I have to say, when Rob and I started looking into save-the-dates I had NO idea picking out a piece of paper could be so difficult!  The options are endless, and of course we wanted something a little more unique than a picture of us with the date and of course it had to be on the less expensive end of the spectrum.  We spent weeks coming up with ideas, and of course searching Pinterest for some inspiration.  Finally, we (and by we I mean Rob) had a brilliant idea!  Fortune tellers aka Cootie Catchers aka Dream Catchers!  How perfect!  It's fun, it's easy, and we might be able to do it on the cheap!

I went online and managed to find a template for save-the-dates on a fortune teller (OK, so it's not a completely original idea, but I do love the internet for providing a template for something like that!).  We didn't want to order them online.  That would be more pricey and it seemed kind of silly.  We went on a search for really pretty, really inexpensive print paper.  Knowing that Michael's seems to always have sales on things like that we stopped in there first. Sure enough they had 8.5x11" books of printed paper (200 count!) on sale for $9!  You can't beat that.  When we got up to the register the sales person was in a good mood and gave us an additional $2 off.  In total we spent $7 on our save-the-dates and they look great!  There is no way you could have had them professionally done for anywhere near that cheap.  I suppose the only downfall is that now I am faced with the project of folding 75+ cootie catchers, but it is totally worth it when I think about our savings!

(I will post a picture of our adorable save-the-dates soon!)

Update: We are mailing these today!  I am weirdly excited about it.  It makes things feel so real!

For my bridal shower my lovely matron of honor Stephanie and I found really cute invitations on Etsy for $16.  The girl made a template of the invite then we just printed off our own

 

A Picture is Worth 1,000 words

(Can you tell work is slow today?  I think this is my 4th post!)

One aspect of the wedding that I think is one of the most important parts is the photographer.  Who is going to be responsible for capturing your big day on film?  These are pictures you will be looking at for the rest of your life, who do you choose?!?  It's overwhelming!

When we started looking into wedding photographers I thought it was fun.. at first, but after a while I wanted to bang my head on the wall!  "Packages starting at $3,000"...What?  $3,000 for someone to take pictures?  I know that it can be time consuming and photography is an art, but come on!  That is insane to me.  It's not like they have to go through and develop the pictures anymore.  They are digital pictures.  They will probably take 4,000 pictures that day, find the good ones, photoshop them, and voila.  I understand there is more to it, but from a consumer's position that is what I feel like I am paying for, and as it turns out I don't have $3,000+ to spend on pictures!!!

I started shopping around and I did find some cheaper options.  One of which I almost hired because I'm pretty sure they are responsible for the pictures in the Awkward Family Photos book

As tempting as that was, I wanted some genuinely beautiful pictures of our big day.  I found myself complaining on a forum that I frequent about how expensive things were, when one of my wonderful friends down in Cincinnati messaged me on Facebook.  She sent me links of several different people she went to art school with who do photography. I checked out their websites and they all did pretty amazing work!  None of them had their prices listed, but I figured it was worth a shot.  I sent emails to two of my favorite ones and voila!  Within 5 minutes I had a response from both of them, and what do you know?  They weren't trying to rape my wallet!  I decided to go with Jesse Fox (www.jessefox.net).  Her portraits are really edgy and different, and her wedding photographer is absolutely stunning.  Her prices?  Her Basic package was only $600, and her deluxe package only $1,200!  Her delux package even includes an engagement session. I was shocked!  She even stated in her email to me " When we got married all the great photographers were at minimum $2,000 and so I have always refused to charge so much. I feel that everyone deserves quality, creative photographs regardless of how much money they can afford!"  What a concept!?

Once again I found the key to finding a reasonably priced photographer who does great work is shop around!  We thought we had found the photographer we absolutely wanted, but unfortunately we could not afford her.  Luckily a friend came through for me and had some amazing suggestions and we could not be happier!!

Venue City!

