Engaged in college!! How do I pay for it?

We're doing a diy wedding right here at home in our backyard. but if you dont have that choice you could always see how much it would be for a permit at a park...they shouldnt be too much. getting help from friends is definitely a big plus. im getting my wedding dress free from one of my sisters friends/coworkers, another friend is gonna be the photographer since he does photography, another friend who sews and does crafts is going to alter my dress, make my veil, and has helped to fix up alot of the decorations we bought at the Dollar Tree store. They may be cheap but they still look very nice. and with our budget of $1000 every little bit helps. but definitely try to get alot of help from your close friends. maybe try talking to others in your guys' families. not everyone can be against your wedding?!! and you should definitely be able to pull it off with a year and a half of saving up and planning to go.

I am a local St. Louis Photographer and seeing many locations, the best & cheapest locations for wedding ceremonies is your local county park. Most of them can be rented out for $15-20$ an hour. The photographs turn out best in a park setting/outside environment. Most of you are familiar with Tower Grove Park, Creve Couer Park & Beechtree Park. (Great for taking photos, some of which you can see on my website)

Most importantly, try to find other vendors who will work with your budget. Most vendors like myself will help out whenever/wherever possible.

Correction : Bee Tree Park - beautiful small quiet park

Why not wait til you're both 21, so you can serve alcohol?? jk.. seriously though, what's the rush? You guys are so young. There's nothing wrong with a long engagement. Wait til you're done with school and working, then you can have the wedding you both want.

I'm cutting a lot of cost by not only keeping things DIY, but I'm also having a Wedding & Reception in the same location (no point in herding guests to multiple locations AND the food will take up most of the cost so I'll have a reception and hire officiant to show up) and the biggest key is that I'm pooling my resources!

I've got a friend who is a pianist, I know lots other musicians, DJs, photographers, videographers, graphic artists, and my Aunt is a seamstress. All I need is to become friends with restaurant owners and a baker. LOL

Especially while you're at school, if you don't have friends that do this - Make friends who can do these things and "hire" them for either some money, for experience, or for a portfolio piece to add to their resume. Especially for friends, they will want to do a good job.

The above comment is great about going to a beauty school to get hair, make-up, and nails done for cheap!

I am a first time bride and my FH and I are both out of school working full-time. I can understand why your parents are not very supportive of your decision to marry so young. They are probably looking at you thinking that once you're married, you'll have children soon and stop going to school. With the economy the way it is, an education is important and now is the time for you to focus on that, not planning a wedding at 18. As someone else recommended, you can have a longer engagement and finish school before getting married. If you decide that you're getting married no matter what, please make sure to go to premarital counseling. Our priest requires precana and an engagement encounter weekend. Both are wonderful and make you look at things you didn't really think about. Also, if you wait, you'll be able to save a little more for the wedding of your dreams. Good luck.

Besides the above suggestions, I will suggest to have an early reception so that you serve more of a brunch type of menu and perhaps no alcohol, which neither of you can drink or purchase anyways. Good luck w/ school and success w/ your engagement!

Congrats! I am 19 years old (20 in july) our wedding day is July 15th 2010. I am also going to college. I have alot I want to tell you! All I know is before you can go too far you need to have a location. once you have a location you can configure your guest list. I have been buying things little at a time. I bought my dress from TJ Maxx for $20 and it is JCrew! at AC Moore I found DIY invites 40 for $10. I already booked the Tuxes with a deposit of $40. the hardest thing right now is a LOCATION. my family is in Michigan while his in Mass. my step mom told me to look into like an elks lodge or Brides mag. said to look into state parks. as far as ceremony, try an alternative other than flowers like candels. I saw in a mag. balloons, or bubbles. right now I am having the toughest time deciding on my colors. my step mom is making the flower boquets for my girls and I. for the honeymoon my fiances aunt lives in florida. any other questions let me know! im glad to see im not alone!

You can also have people bring food to your wedding. like family members. that will help cut some of the cost. and get someone that is a good photographer in your family to take your pictures. you can always do the edit thing on the pc. i've made my invitations, and having my wedding in our back yard which is huge and nice during may season. you can look on ebay and other stores for wedding dresses. you don't have to have a big white dress. you can have whatever you want. i have a budge of a 1000 dollars and i think we are doing pretty good. and you can also ask your friends that have been married to see if they have any of their stuff from their wedding that they didn't use or just don't need them anymore.

My biggest piece of advice to you is PRIORITIZE! you have plenty of time between now and next june to plan a great wedding. figure out what's most important to you and don't be afraid to splurge on those things. when my husband and i got married, our three big things were food, photography, and a honeymoon. well, we couldn't afford the honeymoon, so we had a destination wedding instead! (another great way to cut a guest list, by the way.) one of our brides last year had a really small beach wedding and rented a beach house for her reception. they served some great cook-out food (all made by family) and had an ipod playlist. everyone had a blast. another bride we had saved money on a location because her dad had a huge backyard, so they rented a tent! plan some DIY projects, and keep an eye out for sales! (pottery barn, pier1, and michael's all have great sales at the end of seasons.) most of all, just remember that you two love each other, and that's all that matters!

In place of a ballroom you can get a vfw and do the decorations or perhaps a backyard ceremony if you or your family have a nice side yard.

Have friends and family pitch in on everything from the decorations through the meal.

