Mustachain Weddings?

[Larabeth]

Hi All!!!

We're planning our ceremony for December 17!

I've already found out the chapel down the hill from my grandparents house is only going to cost us $200. The reception will be at my grandparents home and I'll be cooking the food along with other close family members. I found THE DRESS I want on ebay and got it for $115.

I'm not sending save the date cards... I don't see the point.

I will also be having an "honor tea" where people from my hometown will get to meet my MiL-to-be.  No showers though... we're both 27 and have more than enough stuff!!!

Does anyone have any tips/tricks on other parts of the wedding?  Definitely want to make it memorable but keep the costs down!

[ajg]

Sounds more mustachian that our wedding! We just got married in October '15 and spend $7,334 all up including our honeymoon. We had a budget of $7,000 excluding the honeymoon so we did OK.

I have attached a running total of our costs extracted from our budget worksheet. Refer to the comments/notes on each cell as to what the costs are.

Everyone had said they had a really good time and it was one of the best weddings they had been to.

First thing is the guest list. This is by far the biggest cost factor. We had a small wedding (about 30 people), and we only invited people we see regularly and play a meaningful role in our lives. So interstate aunties and uncles that we see once every few years - no invitation. Cousins, nephew, nieces, work acquaintances, "friends", family friends etc etc that we are lucky to see every few years - no invitation. This was the most important thing to stick to and the item that we got the biggest push back on by family members. Really had to dig in the heels on this one. My wife and I also think it was one of the most important factors that "made" the wedding a good day. Everyone knew each other, were comfortable with each other, so there was no social awkwardness,embarrassment, or nasty politics from past family disputes etc; just peopling having good fun.

The next biggest one is labour. We managed everything ourselves, made a lot of our own decorations and set-up the venue ourselfs. I think the term is sweat equity.

That hardest part of a mustachian wedding, I think, is the extremely strong wedding marketing that has engrained itself in (western?) society's perspectives on what a wedding "has" to be. Hence, it was a constant battle to stand your ground against family and even against yourselves (logic vs emotive influence). You'll see some of our decisions are strongly influence by this. E.g., the wedding rings.

Somethings we did:

Venue: Wife's parents own an acreage in the hills with magnificent gardens - we used their place for ceremony and reception and saved on venue hire

Invites, other cards: we bought these off dhgate.com (Chinese wholesaler website). They were close enough to what we wanted

Decorations: we bought off dhgate.com (e.g., paper hanging laterns, fairy lighting etc). My wife made her bouquet from broaches she bought online, and it looked awesome.

Dress: wife bought her own fabrics and got a dress maker to sew it. Cost roughly $700, compared to $5,000 for similar dress in the stores

Her Shoes: bought off gumtree (similar to craigslist) for $30

My Suit: already had it. Just bought a nice cotton shirt and tie I can reuse.

Rings: I bought a titanium ring from etsy for $75 I think it was. Bought wife's rings from Secrets, man made diamond for fraction of the cost

Catering: Canapes, Entrees and Main meal, cutlery and glassware, table clothes, tea and coffee. The wedding cake doubles as dessert and the cater plated. This was our biggest cost, but something we were willing to spend money on due to good food being delicious.

Table / chairs: hired

Photographer: we interviewed a bunch and took a small risk on a young up and coming photographer. There's not need to pay extravagant fees for someone to take some photographs. We choose a simple package (only photographs delivered to us via USB and dropbox link). The photographs turned out great.

Alcohol: not huge drinkers, but we just bought some beer, cider and bubbly when on special and stored it. Red/White wine we got gifted to us through the wife's aunty who knows a vineyard where a business deal fell through.

Limo: NO! This is just ridiculous. I dropped the wife off in the morning at the venue (it helped it was at her folks house, so she could get ready there) and got a lift with my family

Makeup: she did her own

Hair: family friend did her hair. I got a normal haircut at the barbers a few days before.

Flowers: from the garden

In a nutshell, a cheap and awesome wedding is definitely achievable. We could of done it even cheaper, but we had a few luxuries.

If you are interested in more, PM me and I can share a few photos of the day to show you how awesome $7,000 looks.

Aidan.

[Larabeth]

Thanks for this!!!  I'm definitely going to keep it in mind.