So if you have ever gotten married, are getting married, or have ever thought about getting married you might have an idea of how insanely outrageously retardedly expensive venues can be.  When we started looking into a venue for our wedding I was so clueless!  Talk about sticker shock!  The biggest problem..er..obstacle we faced was that we didn't want to get married or have our reception somewhere that everyone else in the city of Columbus had their wedding.  We refused to use a banquet hall.  They are ugly and boring.  We wanted somewhere that you didn't have to do a lot of decorating because it was already cool.

We considered a few places around town.  We thought about Bluestone, which is an old church that they converted to a club.  We love this place.  We don't love the price.  A few other places we considered were The Vault, The Taylor Mansion, and The Garden Theatre.  The Vault and The Taylor Mansion are both beautiful, but again overpriced.  The Garden Theatre was a neat option for us because it's a cool old theatre in the Short North.  Rob is on their board and he is very passionate about it.  The only problem is that it's practically a construction site.

Another problem we had with several of the venues we considered is their stupid preferred caterers.  They are not preferred, they are required.  You can't bring in outside food.  Call me crazy but I didn't really want to pay $35 per plate for a dry piece of chicken and some cold green beans!  We decided we wanted something fun and different.  There is an amazing cajun restaurant in the Short North Called Da Levee that serves authentic cajun food for cheap!  Upon doing some reseach we found that they cater!  Not only do they cater, but they only charge $7 per person!  We HAD to make this work!!

After many many many discussions, Rob and I finally came to the conclusion that we were going to get married at... *drumroll, please!?*  The Garden Theatre!!!!  Yes! We are going to get married at a construction site!!  Ok, I might be exaggerating a little, but it's definitely going to take a lot of work. The best part about getting married here?  Not only are we the first wedding to happen in the theatre, but it is FREE!  Thank goodness for Rob.  Have I mentioned how much I love that man?  Now I know it's unusual to have access to a free venue, but he has worked his butt off to help out with this theatre and has definitely earned it. We decided that he can work his magic with lighting and fabric and we can make the place look amazing.  Here are some pictures of what he can do

This is what the theatre looks like right now.  Kind of scary!

Here is the theatre after Rob works his lighting magic!  And it will look even better than this for our wedding.  Although we probably won't have the vegas showgirl wandering around, but you get the point.

Love that big, beautiful Garden sign out front!

I know not everyone will be as lucky as us to have a free venue, but my point is make sure you shop around!  Places charge different rates depending on the time of year and the day you are getting married (Sometimes Sundays are cheaper!).  We're getting married on a  Sunday so our guests don't have to pay for parking.  Also make sure you love the food you're serving.  I know not everybody loves Cajun food, but we do and our wedding day is a celebration of us and the things and people we love.  It's one meal of your guest's life.  They will survive if they don't like the food!  Good luck to anyone on their venue search.  It's probably one of the most frustrating things to do if you don't have a huge budget, but once you find somewhere you love and can afford it's so worth it!

The Dress

When Rob proposed to me I almost fell over.  This is the man whose mother is STILL in shock that he is getting married.  It's not because she doesn't like me (she's awesome and I'm awesome, we get along splendidly), but it's because for his entire life he has been SO adamant about the fact that he would never get married.  He didn't believe in marriage (I've never understood not "believing" in marriage.. it's not a unicorn, it's a real thing).  So after we got engaged I started to come to the realization that by marrying this man our wedding had to be awesome.  Not your traditional "oh that was a nice wedding" kind of awesome, that's lame.  I'm marrying a man who works in technical theatre.  There will be explosions, fog, confetti, and possibly a midget or two.  This wedding will be insane, even if my great grandmother has a heart attack from the loud noises it's worth it!