Good luck........Narrio (The Wright Touch Entertainment Mobile DJ)

While I think you can pay for it and have a wonderful wedding & marriage in college (really, I do! see my posts above for ideas how to do it), I've seen so many of my "forever" friends break up in the second or third year of college that I have to at least caution you to prepare for marriage by making realistic, long-term plans & seeking counseling. As I'm sure you've noticed by now, people change so much in their first year or so of college -- I sure did, and so did everyone else I know! So while I don't think you're necessarily too young to get married, I think you really need to realize every decision you make from now on -- where to work, how many hours you work, how to budget the money, whether you each "keep" your "own" money or split everything 50/50, even which detergent to use or how you cook or what ingredients you use -- will affect your FH & will be a joint decision, and they're things you should start thinking about now. (Okay, maybe not the cooking, but def. the money!)

Hi, my FH and I are new parents and are both in college. We are having our wedding in July of 2010. Some of the ways we are saving money are: *small wedding of 30 people *family is making the food *my sisters and I are making all of the invites ect.. *having wedding outside at park and eating there as well *bride maids are buying their own dresses *My grandmother is marring us *families will have cameras for taking pictures

We have a lot of people that feel left out from the wedding so we are having a beach party a day or two after the wedding.. This is where all of our friends and the rest of our family will be able to come and spend time with us. It will be a "bring a dish to share" event and just a good time.

The only thing we are spending a good amount of money on is the dress. My FH feels I should have the dress of my dreams! And David Bridals has a great selection of dress with very good prices.

Well good luck with everything.

Even if you spend $500 on this wedding, I feel you are wasting money that could go toward school, living expenses, etc..

You should WAIT to get married after you graduate. That's what I did and I DO NOT REGRET IT.

SAVE YOUR MONEY. Wait to get a full time job, parental support, and a little bit more time to figure out how you and your fiance are going to PAY FOR YOUR FUTURE.

That's my opinion, but you don't know me, lol, so I totally understand if you are scowling now, lol.

I am only 24. I am young too---I'm not some older mom or anything----but---I still think you should wait until you are economically independent and focus on the future with your marriage (living expenses, paying for college, etc.)

Plus, if you postpone the wedding, I guarantee your folks will be happy and MORE WILLING TO HELP pay for a wedding after you graduate.

It's okay to stay engaged for more than a year-----don't rush!

Good luck to you

Let me start by saving i know how you feel!! weddings cost so much and so does college!! My bf and i were together for 2 years whenever he proposed (jan 08), because i wanted to have a nicer wedding and finish school first we decided to have it june 2010, and so far i have not regretted the desicion to wait that long!!

I will be graduating school this spring and although we could have gotten married this year, i am glad we are not because (1) i knew i would be super stressed with school and planning (2) i was worried if i didn't finish school i might not ever go back, also i decide that i'm only going to get married once and i want it to be nice, alot of my other friends are throwing together a wedding real fast, and well i'm glad they are happy i want something a little nicer.

I hope this doesn't sound mean but i do agree with the earlier post, i think you might want to wait a year more, i think that you will benefit from it later why not wait & save & not regret it later?

Maybe you can adjust your idea of "perfect" to something elegant, yet unconventional. There are also bunches of websites through which former brides can sell their stuff. one of them is oncewed.com -- i have no association with this website, i've just seen in mentioned...so moderators, don't get mad!

First, let me say that I don't know you, and you can take my advice or leave it. But I've always heard it said that you should not get married if you can't even afford the wedding. There's something to be said for the fact that your parents/family are not supportive of this marriage; do you really want to get married knowing that your family is not behind you? I got engaged briefly at 18 to my boyfriend at the time, but after a few months of having to keep it secret from my family (because I knew that they would not approve), I decided to break off the engagement and wait until I graduated from college (and ended up breaking up with the boyfriend not long after). That being said.....DIY projects are key, and just buy things a little bit at a time....watch for sales, watch the clearance bins religiously.

Ok, I'm not going to mention counseling since so many others have but I'm on a budge as well. I am planning a wedding for approximately 200 guests for only $5000, 140 of those are just my family. The two things I'm splurging on are my dress and flowers. I have found, although I haven't purchased it yet, several wedding dressing for really cheap on David's Bridal. And like someone mentioned, they have $99 dollar sales twice a year. Also, you could try a local thrift store or Salvation Army. My sister's best friend got her wedding dress at a local thrift store for $50 and it is gorgeous. It cost her about $200 for alterations. I actually got the idea to do silk flowers for my wedding based on her future mother in law already having all the flowers ready for the wedding next month, and they were really cheap. Another thread on this forum about silk flowers, shows some people getting flowers for under $150. All the flowers for me, because I like lots of flowers cost $578. Since my family

Is really large, we alway have pot-luck get-togethers during the year. This is what we will be doing for my wedding as well, which will cut the cost of the reception tremendously. Also, we are having both the ceremony and reception at my FH's parents' house.

Here is my advice:

Use sheet cakes as wedding cakes. You can get them really cheap at Wal-mart and Kroger. Buy silk flowers. I went all out, but you can get all of your flowers for less than $200. Do a pot-luck for the reception. Have your bridesmaids buy their dresses, David's Bridal has some for like $130. Have an outdoor wedding. Not only will it be 1/4 of the price or more than a church, but it is more casual, something that you need for a pot-luck. Don't do favors. Most people don't like favors anyway. Don't do a honeymoon. My fiancee and I are both in college, and neither of our parents have the money to help us, so we are just going to stay in a nice hotel the weekend of our wedding and then have a honeymoon when we have

The money. Try thrift stores and yard sales for your dress. To be extra casual, you could just buy a really nice white summer dress and your fiancee could wear slacks and a white shirt. Your bridesmaids could also get summer dresses. You can get also get really cute bouquets at Kroger and Wal-mart.

Good luck!