The day that Chad and I got engaged, we knew we wanted to get married at Stone Bridge Farms in Cullman, Alabama. The weekend before we got engaged, Chad was the groomsman in a friend's wedding there, and let me tell you: beautiful is an understatement. It was important to us to be able to be married indoors because we hate to sweat, and that if it wasn't going to be a church, it would at least be a chapel. The chapel at Stone Bridge is the most breathtaking wedding venue I've ever seen. This is a picture I took the day that Chad's friends got married there.
You can't tell from this picture, but there is a beautiful cross at the end of the center aisle that we will be standing in front of when we say "I do". So lovely!
My next step was to find a photographer that wasn't going to charge me a billion dollars because, let's face it, weddings are expensive, and student teachers don't have time to work at all. I browsed a ton of local photographers online before setting up any meetings, and I only met with one: Shelly Smith at Shelly Smith Photography. She and her husband, Josh, we so incredibly kind that I knew I was making the right choice when I asked them to do our wedding photography. We took our engagement photos back in November, and they turned out so great!
So, now that I have those, I've been working on save the dates to send out, which are also extremely costly when you're on a tight budget and you have a large family like I do. I don't have the money to spend on refrigerator magnets or to pay someone to address my envelopes. I decided to go the "DIY" route to save a tiny bit of money, and I found the perfect app to help with that: Makr.
From what I understand, Makr is still kind of new. I had never heard of it when I found it in the iPad app store, but I am so glad that I did. They have so many templates and ideas for creating your own save the dates, invitations, cards, party supplies, etc. I started playing around on it, and I love this app!
Save the dates online were going to cost me around $1.89-$2.50 a piece. On Makr, I was able to create my own save the date (picture, color, design, fonts, details...) and download the PDF for $3.99. I even had some money left on my iTunes account from gift cards that went towards that cost. And I can print them wherever I want for muuuuch cheaper.
You can even create invitations and other stationary to match other projects, so I've tried to get a head start on choosing what kinds of invitations I'm going to create. I haven't set my heart on any design yet, but I don't think it's bad to get a head start in this process, especially when your life is as busy as mine. It's better to be way too prepared way too soon than to wait until the last minute, panic, and have to settle for something you don't really like very much.
One thing that makes me nervous... bridal showers. I shiver at the thought of them. I hate being the center of attention, opening presents in front of people, and having others spend a lot of time planning something for me. But one thing I knew I wanted to do, and that I advise anyone who is a future bride to do: a Christmas decorations shower. Think about it... you're finally married, you have all of your home appliances, kitchen utensils, bedding, etc., but then Christmas rolls around, and you're still broke from the wedding, and you have no money to put towards Christmas decorations. Plus, it can take years to build a nice collection of Christmas decorations to fill your home. So why not have a shower for only Christmas related items in January, when all of that Christmas stuff is on sale at Hobby Lobby for 80% off? My sister-in-law, Lauren, had one when she was engaged, and I knew this was one I wanted, also. And my lovely sister-in-law herself was a wonderful hostess this past weekend for this event! She did an amazing job decorating her home and welcoming so many there, and I was so humbled by those who came. We got so many beautiful ornaments, platters, decorations, storage containers, and even a Christmas tree! I can't wait until next Christmas when we get to put them all up in our new apartment (which we will hopefully be picking out soon)!
Since the party was last weekend, I've been working on more stationary: thank you notes. But I wasn't about to get all fancy like I did with the save the dates and design them and print them or anything. In this case, it's just cheaper to go with store-bought. Chad actually picked out the most adorable ones from Target yesterday, and they match our color scheme! And they were on sale, 50 for $10.89!
I'm sure that I have probably made this post entirely too long, but the more and more wedding planning that I do the more and more I realize... getting married is expensive! So if any of these ideas help any other time-constrained, almost-broke brides, then this novel of a post was worth it!
Tomorrow, I'm planning on posting a little bit about my wedding planning binder. I (yet again) saved a bit of $$$ by making my own instead of spending $20-$40 on one of those pre-made Martha Stewart ones that have pointless sections and leave what I think are very important sections completely out. So look for that some time tomorrow! And I haven't forgotten the recipe I promised! Hopefully that'll be up later tonight! :)
Happy wedding planning!
Andrea
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