Wedding Wednesday: My Big Day

It's Wedding Wednesday today!

In honor of the the month of love I'm sharing my wedding story with you guys. This month on Valentine's Day me and my husband make 8 months married so what better time to share my wedding story? If there's any brides to be reading I hope this post can help you out in any type of way with tips or advice. I was able to break it down into one post and I hope you guys read until the end.

Let's get to it!

We got married on June 14, 2014. It took us 1 year and 8months to plan the big day. I always used to say "how do people pay for weddings? that is just so much money to come up with!" Me and my husband put in all sweat and tears and saved all our pennies for our day. With the exception of my mom paying for my wedding dress, my dad contributing to a deposit to our venue and my talented grandmother making our cake everything else was me and my husband. Our wedding was an estimated 41 thousand in total for EVERYTHING, and 85% percent of that came from me and my husband. A lot of people might think weddings are a waste of money because of how you spend so much money in just one day but different strokes for different folks. I personally wanted a wedding to celebrate our love and to have beautiful pictures to look back at.

All about the money

Now... you are probably thinking how in the heck did 2 average working people can come up with that amount of money in 20 months?! Let's just say I had to sacrifice a lot of new shoes, haha. Once we had our venue picked out within a price range that we were able to afford we kind of gave ourselves a set amount to save every month and stuck with that. That really worked for us. However, trust me when I say that planning for a wedding on your own with no wedding planner can get very stressful. So you better believe we dipped into our wedding funds a few times to escape the wedding madness over a margarita or two. One advice I definitely can pass down to the next bride is don't forget why you're getting married in the first place. There's going to be lots of disagreements with your significant other and parents but you can't let that consume the purpose of planning your beautiful day.

The Dress

I always laugh when people ask me about my dress experience because for me it was not like some girls who've tried over 100 dresses before they found "the one". Now, you guys know that I'm a budget shopper but I was willing to pay a decent amount for my dress. You kind of need to learn how to cut cost while planning your wedding and my dress was not one of the things I was willing to cut the cost on. In retrospect, my dress ended up being a steal. I was told about a store that sells wedding dresses called Group USA and they just so happened to have a store near my office. I went in once and found two dresses I fell in love with; one of them ended up being my wedding dress. Two dresses guys, thats all it took! One thing I knew for certain is that I wanted strapless and mermaid style. I found my dress and veil for a little under a thousand which, if you never seen the price of a wedding dress, believe me that was a steal. I saw prices of dresses for 5-10 thousand. (cue the wide eye demoji).

Shoes: Michael Kors via Bloomingdales

For my bridesmaids I was able to find their dresses for $99 on sale at Davids Bridal. I was so excited about that because I didn't want my girls spending a ridiculous amount on their dresses.

"Best friends are the people in life who make you laugh a little louder"

Ceremony, Reception & Vendors

Me and my husband had our ceremony at the local church that we attend on Sundays. We are very big with our faith and we just couldn't see ourselves getting married elsewhere. Our reception was at The Graycliff. I love love love everything about this venue, from the appearance, price range, food and best of all customer service. I honestly recommend this venue for any occasion because their service was spectacular.

For our music and photography, our vendors were Ultimate Entertainment. They were so awesome and really great to work with. They did such an awesome job with our wrap up video (which I included below for you guys) and the pictures were phenomenal.

One thing we did in looking for our vendors was look up reviews and made sure we felt comfortable with them when we initially went to meet them. Me and my husband are very big off of feelings and we always go with that. Being comfortable with the people that will be there for you on your big day was key for us.

My grandmother made our wedding cake!

It's surreal to say that it's about to be 8months already because it honestly feels like this happened yesterday. As cliche as it sounds to say that day goes by in blur...it really does go by in a blur. If your a bride to be one thing I can tell you is don't forget to enjoy the actual day. After all you've put so much work into your day don't forget to enjoy it. Also, know that friends and family will drive you crazy during the whole process but don't forget that day is about you and your future spouse. Don't lose site of why your doing this.

I love every minute of being married with someone I can share a silly laugh with and always motivates me to do better. He's the camera man behind Patty's Kloset and I'm very grateful for that.

Cheers to love.

I hope you guys enjoyed my wedding post.

Here's a few more pictures, hope you enjoy.