The beauty of my wedding is it will be 2 1/2 hours away from where we live - in my hometown.  So acquaintances aren't even INTERESTED in getting invited, hahaha!!

I'm also lucky on the alcohol front because no one on my side of the family drinks for religious reasons, so we will not have any alcohol there. 

We will also only be doing finger foods at the reception: not a full dinner.  I want an early afternoon wedding, so a mid-afternoon informal snack setup seems like a better option in my mind.  This isn't me trying to be cheap either... I just had always thought this is how my wedding would work out.

[MrsPete]

That hardest part of a mustachian wedding, I think, is the extremely strong wedding marketing that has engrained itself in (western?) society's perspectives on what a wedding "has" to be. Hence, it was a constant battle to stand your ground against family and even against yourselves (logic vs emotive influence). You'll see some of our decisions are strongly influence by this. E.g., the wedding rings.

I'll soon be the mother of the bride, and many of my older daughters' friends are in the throes of wedding planning now -- and we're having a different experience.  Yes, the wedding machine is "out there", but it seems mostly to be "a thing" on the internet ... and remember, the internet skews reality.  The girls in my life aren't really buying into it:  they're picking non-traditional venues, going with more casual dresses for everyone except the bride.  My girl's actually in love with a $200 dress, but we haven't decided yet whether we're going to order over the internet from China.  Her fiance is planning to buy himself a new suit, which will be useful for years to come.  And I've been surprised at just how little I care about the traditions that used to be iron-clad; and I'm not alone -- other mothers of the bride are fine with skipping this or that as well.

Where I see today's brides spending MORE is food (and drinks, particularly alcohol).  When I was married -- can it really have been 25 years ago? -- everyone had punch and cake in the church fellowship hall mid-afternoon.  If you were "fancy", you had other appetizers as well.  Today that isn't deemed "enough".   

And while girls my daughter's age are rejecting traditions like the receiving line, the bouquet /garter toss, and so forth, new ones are emerging -- some of them more expensive.  For example, apparently it's not acceptable just to ask your girlfriends to be bridesmaids.  You have to give them a gift and card -- preferably homemade and witty -- to invite them to be part of your bridal party; check out Pinterest, and you'll see!  And this bachelorette party thing -- sometimes an overnight?  The new traditions, though they aren't universal, are expensive.

The other thing I'm seeing -- though I suppose this was always true -- is that if you're going to have a wedding celebration, you're going to spend.  That is, you're going to spend either in money OR in time.  If you do all the cooking, for example, that's no small expenditure of time and effort. 

[FrugalHawk]

Toss out all the crap you "think" you need to do and only do what you want to do.

My wedding was super cheap - paid less than $200 for the dress, tux rental was less than $100. I did my makeup myself (with existing stuff I already had) and paid less than $20 to get my hair done (I don't know crap about how to do hair and at the time I had inflammatory arthritis issues that would have made styling my own hair very difficult and painful). My husband and I had no bridesmaids or groomsmen, didn't see the point, so we saved our loved ones all that bull and hassle. We got married outdoors in one of the most beautiful places in the USA so we didn't need any decorations and we rented a rustic lodge on-site for the reception for less than $100 and it came with all the tables/chairs we needed and had a kitchen. My mother and I made all of the food and drink ourselves. We used my mother's existing linens, plates, and silverware (she's one of those ladies that has a billion of the things handed down to her from the family). I think I looked on the internet for ideas for about an hour before I said, "Nope, don't want any of this crap" and then just did what my husband and I wanted. We liked the old-fashioned "punch and cake" type of reception so we didn't pay for a DJ either. None if that crap matters. The idea of "throwing an awesome party for my family and friends" is great and all but not to the tune of thousands of dollars. My friends and family are all low-key people who would rather sit on the porch and BS than go to a fancy party.

The only thing I splurged on was a professional photographer because:
1) my family was in the photo business and it's important to them to have high quality photos
2) when it's all said and done, all you have are your memories

and I didn't want to ask anyone in the family to have to take photos.

