Before we get to Lauren’s post, there are a couple of things I wanted to mention from my personal experience of getting married every weekend:  ; )

While we’re on the subject of budgeting for your wedding, another thing that is so important when planning your wedding is this: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INVITE EVERY ONE YOU HAVE MET TO YOUR WEDDING. This is something I find to be SO SO hard for couples to realize. I understand it can be very difficult to cut the guest list and keep it smaller and only invite people are truly special and important to you. But I speak from experience when I say, too many brides spend their money on food, alcohol, and venue space to accommodate people who don’t matter and quite honestly, they usually don’t even get to speak to the day of the wedding. Inviting less people can save you thousands of dollars which you can spend on other more important things such as flowers, the venue location, and photography. To give you a good example: If you have a wedding of 200 guests and the food and alcohol is priced at $50 a head, you will pay $10,000. If you cut that to 150 guests (which by the way, is in my opinion, the perfect number of guests to not be too little or too many), then you save $2500 right there. $2500!!!!! That’s equivalent to a beautiful wedding dress or having some really stunning flowers at your wedding/reception. Think about how much better you could spend that money just cutting 50 people (or 25 couples).

Another great tip to saving money on your wedding day is to provide a beer and wine bar instead of a full bar. This not only helps your budget but keeps your guests from getting too intoxicated which can sometimes create disastrous moments. (Trust me, I’ve seen them happen.) We all like to party and have a good time, but a wedding should still remain timeless and classy. At the end of the night, when it’s time to get that “grand exit” shot, we’ve noticed a big difference from weddings who have a full bar to the ones who only serve wine and beer. The guests are less likely to cooperate when it comes that time. I have actually personally witnessed drunk guests ruining this incredibly special moment of celebration… putting a damper on the whole night. For example: once the intoxicated best man decided it would be funny to throw the entire bowl of rice at the bride while they were running out. It ended up hitting her head and making her cry. It was extremely tragic and completely ruined the night and my exit shot. You can definitely avoid this nonsense by serving only wine and beer.

Now, I will hand the spotlight over to Lauren. You do not want to miss this!! Her post will give you some really great insight.

If you haven’t read about Lauren’s wedding day, please click here to do so and see the rest of her photos. You can see Lauren and Joe’s wedding on Ruffled Blog here.

If you’re wanting to learn how you can create a beautiful, picture-esque and unique wedding, then scroll down to read all about how Lauren planned her beautiful wedding that not even the horrible weather could ruin. At the very end Lauren breaks down in detail all of the costs of her wedding to help you see exactly what she did. I really hope this post will inspire you and help you to create a day you will cherish forever that is YOUR day.

FROM LAUREN:

I was ecstatic when Courtney asked me to write a guest post for her blog about how I planned my dream wedding on my budget of $20,000. So often, couples spend a fortune and end up with a generic wedding. To this day, I’m honestly shocked at how great the response was to my wedding, because the whole time I was planning I was worried it might not be enjoyed by others because it was so tailored to my fiancé’s and my taste. It just goes to show you that people appreciate the uniqueness of an event, sometimes even more so than something extravagant.

Here are 7 tips from my wedding planning experience, including a breakdown of my budget:

#1 Get organized.

One of the first things I did in the planning process, was try to find a wedding planning book to make sure I wouldn’t forget anything important. Wow was it hard to find a good one. My mom ended up finding Bridal Bargains Wedding Planner which had a lot of helpful stuff.

The second thing I did was go to an office supplies store and buy a 3-ring binder notebook and dividers. This was my preferred method of organization because I could hole-punch blank copy paper for writing notes and sketching ideas and floor plans and also hole-punch things I found online or received from vendors.

I divided my notebook into 7 sections:
1. Apparel
2. Ceremony
3. Reception
4. Photography
5. Invitation suite
6. Flowers
7. Other

#2 Stick to decisions that reflect both you and your fiancé, not your family members or guests.

Planning a wedding is tough. Friends and family are so excited and eager to offer up advice on every last detail and there are tons of resources online offering the dos and donts and forcing industry-driven expectations down your throat. Others’ advice and opinions should be greatly appreciated, don’t get me wrong, but they shouldn’t always be followed. Sometimes their advice doesn’t align with other aspects of your wedding (nobody can see the big picture like you can, even if you’ve told them every detail). Other times their opinions are, well, their opinions, not your and your fiancé’s. Just always stay firm on decisions you know mean a lot to you and your fiancé, and try not to second guess yourself. Revel in your individualism and let what makes you different as a couple craft a memorable, honest celebration.

