitter, depressive person talk about an amazing occasion :-) Some info was useful tho. I had to skip half of that info cos ….yuk!! so negative

By: Frugal in the Fruitlands » May Wrap-Up

Frugal in the Fruitlands » May Wrap-Up — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:35:09 +0000

[...] Nine Ways to a Frugal, Unconventional Wedding was my entry in a Moolanomy’s Best Wedding Tips and Stories contest. This was my first time writing for a contest, but I think it was a good inspiration. [...]

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:18:23 +0000

Oh, I’m not trying to defend our choices, I’m trying to grapple with being frugal and still spending as much as we are.

And Thanks for linking to that cost estimator. I feel a lot better knowing that people in the area spend a lot more. Heck, I put in the zipcode for my office and it says people around here spend, on average, 68,000, not including honeymoon or engagement ring.

Shame that the difference is only measured by how much I’m not spending, and not how much I’m saving. I’d love to take 48k in savings and do something useful with it.

By: Lise

Lise — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:26:13 +0000

In total, we spent about $5,000 for the event. So yeah, the cost per head was comparable, but we had a lot fewer people. Part of that was, of course, that we were relatively new to the area at the time.

That said, the $20,000 doesn’t well describe the average cost of a wedding in this area – it’s actually closer to $40,000. You might be interested in seeing how your costs stack up relative to other weddings in your area – the cost of wedding site I linked is great for that.

I don’t understand the appeal of a traditional wedding, but if it means something to you, then it’s something you need to keep.

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:52:58 +0000

I understand where you’re coming from with this, really I do. By the way, these days, $20k is a pretty modest wedding. I should know, that’s the range we’re landing in. Now, to be honest, that’s because we’re having close to 200 guests (and yes, I know you had a hard time getting up to 50, but we had a hard time getting the friend’s portion down to 100). Fortunately, we have someone else funding the bulk of the wedding and another someone else funding the bulk of the honeymoon. People who are happy to let us have a larger more traditional event. That said, we’re doing several things to keep the costs lower while keeping the values higher. First, our ceremony is taking place at the only site we’re using. They also do all the catering and the cake and the centerpieces and the horse and surrey and the dance floor and the chapel. Anything printed is being done by us. Dresses were ordered online, and look fabulous. Accent bits are being hand made. Favors are being hand assembled from inexpensive bits. Florist is a wholesaler as well. Dj, photographer, and organist have all been vetted and come in at respectably prices compared to their competitors. Wedding rings are palladium, ordered online. Cheaper than Platinum, but with all the benefits. Yes, more than Tungsten or Titanium, but with their own set of advantages, and pricier for not being a common stock design. Engagement ring is white gold, sapphire, and CZ. (She doesn’t like diamonds either) I put some money into this, but because it is important to me and to us, and not in the ‘I’m wealthy enough for a diamond’ sense of important. Besides, you’ve seen it. As a ring alone, it is a fabulous piece of jewelry. As an engagement ring, it is more so.

For us, we’re happy to do things a little more ‘traditional’ because some of the traditional stuff has meaning for us. We’re also happy to have such a large invite list because we love having lots of friends and family, and we want lots of people to have the chance to share the day with us. We’ve spent more on the location than anything else, and that’s because it is so perfect in so many ways (you’ll see, you’ll see), includes so much in that price, and will accommodate the numbers we have (Many places cannot).

I notice the one thing you didn’t do was include a total price for your wedding, including everything. I’m not sure if you could pull together a total expense list and add it up, given that we’re a few years out now, but it would be interesting to see. I’m thinking that it still comes in at about a quarter of ours, which lines up nicely with the fact that ours is 4 times larger.