At the end of the day, no one cares about your wedding but you, your spouse-to-be, and maybe your collective parents. My brother had a huge blowout wedding because his future father-in-law is an "important figure" in his own mind and had to have something he could invite his business associates to and not be embarrassed. Which was fine because FIL paid for the whole thing. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you to find out that later on in their marriage my brother and his wife had issues because she had a certain standard of living she was accustomed to (paid for by daddy) that my brother couldn't meet. My point in saying this is that if there's a major financial/expectation issue that arises from the wedding planning between your fiance and you, pay attention to it and address it now.

[Larabeth]

Yeah, I'm lucky because my fiancee is a Marine and we don't have to rent a tux. ;)

I just got a dress off Ebay a few days ago... it should be here soon and I'm totally excited!  Pics attached because I'm gooey over this dress...

I've decided to have a couple of bridesmaids, but we are going the route of "here's my accent colors, wear something you think works".  I'm opposed to forcing someone to buy a dress they'll never wear again.

My mother, grandmother, and MiL are all wanting to help me cook and my grandmama has a large kitchen, so I think we will fare well on that end.  I think it will even be enjoyable. =)

Also, mom just told me that dad wants to pay for the venue!!!  This is exciting... I love that my parents let me decide what I wanted to do and then offered to pay instead of putting the money down and directing.

My MiL is a little more pushy (she's trying to force a honeymoon on us by telling me she will pay).  She also keeps telling me to let her plan everything so I can sit back and enjoy the day instead of having to run it.  I just remind myself it is a mixture of love and excitement that is causing her to act this way and I firmly, but politely, decline and then we talk about other things.

So far, this is all going a lot better than I expected.  But there's still ten months to go!

[FrugalHawk]

My MiL is a little more pushy (she's trying to force a honeymoon on us by telling me she will pay).  She also keeps telling me to let her plan everything so I can sit back and enjoy the day instead of having to run it.  I just remind myself it is a mixture of love and excitement that is causing her to act this way and I firmly, but politely, decline and then we talk about other things.

I have to say, if you can afford to go on a honeymoon, even if it's just a weekend away after your wedding, I think you should seriously consider it. I don't want to sound stereotypical but I do think that being newlyweds is a special time in your life, even if you have been together "forever" (as my husband and I were). It's a fun thing to do and make memories. A lot of people I know that put it off ended up never going and that seems sad to me. Also the sheen wears off and then it's just another vacation.

However I admit I am probably biased because my honeymoon was the only vacation I went on in 12 years. It was the only week I took off work in all that time, too.

[Larabeth]

My MiL is a little more pushy (she's trying to force a honeymoon on us by telling me she will pay).  She also keeps telling me to let her plan everything so I can sit back and enjoy the day instead of having to run it.  I just remind myself it is a mixture of love and excitement that is causing her to act this way and I firmly, but politely, decline and then we talk about other things.

I have to say, if you can afford to go on a honeymoon, even if it's just a weekend away after your wedding, I think you should seriously consider it. I don't want to sound stereotypical but I do think that being newlyweds is a special time in your life, even if you have been together "forever" (as my husband and I were). It's a fun thing to do and make memories. A lot of people I know that put it off ended up never going and that seems sad to me. Also the sheen wears off and then it's just another vacation.

However I admit I am probably biased because my honeymoon was the only vacation I went on in 12 years. It was the only week I took off work in all that time, too.

We are going to take a belated honeymoon later on.  Due to both of our situations, we feel it would be better to rest at home after the big event. We both have anxiety and he has severe Crohn's, so piling a trip on immediately after a (stressful, but good) social event seems like it would put us in a bad position.  We don't want to spend the first few months after our wedding dealing with another stricture surgery!

I definitely appreciate the input!!  I want to think about all our options carefully and make sure we are making the best of our celebration. =)

[CanuckExpat]

MMM has an article that covers wedding stuff, including a description of his wedding IIRC.

When I got married, my first three suggestions were:
1) City Hall
2) Vegas
3) Elope

Those ideas weren't picked, but I got out of having to do any more wedding planning :)

[Larabeth]

MMM has an article that covers wedding stuff, including a description of his wedding IIRC.

When I got married, my first three suggestions were:
1) City Hall
2) Vegas
3) Elope

Those ideas weren't picked, but I got out of having to do any more wedding planning :)

I have read his article, and I understand his point, but I want an actual ceremony with friends and family. =) 
To me, there is room for something like this in our lifestyle as long as you don't go majorly overboard.