There were so many times throughout my wedding planning that I would stop and think, is it okay for us to do this? Are guests going to have a terrible time? Like our decision to have local musicians play original music at the reception instead of having a cover band or dj. But I held on tightly to our decision because if anyone knew my fiancé and I, he/she knew we weren’t cover band or dj people. Various people I had worried would have a terrible time told me it was the best wedding they’d ever been to. Our guests really loved being a part of our life for a night. It allowed them to feel closer to us.

Our decision on location for the ceremony and reception determined the number of people we could invite, and was quite controversial. We chose to have a smaller, family-only ceremony at my Great Aunt’s home which was 30 miles away from the reception location. It was a tough decision because I didn’t want anyone to be upset that they were only invited to the reception, but the location meant a lot me and there was no other place I could imagine us being married.

Having the ceremony outside my Great Aunt Lee’s home was so important to me, that I didn’t even want to schedule an in-case-of-rain location. I also didn’t want part of my budget to have to go to a venue that we may not even use. We decided to include an in-case-of-rain card telling guests to just go to the reception if it rained, and we’d just be married inside my Great Aunt’s home in front of whoever showed up. Well, of course with my luck, it poured the day before and day of and we were even under a tornado watch. But I’m kind of glad it rained. the ambiance and intimacy couldn’t have been more perfect. Any other day, rain would have ruined my day, but I made a decision when I made the ceremony plans that I would accept whatever weather came our way.

#3 Get inspired.

Create inspiration boards to keep track of things you like so you can share with your vendors. Showing a vendor a range of things you like will allow them to create something new that you will love. So instead of picking out the exact flowers you want, just find various bouquets you like. A good florist will be able to spot the commonalities and create a unique arrangement that captures the essence of your inspiration perfectly, without copying someone else’s work. I used Adobe InDesign to create my inspiration boards, but there are tons of ways you can create it, you could create a tangible collage and scan it in to print copies for vendors, or you could create a digital pinboard with Pinterest.

SOME OF MY INSPIRATION BOARDS

#4 Make a wish list and prioritize it.

As you gather inspiration, ideas will emerge and your vision will begin to take form. Write everything down. Within each binder section, create a wish lists of specific details and prioritize it in case you can’t afford everything you want.

#5 Get creative.

Playing a hands-on role in the planning of your wedding will allow you to stretch your budget. You can do things like: add time between your ceremony and reception to allow your ceremony arrangements to be reused at your reception, pick a venue that will let you set most everything up the day before the wedding so that you don’t have to hire someone to coordinate setup. Let color do some heavy-lifting by developing a color palette and carrying the swatches with you everywhere to help color-coordinate every detail. And incorporate an idea or material into a few elements of your wedding. Small details can really add BIG impact and repetition can add cohesion to your wedding. Be careful not to go overboard though, you don’t want everything to be too matchy-matchy.

Think of your bridal party attire as part of your overall design. You don’t have to choose a dress from a bridal shop. You don’t even have to put your maids in a dress. Styling your bridal party can really tie them into the look of the event. Color palette and bridal party attire were two of the first things I planned. I am obsessed with gray but was worried it might be too drab with the whole wedding party in neutrals. But as I browsed bridesmaids dresses with my maid of honor (yes I did choose a style from a bridesmaids collection, but that’s because J.CREW has an amazing line that is both affordable and high-quality). Another good thing about buying a bridesmaid dress from J.CREW is that they will send you swatches of the dress material and color so that you can incorporate the exact colors throughout your wedding. The dress I fell in love with for my bridesmaids was a cool gray, called Graphite, but since it was on sale, available sizes were limited. The dress also came in a gorgeous purple called Spiced Wine that had all sizes available so I made a game-time decision that my bridesmaids would wear purple and my maid of honor would wear gray. I thought this was a great compromise to my obsession with gray and worry about being too drab. I told all the girls to wear any style of boot in gray, brown or tan.

When the fabric swatches arrived, I found ink colors in a Pantone swatchbook to match J.CREW’s Graphite and Spiced Wine and rounded my palette out with the addition of mustard. These three colors would be the foundation of the entire wedding. For color to play a big role in your wedding, it’s important to develop a color palette that will give you enough range and to carry the exact colors with you. Just knowing a color name is not enough.

Next, I took the swatches to the fabric store and bought 3 fabrics to have my generous aunt make skinny ties for my groomsmen, best man, groom and dad. I found linen that matched the spiced wine swatch exactly to be used for the groomsmen. I found a mustard fabric for my best man and dad. And I found a beautiful plaid tweed in grayish taupe, brown and mustard for my groom. I said the heck with whether or not the fabric made sense together, linen with tweed? who cares! So, if you’re unfamiliar with tie making, you have to get way more fabric than you need because it has to be cut on the bias. This is great, though, because then you can incorporate the fabric into other parts of your wedding.

