Budget Wedding in MPLS

Re: Budget Wedding in MPLS

• MaggieandJake member

  

  September 2011 edited December 2011

  If you're crafty, doing a lot of projects (flowers, invites, decorations, etc) DIY helped us to save quite a bit of money.  I did all of my centerpieces, invitations, pew decorations, and memorial candles myself. 

  
  

  Since you're a teacher, JoAnn's and Michael's also both offer 15% off EVERY purchase including sale items.  I personally like JoAnn's a little better-they seem to have better deals/coupons. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• TaffetaDarlingTaffeta member

  

  September 2011 edited December 2011

  We invited 160ish people, full buffet, for about 5,000 - We are lucky to have a lot of talented friends who helped out... almost everything was DIY. 

  
  

  Food for DIY: We and a few friends made the food. We stuck to recipes that were very simple to make (but not lacking in flavor). September is great for lots of good produce at farmers markets too you can get some good deals.  We did a picnic style fare of carrot salad, pasta salad, herb potato salad, BBQ, watermelon. Other ideas are taco bar, pasta bar. Then we hired a couple people to manage the food. 

  
  

  ETA- We also chose recipes that could be made in advance and were to be served at room temp. Skipped out on any egg/mayo based recipes. 

  
  

  Photography: Jeff loves Jessica Photography - I have yet to see the wedding photos but LOVED our engagement pics. Suer cute husband and wife team. Very good and very reasonable. 

  http://jefflovesjessica.com/

  
  

  Decor: We decorated with a bunch of fabric that we collected at the thrift stores, with 40% JoAnne Coupons and various textile outlets. Got our tablecloth fabric for $1 a yard enough to cover everything! A tulle free wedding!! Center pieces we also collected at thrift-stores, garage sales or clearance items. (we had a vintage garden/picnic look throughout) My sister when she got married got these cute flower vases at IKEA for super cheap. So just keep your eye out. 

  
  

  Crap: Skip out on the crap that adds up. Favors, monogramed glasses, monogramed napkins, monogramed cake cutting set.. urg making myself puke monograms here...

  
  

  Good Luck!

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• EmilyCMN

  

  September 2011 edited December 2011

  The best thing to do is to watch for deals and scoop them up as you can. We also used a lot of Michael's coupons, bought our flowers in bluk from Sam's Club, made our own invites, but we did hire out the food. You can also look around for less expensive caterer's. We were originally going to use Divine Swine for a pig roast style BBQ and that was looking around $6-8/per person. I know you can cook food for much less though but it is a lot more work.
  
  Just be creative, don't be afraid to ask on the boards for ideas for DIY decor and watch for other brides selling all of their stuff, craig's list is another good resource. We got a lot of our glassware and baskets at Goodwill too if you don't care if it matches that worked well. We also only did shirt and ties for the guys (then had them wear black pants and shoes that they already owned) and we got them at JcPenny's when they were having a big sale on them.

  
  

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• EmilyCMN

  

  September 2011 edited December 2011

  Oh and if you have not stumbled on Pinterest yet I would highly suggest it for finding lots of great ideas and DIY instructions. People compile pictures basically but they are all linked back to something. I found lots of great wedding inspiration ideas there.

  
  

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• hippolover member

  

  September 2011 edited December 2011

  I am having about 125 people for under 10K.  We shopped around for deals.  My dress is used (but you could never tell). There are 2 consignment bridal store in the area that I know about.  Found a great photographer that is inexpensive. She is fairly new the business so not a ton of recommendations, but she is fantastic. She is 1K. Her name is Kara K. LINK to her website.
  
   I am not big into flowers so we don't have too many but that is really cheap. I got a recommendation off this board.  Almost all my paper stuff is from Vista Print (a lot of it free).  My invites were from 123print.com.  The cheapest I have seen and the quality has been impressive. 
  
  Dollar store-great stuff.  DIY board and Budget board post coupons to craft stores.  I don't think I have paid full price for anything!
  
  This board has been amazing with reccommendations!!! I think almost all my vendors were found because of these wonderful ladies.

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