MONEY!!!!

Jen Hayward

My wedding is in bristol

Dannie138

Bristol is nice ...Do you have a theme or colors? You were saying your mom backed out on flowers...Could you afford anything yourself or would you have to improvise? I used Flower Girls in Warwick for mine-- fantastic woman that owns it and she can work with any budget.

AngieP900

Spelling aside - could you make your own? Depending on the size of the wedding, could you maybe go to Michaels and make some centerpieces? My bouquet was uncut and untied and I loved it, so you could send someone to pick up some fresh flowers the morning of.

KB_RI

Jen, if you've already put down deposits and would lose money, then maybe you should go ahead but try to cut costs for the "frills" - flowers, programs, bridal party gifts, rehearsal dinner, etc. Your vendors might be willing to work with you to alter or downgrade your packages if it means the difference between getting some money and getting a cancellation with only 40 days to go. We don't have a lot of details about your wedding so it's tough to suggest specific places where you could save money. For instance, if you had planned a church wedding, you could move it to the Chapel by the Sea at Colt State Park in Bristol, which only charges $15, if there's nobody booked there already. If you had planned a dinner reception, maybe you could ask about moving it up to a lunch if nobody else is booked there in the afternoon. You could ask your photographer to downgrade your package to "coverage only" and then purchase an album later when/if you have more money. Or, if you can't afford the lowest package, you could forfeit your deposit and ask a friend to document the day instead with a digital camera. As for flowers, if your mom can't afford them now, you could just do a bouquet for you and then get centerpieces and decorations elsewhere. Homegoods has tons of fall-themed decor that is pretty inexpensive. You could get candles for centerpieces instead at Ikea. You could even hit Michaels with the coupon they have every week and put together a silk bouquet if you had to. I would look to do things like that before I financed anything on credit cards.

Jen Hayward

yess i grew up in bristol before i moved to cape with my dad an my FI ( secret hubby) didn't want to do the cape type wedding but wanted kinda beach them when our wedding was in may it sounded perfect but now that its in october i wanted to change my them unfortanitly we already got the girls dresses the colors are teal (davids bridal calls it mermaid) and white

KB_RI

Don't worry about the dress colors; over on the October 2010 board, girls are using all kinds of colors!

shanlubey

Dr. phil's wife wore a cranberry and teal gown to the daytime emmys last night and looked AMAZING! Weird combo, but very flattering. Maybe throwing some burgundy/brown into the mix would be a good way to throw a little fall into it.

Jen Hayward

yess wedding is in colt state park flowwers i am now thinging having my MO an BM go pick flowwrs that mmorning an wraping them thats a great idea thank you i also got sand from a beach here an tons of sea glass from christmas tree for $1.00 a bag i need to get candels still the favors my FI/ hubby mom sent us a check for them but somthing eles came up an we used the money so now we need to get the money for that my wedding band was passed down from my grandmother so we saved money there i still need to find my somthing borrowd an blue ... i need a photgrapher still i think thats whats hurting us the most with the money... my step dad is paying for half the food wich is A BIGGG HELP i have a friend who makes jewlery so she is helping me with the partys gifts we are not doing a rehersal dinner thank you alll for the positive in put

megget

wow these posts are all over the place!! hopefully my punctuation doesn't offend anyone haha!! I use WAY too many exclamation points and do the "--" thing a lot instead of periods! oh well!! I'm getting married in Bristol too Jen--which venue? we're having our wedding at Linden Place--we're sooooo excited!!! I definitely like everyone's ideas about DIYing your hair and make-up and cutting back on things that aren't neccessary...I just went to a wedding on LI where I'm from and there was SO much food that when the entrees came out, no one touched any of it!! not cause it was bad--cause they were full!!! so things can definitely be scaled back and people will still have an amazing time because they're celebrating you and that's all that matters!!! oh I just noticed I never capitalize either...my Mama would be ashamed! =P

Dannie138

You could probably find a photographer for a good price...did you have a price range in mind? Or you could look for a student photographer, which always has good rates!

Jen Hayward

Not really sure on a price were can you find students that do it ??

shanlubey

Go to Craigslist, but be careful. not everyone is reliable on there.

AngieP900

Or RISD. You could put a flier up on campus.

RITobi

some photogs will do it for free to enhance their portfolio.

kerrijune

another photographer suggestion: http://mollyannesphotos.blogspot.com/ I know she is just starting out so I think she is trying to build her portfolio.

shellduc

Hi Jen, Sorry to hear you are having a hard time with your wedding and the payments. We all feel it I'm sure and I sometimes wonder what else I could be doing with this money ha! Seriously though, I am excited for you and for your wedding. I know of someone who had a photographer for the day for $300. Send me an email and I'll see about contacting her. My email is shellduc@yahoo.com. Heck, if you have a camera, I'll take pictures for you! Not sure what things you could save on. When it's only 41 days away, most of your vendors probably already have deposits. But you could definitely check to see what is the minimum you can do. Sorry your mom can't do the flowers anymore, but don't worry too much about flowers. Its in october and I hear your day is going to be beautiful, fall day Have you told your vendors that your hubby is in the military? I think they will usually give you a discount.

fosterliz

I just have to say to everyone who posted replies...Thanks for the huge stress relieving laugh!Half of you that were complaining about Jen810's bad spelling, had some mistakes of your own!!!  Sentances????  Good Lord!  LOLAnyway, I agree with others about cutting back where you can, and there are so many ways to cut back!Good job on getting married at Colt State Park.  If it was closer to where most of my guests are coming from, I would have had mine there.I love the idea of looking into RI School of Design for a student photographer.  What an excellent opportunity for someone!Did you say where your reception was planned for?As far as flowers, I have heard that Stop and Shop does a decent job for little money.  You'll figure it all out and it will be fine.Let us know how it all went!