Since I wanted our bridal party to be such an integral part of the overall style, I decided we’d give part of their attire as our gift to them for being in our wedding. We gave the ties to the guys and got a cardigan and necklace for each of the girls.

BRIDESMAIDS’ CARDIGANS AND NECKLACES

BRIDESMAIDS

GROOMSMEN

INVITATION SUITE (designed and copywritten by my fiancé and me)

#6 Utilize your friends and family to help bring your vision to life.

No seriously. Delegate tasks to friends and family members. You may think they are just being nice when offering to help (like I did), but they genuinely want to help. They’ll enjoy your wedding even more if they’ve been part of making it happen.

TIE FABRIC REUSED AS BUNTING AT RECEPTION (handmade by my step-mother-in-law-to-be)

TIE FABRIC REUSED FOR CAKE “TOPPER” (handmade by my bridesmaid, Margarita Rivera, and maid of honor, Kelsey Duncan and assembled by me)

RECEPTION WELCOME BOARD (hand lettered by my bridesmaid, Erin Murphy)

WEDDING FAVORS (handmade by my bridesmaid, Delaney Smith)

#7 Determine your budget after you’ve done some research to see what things cost.

It’s hard to come up with a budget if you are doing something for the first time. We first set a budget of $12,000 and quickly realized when we began looking into costs that we needed to raise it to $20,000 to accommodate 100 ceremony guests and 250 reception guests. Generally costs are the same across quality vendors, so shopping around isn’t going to be what saves you money (researching vendors is important to find the good ones, though!). Some vendors’ prices are lower, but there’s a reason for that. You have to get creative with the ways you can save, and don’t skimp on the really important areas. For me, great photography was really important because it captures the memories you’ll cherish for the rest of your life. My dad thought it was crazy to spend 1/4 of the budget towards photography, until he saw the end result (especially knowing how bad the weather was the day of wedding).

HERE IS A BREAKDOWN OF WHERE OUR COSTS WENT:

Bridesmaids’ gifts (cardigans and necklaces) – $1,000
Bridesmaids’ brunch – $500
Groomsmen’s tie fabric $190
Reception food and drinks (we had so much food and wine left, we could have halved the numbers)
Wedding cake $700
Dickey’s Barbecue catering and buffet service $1,400
McAlister’s – cookies/brownies $130
Wine/champagne $1,100
Beer $500
Flowers $0 (gift from my Great Aunt Lee)
Hotel rooms for two nights for bridesmaids, bride’s parents, brothers and grandmother $2,050
Hotel guests’ gift bags $400
Design of wedding paper goods $0 (lucky for us, one of us is a professional Graphic Designer)
Letterpress printing of wedding paper goods $1,500
Screw posts to bind programs $40
Postage $130
Ceremony musicians $600
Reception musicians $0 (our friends were so nice to lend us their talent as our wedding gift)
Photography package $5,000
Reception venue $850
Ceremony rentals: chairs $250 (ended up not being used due to rain)
Reception rentals: chairs, tables, tents $2,400
Reception decor purchased $300
Wedding favors $130
Wedding dress – $0 (I wore my mother’s dress from the 70s)
Wedding dress alterations/cleaning $300
Ceremony accessories (boots, headband) $280
Reception attire (dress, cardigan, necklace) $250
Hair and makeup – $0 (my maid of honor/cousin beautified me!)

No matter the budget, I think these my tips will help any couple achieve their perfect wedding. The thing I hope everyone takes away from this is that it’s not about the amount of money you spend; it’s about celebrating your union and allowing everyone to get to know you better as a couple.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions (lauren@everydays-a-soiree.com). Happy wedding planning!

What exactly does the winner get?

This contest is open to anyone in the world!

8 hours of wedding day coverage
two photographers
engagement or trash the gown shoot
CD with full resolution images from both wedding and photo shoot

How to enter:

It’s easy! To enter the contest all you have to do is email me at: contest@dellafiora.com and be sure to include the following:

– bride & groom’s name
– wedding date & time of ceremony
– wedding location & venue(s)
– photo of you and your fiance’
– wedding website (if applicable)
– and last but not least, send me a mini version of your love story or how you fell in love and why you feel as though you deserve this- be as detailed and honest as you like!

