How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget: Cut Your Wedding Costs in Half--Or More!

Great Book! I used this book for my wedding & it was weddings Great!!!! I was even told: "Your wedding is the best wedding I've ever been too." AND....I ONLY spent $1,500. My husband and I needed a lot of help from friends and family, which we have a lot of. It also took a lot of time and hard work, but it was well worth it. We learned to work well together, learn to deligate and saved a ton of money. If your short on time, you'll probably spend more then us but my sister used this same book. She was short on time, & they spent $3000 and there wedding was amazing!!!! When it comes to buying anything in life we all want it: Fast, Good, Cheap. However, the fact is you can only have TWO. If you need it fast and good. It won't be cheap. If you want good and cheap. It won't be fast. If you want it to be fast and cheap. It won't be good. So keep that in mind. With a little imagation and this book. You'll save some GREEN!

This book was a lifesaver! I called a friend who was an amateur photographer. I had her take some photos of us and also reviewed her portfolio. We discussed the photos she took of us and what we liked and didn't like. We made a list of must have shots and ideas we had in mind. They came out beautiful! The cake we purchased from Albertson's. Who would have thought of purchasing a cake from the grocery store? But I saved a couple hundred dollars and it was beautiful and delicious. I knew what I had in mind for the cake and the baker listened to my thoughts and added some from her own experience and we came up with the perfect cake! They make cakes often enough so they turn out beautifully, but not so often that they don't get excited about creating the perfect cake for you. These are a couple of the suggestions I used to save a ton of money. While not all worked for me, they did help me think creatively in planning and saving money on the things I needed to spend money on.

This book was extremely helpful in planning my wedding. I am not getting married until October of 2003; but I have implemented alot of the ideas offered in this book. I have also utilized alot of the websites offered in the bridal bargain book which I think should be used in conjunction with this book. If you use both books together, you'll definitely save money and get alot of interesting ideas.

I bought this book last year early in my wedding planning process. I was determined to have the wedding my fiance and I wanted and not what everyone else wanted or what other people expected. There are so many great ideas in here, though I might agree that some of them may not be my taste. My fiance and I were paying for our entire wedding ourselves and wanted to save some money for a downpayment on a house. With the ideas in here, we did just that, and even more than we expected. You obviously won't use every idea in this book but it really opens your eyes to other possibilities. You do yourself what you can handle, don't be afraid to ask for help, decide what you don't mind spending a little extra on (for us that was the photography) and you can have a ceremony, reception and honeymoon for an amount you are able to afford. People still tell me, nearly a year later, how beautiful our wedding was and how it really reflected *us*. This book gave us the ideas to do that within our budget.

I bought this book while planning my wedding in 1996, and found it invaluable! Yes you have to do some work, but what do you expect when you want to save money? Not all the ideas are for everyone, of course, but you can use whatever works for you and skip the rest -- if the photographer is important and the cake is not, splurge on the photographer and go cheap on the cake!I like that the author doesn't try to talk you out of having a beautiful wedding, but rather fits the beautiful wedding into whatever budget you have. I love her idea for a Christmastime wedding, and I almost wished I was getting married in December so I could have used it!