A Budget Friendly(ish) Full Glam Wedding
After moving our wedding day once we decided to just do it during COVID. Naturally we were a little less glam then my dream wedding would be but if we had waited we would still be waiting…and we’ve almost been married two years.
Here is how I planned a boujee wedding on a budget.
We got married at Rollin’s Mansion in Des Moines in August. The wedding was all outdoors but we rented the whole mansion for the day. The venue itself had a small cottage for the girls to get ready in and a boys room with a bar and Xbox. I knew I wanted to get married at Rollin’s since the day I moved here. THANK GOD Nick loved it just as much as I did. We did not even look at other venues. First, Last, Only and Forever.
Flowers
I have an amazing friend who does flowers as a side hustle! Honestly, if you aren’t using Love Blooms by Ashley you aren’t getting the best flowers out there. Everything she does is gorgeous and glam. She just brings something next level to her bouquets.
This was something I wasn’t willing to compromise on. I wanted everything to be covered in flowers! Luckily for our pocket books we got married at a facility with several outside gardens that were in full bloom.
Wedding Hack: Look for a venue that has a lot of flower beds or other décor already in place. You won’t be starting from a completely blank slate.
I mean seriously, is this not the most beautiful flower garden ever! (Our 2 year old flower girl did pull a bunch of the stems off prior to this)
For our hand held bouquets. I wanted a full bouquet but wanted to be unique and separate from my bridemaids’s. My favorite flower is a hydrangea so my bridesmaids all carried a bouquet of 3-4 hydrangeas each.
Wedding Hack: Don’t go all our on your bridesmaid’s bouquets. It’s not there day and they really don’t want to lug a heavy bouquet around all day anyway.
Wedding Hack: Use the bridesmaid’s bouquets as décor on the head table! Just have your florist place vases at the interval you would like at the head table.
I wanted a huge statement centerpiece unfortunately my husband very forcefully told me to stop. buying. flowers so we compromised.
Wedding Hack: Go mega glamour on half the tables and mini glamour on the others! It’ll be just as gorgeous and half the price!
Cake
I would be lying if I didn’t say we tried about 5 different cake places, for the free (or reduced price) samples. We honestly didn’t like any of the high end places in town. Beautiful to look at but cardboard to eat. We also knew we didn’t this mega cake for us and plain sheet cake for everyone else.
Wedding Hack: Buy a plain (or just frosted) tiered cake and have your florist decorate it for you!! Look how she turned a simple Bundt cake into a simply gorgeous piece.
And for our guests?! Mini Bundt cakes in a variety of flavors!! COVID friendly and SUPER cute!
PS the cake topper was hand made and from Etsy! Link here! The cake stand and the cake utensils were actually from Amazon and maybe cost $50, plus they are customized. Don’t look it do they?
Music
Okay, I know what you are thinking… “this girl hired a violinist, how budget friendly could that possibly be!?” Well guess what wedding music is actually an insane cost. Probably the most expensive thing after the venue itself.
Wedding Hack: Split up the wedding and the reception into two different vendors. To have a DJ for the entire 6 hours or so would have been insane.
Wedding Hack: Look for a revenue with piped music. We were lucky to find Rollins. The whole mansion itself has music pipped in so we did not need to pay to have music played prior to the ceremony while guests were arriving.
Dress
Something else I wasn’t willing to skimp on was my dress. Of course they didn’t have exactly what I wanted so what did I do? Had the seamstress tailor it to me!!
Wedding Hack: Don’t be afraid to ask the seamstress anything. (They are truly the miracle workers of the wedding dress industry.) I wanted an open back, this dress didn’t have one, so the seamstress put one in!!
Hair
I knew I wanted major mermaid hair but didn’t really want to pay for handtied extensions and the maintenance that goes with them. Plus, I am fiercely loyal to my hair lady and she doesn’t do extensions.
Wedding Hack: Halo Extensions!! It’s extensions on an invisible wire. You just send a picture of your hair to them and they color match and send you your extensions. Plus it was about half the price of hand tied extensions.
Accessories
I wore very few accessories with my wedding dress. My dress had appliques all over it and was kind of an accessory in itself. Along with my hair being so long and having jewels on it I didn’t want to over do it. Every piece of jewelry I wore was my something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and that was very special to me.
Wedding Hack: Don’t pile on the accessories. you can be glamourous without looking like a jewelry rack.
Cocktail Hour & Apps
Due to COVID we had some restrictions to cocktail hour.
Wedding Hack: Popcorn!!! We had several different kinds of popcorn packaged and logoed with our wedding hashtag. So simple and so cute!!
Wedding Hack: Don’t over do it. People are hungry yes but they are also going to be eating in an hour or so. You don’t want to completely spoil their meal!
We also had doughnuts on a doughnut board my husband made for under $50!
Wedding Hack: Get crafty! There are lots of things we made or at least partially made to help reduce cost. Another example would be our place cards. My mom has wonderful handwriting and luckily wanted to help out! So we had her write them as opposed to paying a calligraphist.
Things We Didn’t Waste Money On
A Plated Sit Down Dinner and Wait Staff - If money was unlimited I would have loved to have this be a part of my wedding though it’s not really worth the thousands of dollars it would be to have a sit down, formal dinner. Somehow it’s $10 for a plate of spaghetti at Olive Garden, it’s $100 if you’re getting married.
Photo Booth - No one ever uses it as much as you thing they will. Super popular 2 years ago, not so much now. Save your thousands.
Unnecessary Décor - Don’t over do it. It will look gaudy anyway. If you pick the right venue you won’t need all the extra décor - the venue will shine on it’s own.
Disco Dance Lights - Our DJ was a bit of a quack but he did offer cool club style lights…for a price. We didn’t go for the extra cost. Quite frankly after the whole wedding was said and done I was exhausted and wasn’t busting a move on the dance floor anyway.
A Completely Open Bar - People don’t need to be ordering elaborate 6 piece drinks at a wedding. They should be there for the bride and groom, not for the free booze. (We did pay for all the beer and champagne)
The One Thing I Didn’t Spend Money On But Have?
A Day of Coordinator!!
It was so hard to organize, set up, clean up, tell people where to stand, etc. etc. and still enjoy the day. I didn’t even have one sip of champagne at my wedding because I had to tear down the whole thing. For those of you that haven’t taken that leap of faith yet...HIRE ONE. It will be money well spent!!