The rules:

– your wedding must be in 2011
– I must be available on your wedding date
– all of my goods and services are free, but if any travel is required you must pay for all expenses involved for me and my 2nd shooter (travel, hotel, etc)
– because each wedding date is so valuable, the winner must put down a $700 deposit (to guarantee your date) that will be fully refunded on date of wedding once agreement has been fulfilled by both parties.
– you cannot enter if your wedding is already booked with us

The contest runs for 2 weeks starting NOW and ends January 25, 2011 at midnight CST. The winner will be chosen on January 31, 2011 and announced on the blog. I’m so excited and cannot wait to read all of your stories! I just know it will be a very hard decision as I’m sure they will all be fabulous. Good luck to everyone!

To end this post, I leave you with a photo from the wedding this past weekend.

I like to call myself a swirly girl. Because I love all things NOT straight. I love anything vintage, wrought iron and swirly. My favorite store is Hobby Lobby because it is a swirly factory. My mind also thinks in swirls and not straight lines. I am a dreamer in every way and have been that way ever since I was a little girl. I can remember imagining beautiful love stories in my head and playing out the entire scenario step by step fantasizing about every little detail. Little did I know, God made my mind to work like that for a reason. I feel so blessed every day that I am a swirly girl and that because of not seeing life in straight lines, I can capture the swirly emotions between two people and portray it in a photograph. I love that God made me swirly. : )

So because of my love for anything vintage, I decided one day that I wanted to style a vintage shoot and came up with a vision for what I was looking for. At the time I had no idea how it was all going to come together but I knew what I saw in my head and I was determined to make it happen. I started off by asking Valerie of Southern Fete, aka event planner extraordinaire, to help me not only come up with some great ideas but to also help me style the entire shoot. Valerie is one of the most talented people in the wedding industry and I am so lucky we found each other last year! She is young like me and her and style is very fresh and modern. (By the way, check out some photos I took of Valerie here.) She is SERIOUSLY gifted and I will continue to brag just how awesome through my photos below. I told her my vision, color schemes and ideas and she truly helped me make them come to life.

I could not be more happy with the way my dream turned out in these photos. They are truly a piece of my heart displayed in print. I could continue babbling about just how much I love them but I will let the photos do the talking. I hope you enjoy them and I also hope you are able to get to know me just a little bit better.

PS. Narrowing the images down for the blog was next to impossible. There are well over 50 images in the post… so get ready for a long one!

—-

So first up I have to talk about this bouquet. We originally had a different bouquet for the shoot but had a little mishap so Valerie, being the awesome event planner that she is… had brought several fake flowers in the colors that I wanted for backup. I basically looked at her and said, “okay Valerie, I have a major challenge for you. I need you to take all these flowers and make a wedding bouquet in 20 minutes… AND, I want it to look like this, this and this.” We only had about 45 minutes left to set up everything for the shoot because we were on a light time schedule, so that’s why I had to put the pressure on her. Ummm, not only did she make it happen in 20 minutes, but she made the bouquet look better than ever!! When she walked up 20 minutes later my mouth dropped open. This woman never ceases to amaze me and I truly think this is a prime example of just how incredible of a wedding planner she really is. Brides, hire Valerie to plan your wedding… she will make EVERYTHING about your big day one million times better.

Seriously, how beautiful is this bouquet??

Not only is Valerie an event planner, but she also designs and creates invitations, wedding menus, etc. She made the following wedding invitations for our shoot. Again, I never even saw them before the shoot… I just trusted her completely and she completely amazed me. She is a great listener and really is all about portraying her clients vision and does an excellent job as you can see.

One of my ideas was to include a little wedding cake as part of the shoot. I asked her if she knew of any young talent in the area that we could showcase. I wanted someone who also could pick up on my vision of the vintage theme I was going for. She said she had someone in mind and so then I left in completely in Val’s hands. She introduced me to Heather of Social Bites of Ruston –  when Val sent me a  sneak peak of the cake Heather created for me the night before the shoot, I about DIED. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better cake if I tried. I had never even met Heather but somehow through Valerie, she picked up on my vision and created a masterpiece.

Agh! It’s SO perfect! I wanted to keep it forever and WOW it smelled so good. When I saw the teaser the night before the shoot I immediately ran out and bought several buttons in the colors of the shoot. Heather is completely GENIUS for incorporating little buttons on the cake… oh and they are completely edible as well. I told myself, “Buttons!?! Why didn’t I think of that!!” Thus why you will continue to see buttons everywhere through out the shoot. (Even on the invitations above.) And the cute little tulle on the cake?? ADORABLE! Seriously, Heather is SO talented. I cannot even believe how amazing she really is. You MUST let her design your wedding cake and deserts. She is yet another young fresh person in the wedding industry and ultimately — TALENTED.

Heather not only brought the cake but she made several other cute deserts for us to play with.

