That's right, I said, no debt. I will say it again, NO Debt.
The urban myth says "a bride's wedding day is the happiest day of her life". I hope not. How would the birth of my child or hopefully the day I see my own grandchild being born compare to my wedding day? How about the day Brandt told me he loved me for the first time or the day we moved into our first house? How about every day knowing we don't live beyond our means and I can stay at home with my daughter and work part time?
I have seen many couples take out $30,000 to $40,000 worth of loans to pay for their dream wedding. Too often, I see couples forget there is a marriage after the wedding. Do I want to start our life together in debt? No. Do I want to have a college education fund to help my children go to college? Yes! Do I want to be at every PTA meeting, stay at home with my kids, and volunteer at school to give them a wonderful foundation? A Resounding yes. Do I want to have a mortgage I can afford? You bet. This is how Brandt and I agreed to live our life and set a budget accordingly.
I have found discussing a wedding budget and every day finances with Brandt was one of the best things we could do for our relationship. Money is the biggest cause of divorce and we needed to come to an agreement before we realized we didn't agree! We have situated our finances based on our strengths. His strength is saving and mine is spending: he deals with stocks and bonds, I deal with coupons and sales.
While I will be sharing my budget tips and highlighting each of my vendors in future blog posts, here is a short list that got us started.
1. The number one thing that saves money on an Austin wedding: Choose a Friday or a Sunday wedding to get married. This saves a couple lots and lots at the venue and with all of their vendors. You can also look at having a daytime wedding! We chose a Sunday evening wedding to get the most bang for our buck. It is in our budget and we we are extremely happy.
2. The second: Choose a month that is not in the peak season for Texas. Months that could potentially save you money in Austin are: January, February, July, August, and December.
3. Some venues have several sites to get married. Our venue is Vintage Villas and they offer "The Travis Room" as opposed to their larger event facility. We chose "The Travis Room" that still holds 100 people and has the most amazing view.
4. If a particular wedding item is stressing me out and it isn't necessary, then I have to rethink if I want to pay for said item.
5. We also chose to go semi-formal instead of formal so we can save a little more.
6. We also talked about what is important to us as a couple and the 3 vendors we did not want to go cheap on: food, booze, and music.
Out of all the weddings I have attended, well over 1000, the only things I remember is if the food was good, if the party was fun, and if the room was pretty. This is our focus.
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We got married at the Umlauf sculpture garden - 04/26/03 - it served as both venue and a place to eat. We had catering done through Ruby's BBQ. A friend was our minister and another friend made my dress (I just paid for materials). We got a local baker to make a cake to our specs using Amy's ice cream. All in all, it cost about $3,000. It was a beautiful day and I've had many people since tell me it was one of the loveliest weddings they've ever been to.
ReplyDeleteJust saying that you can have a really lovely day and do things that represent you and what you care about, without going deeply into debt ;)
All the best,
Willow