When it came to picking out my bridesmaids I knew I had to have a group of ladies who would be able to handle the ridiculousness that is sure to ensue on one of the most important days of my life.  I chose the following girls

Teryn, my long time best friend and wizard staff champion

Laura, another long time friend, beautiful mother, and awesome photographer

Stephanie, my newest BFF and full-time work wife/partner-in-crime

And Christna, Rob's awesome sister whose obsession with ducks is as severe as my obsession with dogs

These ladies are more than able to handle the responsibility of being my bridesmaids..mostly because I'm pretty sure they are all qualified to use a fire extinguisher if necessary.

I pretty much knew immediately who would be in my bridal party.  Teryn and Laura both live out of state which makes things a little more complicated, but these are the girls I can't imagine walking down the aisle without.  Laura came in town for our engagement party and was able to pick out her perfect bridesmaid dress in September.  Teryn, Christina, and Steph all went in February and found their's.  All of them were very reasonably priced at Wendy's Bridal, a local boutique.  I decided not to have them all wear the same dress.  Everyone has a different body style. I figure they are the ones paying for the dress, it should be something they love!  I'm a low maintenance bride with care-free bridesmaids.  That part was easy.

Picking out my dress was a lot... different than I thought it would be. Going into it I had a very specific style in mind. I wanted simple and pretty. That was it. 

I wanted something similar to this, but without the jewel.  I ended up with a dress that had lace, beading, flowers, and it even has a belt.  When they say you KNOW it's "the one", it's true.  I knew.  I had that moment and it was ridiculous.  Now, after I fell in love with the dress I looked at the price tag.  Needless to say I did not fall in love with the price.  I was hoping to spend no more than $700 on a dress.  I figured it's a dress, it's some fabric that you are probably going to wear for 8 hours of your life then it goes in a pretty box in the back of the closet.   This dress was over $1200.  I know that isn't outrageous for a dress, but when you have a budget of $5,000 in mind it certainly seems like a lot.  I went home, thought it over for a week or two, brought my grandma in for another opinion, then just decided to say screw it.  It's my dress.  It's our wedding.  Rob will spend some of our budget on small explosives, I am going to spend a little more on the dress. 

My advice to anyone having this dillema, unless you have to sell one or more of your limbs to pay for your dress, spend the money.  It will be worth it.  Uninvite a couple of long lost relatives you don't really want at the wedding to make up for the price.  It's YOUR day.  You deserve it!

Starting Out

Let me start off by saying, I never thought I would get married.  I also never thought I would start a blog, so starting a blog about getting married?  This is a little out there for me! 

Here is some information about me.  My name is Lauren.  I'm 23.  I was born and raised in Dublin, Ohio.  I still live here and I absolutely love it.  I have two dogs that I'm slightly obsessed with. I am a little scatter brained when it comes to writing my thoughts down, so bear with me if it seems like I jump around in this thing. I am lucky enough to be marrying the person I get along with best, and he doesn't judge me because of my dog obsession.  His name is Rob.  He is 33, and he's a really cool dude.  We're one of those weird couples that pretty much never fights.  I never ever ever ever thought we would be getting married. so this definitely isn't one of those "love at first sight" deals.  I am really excited about our wedding though.  We are getting married October 21st, 2012 in Columbus. 

Here is us.  Rob does smile, I promise

Here are our awesome dogs.

The reason I'm starting this blog is because as I've been going through the wedding planning process I find it incredibly frustrating how expensive some of this stuff can be.  As it turns out my family hasn't been saving up for this my entire life, so we have a pretty small budget.  Rob and I have a goal to do the entire wedding for less than $6,000.  So far we have made pretty good progress.

 I will be posting here from time to time with updates on things we have booked, where we are at in the planning process, and if I have any little money saving tips or tricks along the way. We have been engaged since August and we are pretty much just now getting around to booking stuff, but that's mostly because 1. I procrastinate, and 2. We haven't had access to funds until recently.  I was stressing about that for a while but then I realized there are people out there who plan weddings in 6 months or less so I figured we would probably be okay.

Thanks for taking the time to follow this thing, I hope you find my rants and posts a little bit entertaining.