Have you changed one part of your budget to accommodate another?

We cut back on flowers to afford a videographer for a few hours. We definitely wanted some sort of video so we opted for 2 hours of shooting and 2 shooters plus a high light video which will be our ceremony mostly, and then we decided to DIY with real flowers from Sam's rather than a bigger florist. It all worked out!

I knocked off the budget for invites and wedding rings (well, my wedding ring at least) once I saw the need for a DOC. My fiancé is really excited to have a nice ring of his own so I chose to only take away money from mine, especially since I'm so in love with my engagement ring already

We cut prices everywhere, but the biggest impact was from guests and decoration. We went from 50 to 22 guests and we removed all flowers from the wedding, excluding my bouquet. We are getting married at a beautiful place and it doesn't really need much.

Slightly, yes! We nixed having a served dinner, which isn't really the "norm" in our area anyway, to have the photographer of my dreams. We also saved by having real-touch silk flowers instead of real.

I wouldn't say we changed pieces of it, but really just kept our eye on the big picture. If we came in under budget on something, we decided where we wanted to use the leftovers. If we came in over budget on a line item, we decided where we wanted to take away from to make up the difference. So for us, when we came in nearly $2000 under budget on dress and photography costs, we were able to get the DJ we wanted AND add a photo booth.

By keeping everything pretty fluid we were able to stay on budget, and actually came in about $3,000 UNDER budget in our grand total.

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Ooh, that's so cool!! What drew you to the photographer of your dreams?

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Awww, I love the...I don't want to call it a sacrifice because that seems dramatic, but it's the only word I can think of!! I love how you were like, "I already got a ring I love, but he doesn't, so I can move this all around!" Have you booked your DOC yet?

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Her photos are very soft and airy, and it was exactly what we were looking for. It fit the feel of the wedding perfectly! I think she and I are the same person, LOL!

We went over on the venue, then decided to upgrade to top-shelf liquor, and added a videographer. In exchange, I feel like 90% of my wedding planning has been trying to save money in every other area. I'm doing DIY flowers, minimal decor, no photo booth, building our own arbor (rentals are crazy!). I also chose a photographer under $2k when I would've preferred one in the $3-4k range, but it'll be worth it.