When it comes to your wedding, it’s easy to get a little carried away. So many things are expected, so many of us have dreamed about pretty things, so many businesses are lining up eagerly to sell us pretty things we had never even considered. And what’s the one thing each of those pretty things has in common? They cost money.

No matter how carefully we budget in advance, it can be easy to add a few dollars here, and indulge a little there until we suddenly discover that we will spend our first married year eating our choice of rice or beans every day, because we can’t even afford both at the same time.

But with a little extra care, we can avoid overspending. Here are a few ideas on how to keep the budget from blowing out of proportion.
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(FYI: Today is the last day to enter the Wedding Planning Book 4-Pack Giveaway! It’s easy to enter, and the prizes make for some good reading!)

Classy, zow...

In my opinion, if you’re a grownup person, there’s nothing wrong with drinking or even getting a little (or a lot) drunk. Whether or not to drink and to drink to excess is the choice every adult has to make on their own. As long as it’s done responsibly and you don’t upchuck on my stuff, more power to you. And drinking at weddings is all right, too. But if getting falling down drunk is such a big part of your life that you feel the need to incorporate it into your wedding theme? That’s a little… less than classy, shall we say. It’s like one step above a cake topper featuring the groom holding the bride’s hair while she worships the porcelain deity. Since I prefer classy weddings to weddings on the opposite end of the spectrum, I’m going with HATE on this one. How about you? What would you first impression be if you encountered this wedding cake topper in the wild?

Via Cake Toppers to Top It All

Reader K., who wishes to remain anon for obvious reasons, wrote to me to ask about siblings in the wedding party – specifically inviting other people’s siblings into your own.

I’m getting married to a great guy at the end of this year and neither of us has chosen our attendants yet. I was talking about the whole thing with one of my friends who said right out that she’d rather not be included as a bridesmaid so I’m safe there, but she did mention that I probably ought to invite my fiance’s younger sister to be in the bridal party because not doing so would be offensive to my fiance’s family. What? I’ve never heard anything like that and my fiance has never brought it up, but it’s so easy to hurt people’s feelings and I don’t want to offend anyone. Do I really need to invite my fiance’s sister to be a bridesmaid? She’s nice and all, and we get along, but it’s not like we’re close.

Let me tell you a story: Once upon a time, an ex boyfriend told me that if we ever got married – thank goodness that train never left the station – he’d expect me to invite his sister to be a member of my half of the wedding party and that if I didn’t, he’d and his entire family would be sorely offended. It would literally be an insult to not invite her to be a bridesmaid. I was all, wait, that’s a thing? Turns out that in some families, it IS a thing. As in a thing you better do if you want to have at least a passing relationship with your in-laws. But from what I gather, my ex’s family’s attitude is thankfully not the norm.

Sometimes, of course, a bride and groom (or bride and bride or groom and groom) will come to some agreement regarding swapping or including siblings to keep the halves of the wedding party even or segregated by gender. Now that it’s becoming increasingly acceptable to have bridesmen and groomsmaids, however, fewer couples feel compelled to hand off sisters and brothers to their future spouses. There’s no one wrong way to build a wedding party, so siblings can be included however you want them to be included. That is, IF you want to include them.

Ryan Smith Photography shows us what a sibling-heavy wedding can look like

I’m guessing from the tone of your email that you’re not exactly thrilled with the idea of having to give up one of your bridesmaid spots to someone you’re not particularly close to. My take on the matter is this: If you haven’t felt any particular pressure to include your fiance’s female siblings in your side of the wedding party and the idea never occurred to you on your own, I’d say don’t worry about it. It’s highly unlikely that your fiance’s family is gunning for your FSIL to be a bridesmaid and if she or your fiance hasn’t even hinted at the matter, you’re probably in the clear.

And let’s say the worst happens and someone does get offended… they’ll get over it. That’s a heck of a lot better than planning a wedding all on your lonesome because there’s no one among your bridal party that you’re close to at all, which really sucks.

My mom’s wife has this gorgeous old typewriter and I tried to convince them to have a typewriter guestbook at their wedding. It would have been perfect, I think. It was such a small wedding, so everyone could have added their warm wishes on one sheet of paper that could have been tucked into some book somewhere to be found later and read with lots of love and fond memories. But there was some issue with finding a ribbon or some other thing, so it didn’t happen. Booo.

click click click click shrrrrk!

