Product Description

The average wedding today costs over $20,000--and that's just for a modest wedding. But even budget-conscious couples want to have a wedding that's unique and reflects their personalities and style. You don't have to sacrifice your wedding dream because of money. With the insider secrets in this book, you can get two to three times the wedding for your budget.

* Reception--the one area where couples spend the most is on the reception. This is the area with the most opportunities to save.

* Gown--how to find your gown for far less than what other brides are paying at retail.

* Flowers--insider secrets from the floral industry to create floral arrangements and bouquets that are unique and less expensive

* Transportation (limousines)--find out how to save 25-50 percent on your wedding-day transportation through smart planning alone.

* Wedding favors--find out how to select favors that are elegant and functional at a fraction of the cost of what you'll find on wedding websites.

* Invitations--countless ways to create invitations, programs, place cards and other printed items for less.

* Comprehensive resource lists

* Money-saving tips from real-life couples

* Insider secrets from wedding-industry professionals

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205583 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781402202988
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
"A must for brides on a budget...a veritable volume of super-chic for super-cheap."--Copley News Service

About the Author
Sharon Naylor is the author of 23 wedding planning books. She is the wedding Q&A specialist at NJWedding.com and a regular contributor to the top bridal magazines, including Bridal Guide, Bride Again, and Bride's. She is also a wedding content contributor to Bed Bath & Beyond. Sharon has written for Shape, Health, Self, Woman's Day, Cosmopolitan and dozens of additional national magazines. She is a member of the highly prestigious International Special Events Society, The Association of Bridal Consultants, and The American Society of Journalists and Authors, and she has won top honor awards from Writer's Digest magazine and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She currently lives in Madison, New Jersey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Size, Style, and Formality

Call these the Big Three. So much of what your wedding will cost depends-obviously-on how many guests you will invite, the type of wedding you'll have, and how formal it will be. When you make these decisions, you're laying the groundwork for every one of your decisions about the wedding. For instance, a formal wedding will call for a formal full-length gown, which is extremely likely to cost a few thousand dollars more than the pretty white sundress you'd wear to your informal outdoor wedding. Inviting three hundred guests to your wedding means you'll spend more than if you invited twenty-five or fifty guests.

But it's a lot more complicated than these simple formulas, as you'll soon find out. If you plan an informal wedding for twenty-five guests all accompanying you to Belize, it could still cost more than a formal wedding for one hundred back in your hometown. See how that works?

All the puzzle pieces fit together differently, with each of your big decisions working together in the way that fits your wedding dream best. Not every category has to be "the least expensive option possible." That would leave you with ten guests eating hot dogs in your backyard. Not your wedding dream, I'd imagine. So go through all of the options in each of the next few chapters, fit your puzzle pieces together, and lay the groundwork for a wedding that allows you more for your dollar in all of the remaining categories.

Your Wedding's Size
We've established that it's not an automatic guarantee that you'll save more if you have a smaller guest list, because the second half of that equation is how formal a wedding you're planning. You can spend a fortune with the most elegant, formal wedding decorated in a sea of white imported roses, the finest champagne, a designer dress, and only fifty wedding guests. Once that's established, then you're dealing with the original question of how many guests you will invite. That's where you get the price per person, and that's where your totals start adding up.

Once you have all your ducks in a row and find out, say, that your price-per-head is $55, then you can look at the number of guests you want to invite. Obviously, at this point, two hundred guests will cost you more than one hundred guests. That's where the pure math comes in. But what's important for you to realize is that you must not sacrifice the most important part of your wedding just to save money. And that most important part is the people with whom you want to share it. People are more important than money. For many brides and grooms, they'd rather have a less formal wedding than even dream of cutting certain relatives and friends from their guest list. They'd rather have their friends from college with them than buy a designer wedding gown.

Consider your guest list to be a defining factor for your wedding plans, not the other way around. At minute one, right now, you should create your desired guest list and then use the following tips to make your budget work.
1. If you're considering planning a destination wedding, it might already be in your mind that your guest list will be limited to just a few close family members and friends. Most brides and grooms limit this guest list to under twenty-five people, which obligates fewer of your loved ones to shell out for a trip to the Cayman Islands to join you (or saves you a fortune if you're offering to pay for their airfare and lodging!), and also costs you less for those per-guest catering fees at the reception site.

