It ought to go without saying that all wedding budget advice is not created equal. That certainly is the case when the question is who is going to pay for what!

Just this morning I felt myself compelled to read an article at Gal Time about the ‘new rules’ for who pays for what.

The author of the piece, Analorena Zeldon, consulted two experts, Andria Lewis (wedding planner with fifteen years’ experience) and Jodi RR Smith (author and etiquette expert) about how couples should broach the divvying up of expenses between themselves and their parents.

On the upside, the article not only assumes the couple will take some responsibility for some expenses themselves (and has a convenient breakdown of who pays for what when the two of you are paying for it all), but also that the bride’s parents might choose for a variety of reasons to opt out entirely.
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You’ve just interrupted your ‘I do’s’ by running off with the man your mother thought wasn’t good enough for you (but was plenty good enough for her to seduce!) and are getting on a bus with no idea where it’s going. But what about all those deposits?

Okay, if you wait until that point, chances are there’s nothing you can do but pay all those wedding bills or declare bankruptcy.

If, on the other hand, you decide a bit earlier in the proceedings that things just aren’t going to work out, there is a way to recoup some of the expense you’ve been to and help another couple have the nice wedding of your dreams.

Bridal Brokerage is there to help you pick up the financial pieces and get you on your feet again.

You enter your details in a handy online form, and Bridal Brokerage does the rest. They contact the vendors and find another couple who are in need of a wedding much like yours. You receive a percentage of your wedding expenditures already made, cope with your own broken heart, and contact your own guests, but after that you don’t have to deal with the details of canceling your wedding beyond that.

On the buyer’s side, well, you fill out a similar form telling Bridal Brokerage when you’re hoping to tie the knot, how many guests you plan to have, etc. and they’ll contact you with weddings that might suit your needs. You choose the one that best fits your preferences, and buy it at a deep discount.

Again, Bridal Brokerage steps in to the rescue with the details. They’ll send out save-the-dates and invitations to your entire guest list and prepare programs, too.

I’m wondering, is there anyone out there who has used this service or one like it? What were your experiences like? Is this a service any of you out there would consider using on either end?

There are times in the wild and wooly roller coaster ride known as wedding planning when finding the sweet spot between what you want, what you can afford, and how much things cost can feel a bit like this:

Or even this:

Frankly, it’s not easy to find a balance, and the tighter your budget the smaller the window you have to try to fit through.

Still there are things you can do, both in allocating your funds well and in vendor negotiation, that will help you wriggle through with a minimum of misery, embarrassment, and red ink. Read on to find out what to do… and what not to do.
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There’s a lot expected of a wedding these days, and not just emotionally. I’m talking about the trappings. I remember a time when I had never heard of chair covers, and the wedding photos were good enough if they were in focus. Most brides did their own make up and nails, though there might be a hair dresser involved. The bride’s jewelry was often either her ‘something borrowed’ or a gift from her parents.

Today, well, it’s all about the details. In actual dollars, most couples don’t have more money to spend, but there are more things to spend the dollars on and more social disgrace for doing it ‘wrong.’

So what is a bride on a budget to do?
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Over the years we haven’t really talked a lot about transportation here on Manolo for the Brides. Mostly we’ve considered it a question to be determined between you and the deity of your choice.

And I believe that in most cases the majority of brides assume they’ll hire a limo to get them around on the big day. That’s hardly universal, of course. There are women who would consider their wedding day incomplete without arriving in a horse-drawn carriage. Others can’t imagine spending the money on just getting from point A to point B and take their own or a family member’s car. Yeah, that would be me. I wasn’t making a grand entrance. I helped set up the site in my wedding gown. Arriving in my father’s trusty Nissan was plenty good enough for me. Mr. Twistie and I left in his classic Mustang that he drove every day back then. It was a nice car, but nothing specially worked out for the day.

But there are practicalities to be considered that may make the family car a bad idea. You may have dreams of making a spectacular entrance that won’t be satisfied by a mere limousine.

And of course we’re never against fabulous around here… so long as taste, budget, and legal issues have been considered properly.
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Americans tend to have a fascination with the average. We keep seeking out the information that will tell us whether or not we fall in the ‘normal’ range of nearly everything. Weddings, of course, are no exception.

So when I ran across a fun and informative infographic on averages concerning bridesmaids over on Visual.ly, I had to take a closer look and share the contents with all of you.

Seems I got a couple of things in the average range when I got married. Five bridesmaids is apparently the average, and that’s exactly what I had. Oh, that includes the junior bridesmaid who, at twelve, slotted nicely into the national average of being aged nine to fourteen. I had a matron rather than maid of honor, though, unlike some 97% of brides.

I’m not sure where to put myself in the question of the 64% of brides who have their maids wear identical outfits. See, they all wore the same skirt and blouse made from the same patterns and the same fabric… but then I asked them to trim and accessorize according to personal whim rather than a specific blueprint. So there were trims ranging from pink pearl piping to a grand fall of lace over the bosom to an added Batterburg lace collar with little blue ribbon roses, an equally broad range of jewelry styles, and flat shoes that ran the gamut from ballet flats to low, slouchy boots. So they all started in the same place with the same stuff, but they weren’t identical when they got done.
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The HuffPo wedding page recently began a campaign entitled Take Back Your Wedding. It’s about how you don’t have to bow to the pressure to have a traditional wedding blowout your family and friends want.

Today they are running an infographic on what else you could spend that much money on.

Taking the average cost of a wedding in eleven major cities across the country, they tell you what else that money could buy. For instance, the $65,824 for a traditional wedding in New York City could get you two year’s rent on a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village. In Dallas the $28,717 could get you 164 pairs of cowboy boots, just in case it’s your ambition in life to be the Texan Imelda Marcos.

Now you all know that I’m foursquare in favor of bridal budget sanity. I believe strongly in not spending more money on a wedding than you have to spend. I’m big on making the day personal to you rather than a set of traditions followed for the purpose of not upsetting people who aren’t the ones getting married, and in favor of dumping the trappings that don’t matter much to you personally. So if you would truly rather buy 32,715 beignets from Cafe du Monde than hold a traditional wedding, I will be the first person to have your back… and help you dispose of your beignet surplus.

But really? If you’ve got the money and want to spend it on a wedding, I will also be the first person in your corner. Your money, your priorities. Your choice.

It is my firm belief that a wedding will cost precisely what you are willing to spend on it. Whether you have a potluck backyard gathering for ten or a million dollar extravaganza in an exotic location where you fly in four hundred of your nearest and dearest, if you can pay for it and it makes you happy, then that’s what you should do.

The value of your wedding isn’t something that can be measured entirely in cold dollars and cents or comparison of how many hands of blackjack the same money would buy.

Base your budget decisions on your value system. And don’t let anyone else tell you what that is.