How to plan a wedding with only about two months to do so?
May 11, 2010 by Bay Area Bridal
My boyfriend is going into the military and we’ve been together for over 2 years, and we decided to get married before he goes to basic, but that is about 2 months away. I only know a few things to planning a wedding, but I know there’s a lot of stuff to do especially with only 2 months to do so. I’m going to do a bridal shower, and a small beach wedding with a very low budget, so I can ideas or suggestions to help this process. Thanks
Go to theknot.com and sign up. It’ll give you a checklist of things to do. Try to set aside one day a week (like a Saturday or Sunday) that is completely dedicated to the wedding until everything is planned and good to go. You’re going to be a busy bee but it’s worth it!! Good luck!
Congratulations!
So here are the basics of wedding planning and things you can do to keep costs down.
Stationary – You can get boxes of customizable wedding invitations from Target or Walmart. They’re actually really nice and a great money saver.
Ceremony:
Location – You mentioned a beach wedding, have you picked a spot? Most of the time both private and public beaches (including state parks) require you to have a permit, so do a little googling of the areas you’re looking at and find the contact information for the adminstration or grounds keeper and they can direct you from there. Sometimes there is a fee, but with public areas it’s usually just a deposit you get back after the event.
Decor/Setup – If it is a public area, consider how you’ll section the area off to prevent people from just walking in. You can leave it open, or add some stake posts with fake or real flowers for some decorative charm. Also, do you want your guests sitting or standing? If you go with standing, keep the ceremony short, sitting you’ll need to consider where you’re getting chairs and how the chairs are getting to and from the ceremony location.
Officiant – Who will be performing the ceremony? You’ll need a licensed officiant to sign your marriage papers. Check with your city court house when they give you a copy of the marriage license and they should be able to provide you with a list of public officials who could sign it for you. Almost all religious leaders are licensed to do this too, so if you go to a church you can have your pastor do this. There is usually a small fee for a person’s service, ranging from $20-150 depending.
Clothing – The dresses and tuxes. Bridesmaids and Groomsmen should be paying for their own, so you’ll mostly be worrying about your dress and your husband’s tux, though if he is already in the military he could wear his dress uniform to save on costs. Look through your local yellow pages for bridal shops, your best bet are resell/discount stores, almost all of the dresses there are from cancelled wedding rather than used ones and you can save a bundle. If you don’t want to go used check out your local bigger bridal stores, most of them have $99 dresses or sales that are very simple and elegant, which is exactly the look to go with for a beach wedding.
Music – If you have any family members or friends who play guitar, violin, cello or what have you, this is a great way to save money. It’s nice to get them a thank you gift, but sometimes you can work out an agreement that their service during the wedding is their wedding gift to you. Otherwise, an easy money saver is downloading the songs you want from somewhere like iTunes and hooking an MP3 player up to a small portable speaker set. Just make sure you have someone in charge of this so they can pause between songs and make sure everything goes just right.
Flowers – Bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids are traditional, as well as boutonnieres for the groom and groomsmen. Most people have corsages and boutonnieres for the father and mother of the bride and groom, but can definitely be skipped. The best thing to do for this is to go with in-season flowers, contact your local flourist to see what flowers are in-season and make a list of their prices and compare to other florists. If their prices are too high, consider ordering just a small bouquet of lilies, these are classic and don’t necessarily need to be arranged in a typical bouquet. Be sure to keep these in a cool place though, as flowers wilt fast. A fridge or cooler is necessary. You can also send one of your bridesmaid’s to a local grocery store to pick up flowers the day of, but you have less control.
Hair, Makeup and Shoes – Since you’re outside you can go with much cheaper shoe options, yay dressy sandals from target! Save money by doing your own hair and makeup, or you can visit a department store for a free make-up application, though you should call ahead and schedule an appointment for the day of, if you do this. They will encourage you to buy something with the application, so just grab a lipstick or powder for reapplications. You can also check with your local beauty schools, as their prices are much lower.
Photography – So here is the one place I do not recommend people try to save money. Yes, you can go with student photographers, or have a friend do it, but experience makes a huge difference. A good way to save money is to go with a more natural style photographer, rather than one that will charge you an arm and a leg for silly poses. Check out the Wedding Photojournalism list to find a couple deals (though some are still expensive) http://www.wpja.com/
Reception:
Music – Same as ceremony, but I would recommend the mp3 player over a friend/family member playing, as they would want a break at some point, and the mp3 player doesn’t need that
Food – Since you’re going outdoor, you could also
Wooo, it cut me off, so here is the rest:
Food – Since you’re going outdoor, you could also go with a more casual theme to the food. Call around to local diners or casual restaurants for catering. Remember, not all receptions involve dinner, you can save a lot of money by not dealing with a dinner party, since with dinner there are dishes, servers, etc etc. Drinks and snacks social works perfectly well, you’ll just want to specify on the invitations that it is a cocktails reception. Do not plan on you or your immediate family making the food for this, it is way too much to handle. You may even be able to get people from your local church to help make/serve food, if you have one.
Location – Most beaches will have cookout areas, so again, look into what the location you have has. Getting already set-up picnic tables will be a huge time/money saver.
Decor – Polished stones, hurricane candles and more are great table centerpieces which will make the reception look a little more like a wedding event and less like a barbecue. We saved money by contacting a florist and buying mixed bags of rose petals from flower preparation and scattered them around our centerpiece candles.
Phew, I got tired just typing all of that, so enlist some help from family and friends while planning this! Other great resources:
Get all your wedding books from the library, no reason to waste money on books and magazines.
http://www.theknot.com
http://www.weddingbee.com
http://www.theweddingchannel.com
http://www.brides.com
http://www.weddingwire.com/
Are all great resource websites. I especially found theknot and WeddingBee to be helpful. Good luck!
