Fernando and Rebecca 's Wedding in Cookeville, Tennessee

The story of our wedding

Our wedding was by all means better than it should have turned out. Not only were we fighting covid-19, but we were fresh out of college and determined to keep our wedding to an absolute minimum budget. (Especially since we are both music teachers now.) However, with a Mexican family and lots of friends from many places, cutting the guest list was just not an option. So with about a 150 person head count, we set out to have a wedding under $10,000, and we're proud to say we did it without sacrificing anything! (and with a lot of help along the way)

The number one thing that made our wedding special and also saved our budget was putting to use the talents of our family and friends. At the end of it all, we only hired three professionals: photography, videography, and the reception hall venue (which included rentals); everything else was handled by people we knew that volunteered their services either for free or the cost of materials. Almost every part of our wedding had a story: my dress was from a wedding thrift store, our musicians were people we performed with in college, one of the groomsmen wrote original music for the ceremony, I had worked at our church venue for two years, our pastor had been my boss, my husband's family made the arch and all the food (at it was amazing!), one of my bridesmaids made the cake, another one did makeup, my sister-in-law did hair, my mom decorated the reception hall, my family helped make all the flowers and signs, and most importantly, my aunt coordinated the whole day.