2. Don't forget that the wedding reception is not the only event for which you will be paying a per-guest price. With the spread of wedding weekend events, like cocktail parties, brunches, and picnics, you can wind up paying a small fortune for the other events you'll invite your guests to. So keep that added expense in mind as you decide on your total guest tally-you will be paying for more than one party for each of them.

3. Choose a smaller bridal party with fewer bridesmaids and ushers. With four bridesmaids in your party instead of eight, that's four fewer presents you'll have to buy, perhaps even four fewer gown purchases and tux rentals for the guys if you're among the couples who generously pick up their bridal parties' expenses.

4. A smaller guest list can open doors at less expensive wedding locations, like restaurant party rooms that can hold only eighty-five guests as a matter of size and safety standards. At sites like these, catering costs and wedding packages are much more likely to be lower-priced per guest than at the cavernous ballrooms that can hold your 300+ wedding guests. At some of these smaller-sized, but still equally beautiful locations, it can be as much as 45 percent less per person.

5. Leave kids off the guest list for the official reception. Hosting kids other than the flower girls and ring bearer adds up when you consider that caterers will often charge you a full guest fee for each child in attendance. Even a caterer's cut-rate children's fee is often too pricey to justify. Why pay $50 per child when that child is just going to pick on a few bites from the buffet and then run around with the other kids? Your guests' kids can be invited to other, less expensive wedding weekend events like picnics and cookouts. You can pay for a kids-only pizza party and DVD movie night with hired babysitters during the wedding celebrations for less than what it would have cost to pay for just one or two of those kids to attend the reception. It's a huge savings for you, and parents will enjoy the kid-free night.

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Customer Reviews

Here's one way to save wedding money -- don't buy this book!
To be frank, this book was a total waste of money. In all the 1000 Bargain Tips, I don't think I found ONE that I haven't already thought of, read about in a magazine or seen online.

Among the wonderful tips:
--Serve a less expensive meal to guests
--Order fewer flowers
--Buy a non-designer dress
--Borrow your ring pillow from a friend
--Get a photographer to cover just a few hours of the reception instead of staying the entire time

Wow, thanks for the insight!
How about, Save yourself $12 that could be used to buy your unity candle by NOT BUYING THIS BOOK.

I stupidly bought it in conjunction with 1000 ways to make your wedding special. Can't wait to crack THAT one open.

1001: Don't Buy This Book
As I type, my very good friend is reading me tip number 463. It was about 399 tips ago that I completely gave up on this book and claimed it the most useless published item to hit the wedding market so far. If you have no personality, no concept of creativity, and no inspiration drawn from the unique nature of your relationship, this is the book for you.

Additionally, if you are still holding on to gender stereotypes that your great-grandparents held, if you already plan to spend over $40,000 and want to save $1000-$2000, or if, as a couple, you can only be described as possessing a warm pulse, this is also the book for you.

I love to save money just as much as the next guy. And trust me, I'll do a lot to save it. But ideas like "have your wedding party sing you a song instead of releasing live butterflies or doves" or "have your future father-in-law build your chuppah from 2X4s from the Home Depot" do not exactly help me, at all, with any kind of a wedding I would want. First of all, I am not generic. Additionally, I resent the assumption that I will marry in a church, marry a man, or that I should make my own "ethnic item" (read: roses that I wear on my head).

Here is my best tip: be yourself and let your wedding be a reflection of the kind of couple you are. And for God's sake, don't spend $40,000 that you don't have for 6 hours. That's just common sense.

Great ideas for the bride and groom's parents to use!
As the mother of the bride, and recent mother of the groom, I found this book to provide many useful ideas for invitations, flowers, the menu, cakes, and even my wedding day wardrobe. I was able to suggest great items and shopping strategies, which made me feel like an important member of the planning team. Highly recommended for parents who are helping to plan and pay for the wedding.