Katie and David came into my life recently and were a complete Godsend. As soon as I got to know them a little, I knew immediately they were the perfect couple to model for my shoot. These two are truly one of the most beautiful couples I have been able to work with… and not just because they are pretty on the outside… but more so because of their inner beauty. They are both genuinely kind and loving and I just know a match made in Heaven. They are getting married in a couple of years so when I asked them to practice playing husband and wife for my shoot, they were more than excited!

My dear friend Courtney Davis from Kiki’s Consulting came to the shoot and did Katie’s hair and makeup. If you follow my boudoir blog you already know tons about her. She does hair and makeup for all of my boudoir clients and several of my brides. She is by far one of the most gifted hair and makeup stylists on this planet! I am so lucky to have her in my life. She is AMAZING in every way and did an outstanding job of highlighting Katie’s natural beauty.

A toast with banana pudding shots? Oh yes.

The dress is from Bustle in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Sarah is the owner there and is yet ANOTHER young and fresh talent in this area. She is SO FLIPPIN’ gifted at finding the most beautiful and unique wedding gowns. So many of my brides get their gowns from there. You may recognize this particular one as the original owner was one of my very own brides, Angel. See her wedding here.

The boutonniere was hand made by Michael’s aunt who refuses to go into business even though I have told her she so should! She is SO talented and I could not believe it when she made me a bout that was exactly what I was looking for. How gorgeous is that?

Katie you are exquisite! I love your beautiful heart, please never change.

This hairpiece is by Lo from LoBoheme. She is also another talented hairpiece designer in the wedding industry. I could go on and on about her as well but just check out her website here.

The following is definitely one of my favorite parts about this shoot… all the gorgeous vintage details!! Together with Valerie, we both combined several of the things we had brought to the shoot and made this beautiful setting:

And of course notice the beautiful menu card Valerie made.

Details!! Oh and you know I had to throw a vintage chandelier in there somehow!

You may have noticed “Steven and Allie” on the menu and invites, which would explain the SA by their feet. We told Katie and David that for the day they were going to be given the names Allie and Steven… because we said so!

More details. I also had to be certain to incorporate a couple of vintage cameras as well. I mean hello, this is MY shoot after all and it’s supposed to be portraying ME.

Beautiful couple!!!

The end.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit into my heart. Thanks so much to Valerie, Heather, Courtney, Katie, David, Anne (for letting us use her house as a location!), and Michael for all your help in making my dream come true. I couldn’t have done it without any of you. xoxo

With that being said, I am THRILLED to announce the winners, Amber and Luke! I loved everything about their story (which I will be blogging after the wedding) and I am so excited and honored to be a part of their upcoming wedding! YAY for love!!!

Here is the juicy scoop:

What exactly does the winner get?
This contest is open to anyone in the world!

8 hours of wedding day coverage
two photographers
engagement or trash the gown shoot
CD with full resolution images
10×10 30pg coffee table (flushmount) album (60 images)

How to enter:
It’s easy! To enter the contest all you have to do is email me at: courtney@dellafiora.com and be sure to include the following:

– bride & groom’s name
– wedding date & time of ceremony
– wedding location & venue
– photo of you and your fiance’
– wedding website (if applicable)
– and last but not least, send me a mini version of your love story or how you fell in love and why you feel as though you deserve this- be as detailed and honest as you like!

The rules:

– your wedding must be in 2010
– I must be available on your wedding date
– all of my goods and services are free, but if any travel is required you must pay for all expenses involved for me and my 2nd shooter (travel, hotel, etc)
– because each wedding date is so valuable, the winner must put down a $700 deposit (to guarantee your date) that will be fully refunded on date of wedding once agreement has been fulfilled by both parties.

The contest runs for 4 weeks starting NOW and ends November 2, 2009. The winner will be chosen on November 5, 2009 and announced on the blog. I’m so excited and cannot wait to read all of your stories! I just know it will be a very hard decision as I’m sure they will all be fabulous. Good luck to everyone!

I look forward to hearing from you!! : )

To make this post a little prettier here is a shot that I just love from Aryanne and Chad’s newlywed shoot that I shot earlier this year.

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Don’t need a guestbook? They also make for the best keepsakes just cause!

Below are a few samples of one–

Happy Tuesday!!

I think it’s so important to not only have a great photographer for your wedding day, but also an incredible product for your wedding album. I love this new album company for several reasons and one is because your album will come with a lifetime warranty against defects… which I personally think is super cool!! Your wedding album will be something you cherish for the rest of your life. I’ve heard so many brides say it’s truly one of their most prized possessions.

I’m very proud to offer top of the line designer albums that are unique and made with the leading standards in the industry. You will absolutely love yours… I’m certain of it. : )