In The Photographer’s Words: They came to Myrtle Beach SC, married on the beach and had a small reception at the Prince Resort Hotel where they stayed. On a budget, they decided to do the details themselves. Rather than chairs for the ceremony, she had beach towels in her colors, embroidered with their names and date. She made her programs from card-stock, glued to popsicle sticks, tied with ribbon and stuck into the sand. Thank-you favors were votives filled with seashells and blue gel. Her beach aisle, was lined in seashells and flowers. This was a low key but very romantic wedding. The couple was relaxed, fun and really enjoyed their day.

::::: Details :::::

Couple’s Names: Angela + Bryan
Wedding Date: 04/30/2010
Country: United States
Location: North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Photographer: Brooke Christl Photography
Reception Venue: Prince Resort
Ceremony Location: Cherry Grove Pier

As DIY Bride begins to include all aspects planning a do-it-yourself wedding, we’ll be introducing new features in the coming days and weeks. The first new feature is a regular column of gift-giving guides.

“What gifts” you say? Most couples give their maids and men a gift for being in the wedding party. Moms and dads often get a token of thanks. Clergy, vendors who go above and beyond, special helpers, ceremony readers, ushers, ring bearers, and flower girls are also others who traditionally may receive gifts. Brides and grooms also sometimes exchange gifties pre-ceremony. I know Jason and I were caught off guard when we discovered all of these wedding extras were customary and/or expected – and we didn’t budget for them. So, you know, heads up! Save some room in your budget for this stuff and let us offer some inspiration for nifty ideas for all budget ranges.

The Gift Guides are collections of products that are perfect for wedding-related gifting. DIY Bride is proud to showcase handmade products from small and indie designers as part of our roundup of ideas.

If you’re a vendor who’d like to be considered for inclusion in our gift guides, we’d love to hear from you! Please use the contact form to tell us about your product and why you think your wares are a great gift idea.

Answer: The short answer is that there’s no way to tactfully ask for strangers to fund any part of your wedding. Etiquette-ly speaking this falls directly into the land of “Do NOT do this” .

The long answer? Nothing makes vendors bristle more than being asked for to work for no pay – and rightfully so. Why do you think these vendors should fund your wedding?  This isn’t a sarcastic question; it’s an honest one. Unless it’s a charity event or you’re a mega-celebrity with huge press coverage at your wedding, there’s really no upside for them. They may get minimal exposure at your event and might get future business but that probably won’t compensate them for what they’re investing which is their time, resources, employee pay, supplies, insurance costs, overhead and reputation.

You can have an amazing wedding on a tight budget and without sacrificing your dignity.  I encourage you to look into things like cutting back your guest list, fun-but-offbeat wedding venues, eBay or second-hand gowns, and potluck receptions (or culinary schools for discount catering) to help save some cash.

Best of luck to you!

1. DO be decisive. Nothing will sabotage your DIY experience more than being wishy-washy about your projects. Once you get a solid theme or project idea down, stick with it, or you’ll waste precious time and resources (and drive yourself crazy).

2. DON’T do too many projects. Once you get rolling with DIY projects, it’s easy to get carried away and want to do everything by hand. Resist that urge! Pick the projects that are most meaningful to you and stick with those. Weddings bring enough stress without the pressure of added responsibilities.

3. DO start early. Most DIYers vastly underestimate the time needed to complete big projects and end up stressed, over budget, and completely burnt out. My handy little tip: Expect each project to take double the time you expect to complete it and budget that into your calendar.

Please click the link for the full article.

My name is Khris Cochran. I’m the publisher and creative director of diybride.com and am the author of two do-it-yourself wedding craft books (with another one the way).

DIYBride.com was launched in 2003 as a way to for couples to share ideas, templates, and tips on creating a kick-ass do-it-yourself wedding no matter what one’s budget or skill level.

What fuels DIY Bride is our ability to put the tools, skills, and resources into our readers’ hands to empower them to create the best projects for them and to become active participants in their own wedding day. Our DIY projects can be found here.

Though this site I am able to counsel couples on spending their wedding money wisely, a topic I am most passionate about after near disaster paying off debt incurred post-wedding. I chronicle that experience here and here. Helping couples work within their budget and financial comfort level, whether it’s a $1000 wedding or a $100,000 wedding, is important to why and how we operate.

