An open letter to Broke ass Bride

Dear Broke-ass Bride,
I really like you. I really like your ideas, and your ideals that weddings can be something glamorous and wonderful with out breaking the bank. As a person with a wedding budget I totally love what you are doing.  I have really been trying, so don't hate me when I say


Weddings on a budget are hard.

I know that there are better places to get a wedding dress then a small boutique. I KNOW. But as a person who has never shopped for a wedding dress before, and really dislikes buying things from websites that are relatively unverified I just couldn't bring myself to buy that dress that was supposedly $200 on that possibly Chinese website. So I bought this.

Casablanca 1936

It came from a tiny boutique that I drove by a few times. Yes I know there were other options. But at the time I didn't know about that wedding dress exchange site, where I bet I will be selling this dress after the wedding.

I tried David's bridal where I was treated like dirt because I only had a vague idea of what I wanted.  OH and god forbid I ask the sales girl what she thought might look good on my body type. I've worked retail, I get it, but common courtesy when a non-briedzilla comes in wanting an opinion would be nice.  (That lady is still calling me.)

I also went to a fancy place thinking it might be nice to be pampered, but that lady was so pushy that she didn't care what I said I liked (or had already tried and knew looked bad), she brought me whatever was 1000 over the price I said I could pay.

So I think the $800 trunk show price I paid for a dress that had to be ordered from England and took 7 months to make is pretty good.

My photographer, while a friend I have known forever, is a professional wedding photographer, so that cost a TON. (I won't talk prices there, as she is a friend, and I knew what I was getting into.) But I decided early on that a good photographer can make a crappy wedding look amazing, so the price was whatever.

Be proud of me here Broke ass bride! After my original wedding reception venue  tried to tack on an extra $2000 that wasn't quoted to us (they did it while we were about to sign the contract, so we just got the deposit back) I changed my reception venue to the church hall, which will cost a whopping $150! We can bring in our own ANYTHING, so money saved on booze and....

Food. My friend's brother owns a gyro (yee-ro) trailer in town, and has not just agreed, but offered to do a gyro bar buffet at COST!!!!

I booked the same DJ as M's sister, which gave us at $100 discount. They threw in a free light show because they happened to be one of the bad original venue's preferd vendors, and are letting us keep it, because its not our fault that the other people are jerks.

Bridesmaid dresses were easy to do cheap. I found some great ones on clearance at Anthropologie for $53 each. and they turn from dresses into skirts.

The thing that has been hard is impulse things. Like my engagement journal, and Handmade weddings, and this book I found on making invitations.  With any luck I'll keep these under control.

Thanks for listening