My father passed away and was cremated. We had ten days to plan a Memorial and Celebration of Life party for about 85 guests. It was to be held at my sister’s house. We rented glassware, luncheon size plates and bought napkins at the dollar store. Music came from a pre recorded ipod play list. We bought a keg, booze and mixers and wine. We ordered gourmet platters from our favorite gourmet markets. We make a cheese and fruit and cracker tray. We bought frozen appetizers from a wholesale club. We hired teenagers to go on dirty plate patrol and to walk around with appetizers. One person was in charge of the oven appetizers, with a timer. A quart of paint freshened up the front door, my sister bought new outdoor furniture and planted flowers. Aside from what my sister did to the house, it cost well under $2,000.
The day of the celebration of life party, in spite of the sad occasion, everyone had a great time. We all mingled at this great cocktail party. It was a rather festive atmosphere, really. And, it got my engaged niece thinking…wow, this is wedding reception quality. She decided to get married at my sister’s house and used the ten grand she saved in wedding expenses to upgrade on a nicer first home purchase.
So, you see, you really do not need all those extras that add thousands to the wedding. A wedding is about love and need not be a production.
For an inexpensive beach wedding this site is good for dresses and clothes for groom.
The first thing you need to do is be prepared to compromise, and then look for an officiant or minister ASAP. Without them, you can’t get married.
You need to get in contact with the city where the beach is, to get permission and and book to use it. Also ask them about marriage licenses. Depending on where you live, you need to apply for one a certain amount of time before the wedding.
Send out invitations as soon as possible, even if they’re just nicely printed letters with a calligraphy font from the computer.
Look in to local farmers markets for flowers, or head to your nearest florist and ask them about what’s in season right now, and what they can get a lot of on short notice.
If you want a traditional wedding dress, I suggest having one custom made. Otherwise you’ll be restricted to buying only what happens to be in the store and fit, and probably hiring a seamstress for the alterations, as most bridal shops will claim it takes months to order a dress that only comes from a warehouse and then needs to be altered anyways.
Consider the bridesmaids just getting their dresses from a nice retail shop, instead of a bridal boutique. If you choose simpler dresses, they will be easier and cheaper to alter if it’s needed.
Have the Groom and his men get fitted for tux rentals ASAP.
Consider all other obvious vendors. Caterers, rental places, photographers, call around quick, and see if they have anything available. Consider going on a website like craigslist to find students for caterers or photographers. Always ask for references or portfolios where applicable. Just because someone’s on craigslist, doesn’t mean they suck, but it also doesn’t mean you can’t expect a certain level or quality of professionalism from their work.
(If you’re serving alcohol, you probably need a license for this. If you hire a caterer, he should have more info, but if not, you’ll need to take care of it yourself.)
And last, but probably most important, hit up all your friends and family for any help or connections they might have.
I’m honestly surprised by all the help and free stuff I’m getting from family connections. Free hair, free nails, nearly free professional photography, cheap catering, cheaper bridesmaid’s dresses, discount on pretty much all decorations, free beer, free desserts. Ask and ye shall recieve.
Look online for a wedding checklist, it’ll give you a better idea if there’s anything else missing.
You don’t throw your own bridal shower, leave this to whoever.
Dress
No. attending
Cake (no. to feed)
reception if any, where and how many
Minister or Priest
Check out beach for any permits you may need.
Hair (wind will be blowing)
Photographer or have a friend take pictures
Any decorations (arch) on beach
Bridesmaids dresses
Your flowers
Your bridesmaids flowers
Boutinerres (plus one for minister)
Shoes or barefoot
Music
Rings
Special written vows???
bouquet to throw
honeymoon????
if so where,make reservations now!
What do you and he plan to wear when you leave on h/moon??
Corsages for Mothers, etc.
decide best man,maid or matron of honor if having
witnesses
guest list and invitations if you are sending?
Make lists, above need to be done in different order, get reservations for honeymoon first and get lists for invitations. This takes time.
Hope this helps.
if you dont want to be stress-out then hire a wedding planner especially that your wedding is 2 months away.
Well, for your bridal shower. That really is supposed to be thrown by someone else. Like your maid of honor or relatives. But if you would rather do it, then you should have it at your home or someone elses. That way you don’t have to pay to rent a place.
For the wedding. Make a list of the things you absolutely must have to get married. Marriage licsense, rings, ordained minister, etc. Those you cannot get married without. Then you need to think about the next most important things to you. Is it your dress? Your cake? Your flowers? Your venue? Then write out how much you are willing to spend on the entire wedding. Subtract the amounts owed to buy the mandatory things and then whats left for the other things you want to have. Write out how much you are willing to spend on your dress and stick with it.
If you really want to save money. Just get married on the beach without any decorations. Have a fairly quick ceremony. If you only invite very immediate family and friends, you might think about not even having any chairs for the ceremony.
If decorations are important to you, even though a beach is pretty without any decorations, get your flowers from a grocery store the day before or have someone else get them the day of. Many are already made into a bouquet and all you have to do is have ribbon to tie around them. They will be a lot cheaper than a florist. The downside is that they might not have the particular arrangement you want.
For your reception, skip dinner and just have cake and mints, nuts, candies, crackers, cheese, dips, chips, etc.
Congrats Brittany! I suggest you visit this website:
http://www.entertainmentdesignevents.com/
They provide wedding planning, event design and coordination expertise, helping to make your event planning experience easy and enjoyable.
You can also visit their Facebook Fan Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Entertainment-Design-Events/75686518159
Invest in your love and to be happy.
When you make a commitment to a relationship, you invest your attention and energy in it more profoundly because you now experience ownership of that relationship.