Maybe I can convince you to have a typewriter guestbook at your wedding receptions? The typewriter owners among you, anyway. Or the brides-to-be who’ve been looking for some excuse to buy a vintage typewriter. A wedding! What better excuse? You could even have a typewriter themed wedding! And then later on you can display it in your living room with a nice white sheet of paper and pop over to it whenever inspiration strikes to jot down a few lines. Doesn’t that sound lovely?

Can ampersands be a wedding theme? I kind of like the idea of an ampersand wedding theme – it just fits. Bride & Groom. Bride & Bride. Etc. You & Me. Becoming we. It’s kind of obvious, but it’s definitely cute. Especially for a couple of writers or editors or librarians or whatever. Typesetters, maybe. Sounds like a wedding theme you’re interested in exploring? Here’s some ampersand inspiration!

Big ol' ampersand from The Back Porch Shoppe (Etsy)

From Paper Invitation Cards

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In March, I finally finished cleaning out my desk in what was once my office, was destined to be a nursery for a time, and then became a playroom. Among the detritus, I found a stack of wedding planning books that I had meant to use as giveaway prizes in individual contests. Oops! But it occurred to me that my oops could be one reader’s gain – because I can now hold a wedding planning book giveaway four times the usual size! This giveaway will include four fun titles: How I Planned Your Wedding by Susan Wiggs, Something New by Elise Mac Adam, Help! I’m a Newlywed by Lorraine Sanabria Robertson (not strictly a wedding book, but close enough), and a signed copy of my own book iDo!

Free wedding books? Sweet!

With this four pack, you pretty much have everything you need to plan a wedding and start off married life right. Or you have a free gift to give to someone who’s planning a wedding and poised to entered the world of the marrieds. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Win the Wedding Planning Book Four Pack!
I’ve got copies of How I Planned Your Wedding by Susan Wiggs, Something New by Elise Mac Adam, Help! I’m a Newlywed by Lorraine Sanabria Robertson (not strictly a wedding book, but close enough), and a signed copy of my own book iDo waiting for one lucky reader. To enter to win, just leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite flavor of wedding cake (with cookies or pie being acceptable answers).

For additional entries, do any of the following (and leave a comment for each additional entry):

1. As always, you can score one additional entry when you add Manolo for the Brides to your blogroll, or let us know we’re already on your blogroll so we can link back to you

2. Score two additional entries when you like Manolo for the Brides on Facebook

3. And you can pick up a whopping three additional entries when you tweet this giveaway or post about it on your own blog!

This giveaway will end at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, April 8, and the winner – chosen via your friend and mine, the trusty random number generator – will be announced on the following Monday. Good luck!

There’s this very popular myth that every single girl knows precisely what her wedding will be like from about the day she turns six. If that were true, I think we’d see a lot more sparkly unicorns, 101 Dalmations themes, and couples telling the officiant they won’t kiss at the alter because the opposite sex is ‘icky’ than we currently do.

This is not to say that some little girls don’t come up with ideas that stick for the next two decades. The very first wedding I attended that wasn’t held in a church took place in a redwood grove. I was seven. Twenty-three years later, I was married in a redwood grove, too. My seven-year-old self decided that was the perfect sort of spot, and my thirty-year-old self still agreed.

But if I had stuck with all of the ideas that seemed mighty fine at seven, my wedding would have included a lot of things it didn’t. Things like big blue frosting roses on the cake. As it turned out, we didn’t even have a cake. We served individual fruit tarts. And at seven I didn’t know you were allowed to get married without a veil. At thirty I was damned if I was going to spend all day in a redwood grove fussing with tulle on my head. I’m just not a veil person.

And then there are those little girls who don’t grow up to write for bridal blogs. You know, the ones who don’t build wedding castles in the air before they fully emerge from the womb. The ones who give little thought to gowns and invitation wording and orders of service until they accept a proposal. Sometimes they find an issue that befuddles them.

Besides, even the most wedding-obsessed among us sometimes find an issue we haven’t considered before. Or reality sets in the way it virtually never does on reality shows, and a compromise must absolutely be reached because there is no more money and no celebrity wedding planner is going to ‘save the day’ by swooping in at the last minute to prove how much more tasteful he is than you are.

What do you do then? How do you make a decision you just don’t know how to make?
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