Real do-it-yourself couples, who are utterly awesome, are featured here. Couples can interact and share with each other in our forums which have recently been resurrected and feature a new gallery section.

DIY Bride can be found on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. To sign up for our newsletter, with subscriber-only news, deals, templates, worksheets and other goodies, please fill in the form below.

Thank you for being a part of our community and we look forward to sharing in your wedding day.

I’m a full-time student and my FI just got back to work after being unemployed for 4 1/2 months. We have a big (for us) payment coming up for our reception venue. We won’t have the money for it on the due date but will have it when FI gets his paycheck about a week later. We’ve seen ads for pay day loans and are thinking about doing that so we can get the cash in on time. FI thinks its risky. What do you think?

DIY Bride Reponds:

Your FI is right.The ubiquitous payday loan ads make it sound so easy and harmless, don’t they? “Just bring in your pay stub and some ID and we’ll give you CASH!”  While they do deliver on the promise of easy cash, they are far from harmless. These loans are generally very short-term (days, not months) and the interest rates can range anywhere from 300% to over 1,000%.  [source]

Though it may be difficult to muster up the courage, contact your venue ASAP and explain your situation. Ask, very politely, if you can get an extension on your due date. Most will be understanding and willing to work with you – within reason – to extend the date. You may have to pay a late fee but that’s going to be nothing compared to the 300% you’d pay with a loan company.

Good luck!

When you prioritize, plan, and adopt some of the money-saving steps below, it will be the beauty and joy of your wedding day you hold onto forever, not the bills.

Food and Drinks
1. Serve a signature drink, such as a punch or favorite cocktail, instead of providing a full bar and limit other alcoholic beverages to wine and beer, choices that will satisfy most of your guests.

2. Have your caterer use local fruits and vegetables that are in season. Not only will these items be more economical, they’ll taste fresher.

3. Order a moderately priced, plainly decorated cake, and make the focal point the cake topper. Vintage bride-and-groom figurines, wedding bells, horseshoes, a basket filled with fruit, or a pair of doves (from an antiques shop or handmade) are classic symbols that can make a cake memorable.

Flowers and Decorations
4. While most popular bridal flowers are available year-round, some traditional ones — peonies and lily-of-the-valley, for example — can be difficult to find and expensive out of season. Seek your florist’s advice before deciding on your flowers.

5. Use favors as seating or place cards to save a bit on stationery costs. For seating cards, write guests’ names and table numbers on strips of paper, affix them to the favors, and set in order on a table near the entrance. For place cards, put favors with names attached at guests’ places.

General Budgeting Tips
6. When it comes to invitations – save money and the environment by choosing digital options like http://www.pingg.com for save the dates.  For the wedding, you can use a more formal, printed invitation. We offer a number of gorgeous designs at pingg – http://www.pingg.com/info/designer_series?artist=martha_stewart.

7. Fridays and Sundays are generally less expensive than Saturdays for renting a venue.

8. To minimize the guest list, include your friends’ significant others but not casual dates.

9. For your reception, remember that a deejay can be less costly than a live band.

10. The most important thing about a wedding is making sure it is personal and reflects you. Prioritize aspects of the wedding that are most important to you. By compromising in some areas, you can afford to splurge on others.

Visit www.marthastewartweddings.com for even more tips and inspiration.

With the economy on shaky ground companies big and small are looking for ways to reduce their potential losses for their next quarter or fiscal year. Translation: look for a reduction in services & perks and a rise in fees.

Here’s what to watch out for:

Credit Cards

• Pay attention to every single word on your monthly credit card statement and all of the little extras they send with your bill each month. The terms of your credit card agreement may very well change in the new year. Special attention needs to be given to the annual fee, interest rate, and late fee terms. Check every month for any changes in those rates!
• The U.S. credit card industry is expected to lower credit limits to new and existing customers in the next year as a risk aversion strategy. This means that your once $5000 credit limit, for example, may be cut by hundreds or even thousands of dollars leaving you with less credit to use.
• Citigroup recently announced a 3% hike in their rates for many of its credit card holders. Expect other banks to follow with higher interest rates.
• Qualifying for new credit cards will be tougher – especially if your credit isn’t perfect. Don’t count on getting another card to help fund your wedding if you’ve maxed out another one.

Air Travel

If you’re planning on using frequent flyer miles or points to pay for your honeymoon or wedding flights, there’s good news and bad news here.

First, the bad news: United Airlines is raising prices on their FF rewards. This means you’ll need more points to pay for a ticket in 2009. Delta rumored to be changing their SkyMiles card loyalty program to reduce the amount of points gained when using the AmEx SkyMiles card.

The good news is that there are other ways to rack up miles and lots of FF deals to be found. Airlines are struggling to get those seats filled and are offering, often in conjunction with credit card companies and/or their own loyalty programs, deals to entice you to fly. I love Tim Winship’s blog over at SmarterTravel.com for alerts and resources for finding FF mile deals and info.

Check your mail (and the airlines’ websites) for changes in your Frequent Flyer rewards or airline loyalty programs!

Worthy of note: Airlines are also positioning to reduce the number of available seats per flight to help raise prices (and increase their profits). Some airlines are still imposing extra baggage fees plus surcharges for fuel and gawd-knows-what-else. Don’t forget to include those costs into your travel budget.

Jewelry/Diamonds

As the holidays are upon us, and the economic gloom looms over, start checking out small indies and chain jewelry retailers for deals on engagement/wedding rings. The price of gold is dropping a little and retailers are desperate for sales. Christmas and New Years are big engagement events so there are good sales going on right now. Do beware of going of out business sales. There are some larger chains that are closing for good. If you buy from one of these retailers, all sales are final and you’ll have zero recourse if there’s a problem with your ring.

Slightly cringe-worthy but a good resource if you’re not superstitious:  pawn shops are doing well right now and many have an increased inventory of wedding and engagement rings at low, low prices.

What you should you stock up on:

• Double-sided adhesives. If you’re doing stationery projects, you’ll likely need plenty of double stick tape. I go through several rolls a year.
• Printer ink cartridges
• Printer papers & cardstock
• Extra blades for your paper cutter
• Embellishments like ribbon, rhinestones, glitter, eyelets, brads
• Ink for rubber stamps
• Floral supplies
• Fabric and notions

Bigger-ticket items to watch out for:

• Inkjet printers
• Good paper cutter
• Heat embossing tool (if you’re going to stamp & emboss)
• Jewelry tool kits
• Die cutting machines
• Sewing machines

Where to look for deals:

• Newspapers. This is THE week for print coupons in the paper.
• Craft store websites. Some have downloadable printable coupons and some have online coupon codes.
• Sign up for craft and office supply store newsletters. The big guys are starting to send out 30% – 50% coupons on a regular or semi-regular basis to their email subscribers.
• Local store newsletters. If your favorite scrapbook or fabric store has a mailing list, get on it ASAP. Many send out notices of in-store events and sales on a short notice.

Benefits of DIY:

• You control the design or concept

• You control the quality of product or service you create for yourself

• You control the pricing/budget

• Each project you make is uniquely yours

• You get to excerise your creative talents

Negatives of DIY:

• It’s not always cheaper than having someone else do it

• Creating your own projects can take a long time

• DIY may be intimidating if you’re not crafty or are in a creative funk

• There’s often a huge time commitment involved

• You’ll likely need reliable help to complete projects

• You may need to buy a bunch of expensive supplies just to get started

• It may be difficult to find inexpensive, quality, or unique supplies

Tidbits from our poll:

• 57% said they’d go DIY all over again

• 66% said they’d scale back their DIY projects if they did it again

• The average budget for DIY supplies was $800

• 84% said they went over budget

• The average amount of hours spent on DIY projects was 200+ (that’s over 25 8-hour days)

• 89% said they underestimated the time needed to complete their projects

• 45% said they didn’t have enough help

• 55% said they couldn’t find the right supplies

• The most popular projects were:

- invitations, rsvps, maps

- programs

- favors & gifts

- table cards/seating cards

- bouquets & flower arrangements

- centerpieces & decor