Feeling invisible and insignificant when dealing with vendors

View Quoted Comment Unfortunately I’m all the way on the opposite coast so I don’t know any florists in your area, but if you’re not looking for too many flowers there are a lot of great options on Etsy. Plenty of beautiful bouquets for the bride of all colors with matching boutonnières in the $100 to $150 range. There are a lot of good centerpiece options too and you should look into dried flowers as they tend to be a lot cheaper. Or flower confetti or flower petals that you could sprinkle around to still have flowers present in the aisle or on the tables or wherever for a much lower cost. $1500 is a really good budget for flowers though so you don’t really need to worry about what’s cheapest. Sorry, I wish I knew someone near you!
As for ideas for a budget honeymoon, the last couple I worked with chose to honeymoon in Seattle. They ended up going for a VRBO instead of a hotel so we were able to get them a huge beautiful space right on the water so they could see the skyline and ferry over to the city every day. It was an awesome experience for a fraction of the cost of a resort, which charge extra just for having certain amenities that you probably won’t end up using on the property. No need to pay for an on-site restaurant when you’re in a different city that you probably want to explore. The VRBO was about $100 a night and their food was about the same, and most of the activities they went and did were public spaces like community gardens and museums and tours of the city that didn’t cost anything. They also chose to drive which is not always practical for everyone but there flight only would’ve been about $300 or $400 anyways. They were able to do the whole thing for under $1500! Definitely not up everyone’s alley but the same principle could be applied to a lot of other places.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for the suggestions! I will definitely check Etsy if I’m not able to find someone who I want to work with for flowers.


For our honeymoon, we originally wanted to do a cross-country camping road trip. So aside from gas, food, and state park fees, there aren’t a ton of expenses. The main issue is the amount of time he would need to take away from his business for us to enjoy ourselves and not spend the entire time driving. If we can’t afford to take that much time off, we were thinking we might try to just fly out to Boulder (where I’m hoping to go to grad school) and spend a week or two camping out there. Things are just so up in the air as far as this big project goes, so we’ll have to wait and see if we can afford the flight.

View Quoted Comment Hi Lorna,


Thankfully we adore our photographer. My FH does photo and video work and we actually met our photographer when we were out taking our own engagement photos. I honestly never even thought to ask for recommendations from him, but I should.And I completely agree that I shouldn’t be the one trying to win my vendors over. That’s the most frustrating part of all of this. Since I don’t have a wedding party, I don’t have a “squad” to get excited about wedding stuff with (aside from my FH) and I’m trying to find whatever fun and joy I can in the planning process. Feeling like I’m competing in some kind of personality contest just to get my vendors to do their jobs is not my idea of fun 😂

View Quoted Comment Oh my gosh! My fiancé does photo and video too. 😄 And I can relate to not having a squad. My mom is helping out with planning. My fiancé hates planning things. i haven’t decided if I’m going to have a MOH. We’re kind of loners and are not very traditional in that sense.

View Quoted Comment No way! I’m sure picking the right photographer was his top priority then! I know that we poured through so many Instagrams looking at photographers before we met ours.


We are having a backyard brunch wedding and my fiancé about had a heart attack when he realized the sun would not be in the perfect position for good lighting at our original start time. So our ceremony start time is now 8am because he insisted that the light had to be perfect 😂
We’re not very traditional either. I love the idea of having someone to help with planning but at the same time, I don’t know what I’m doing so I don’t feel confident in giving directions or asking for help! I know if roles were reversed, I would really struggle to carry out vague instructions so I just don’t want to put that stress on another person because it would end up stressing me out too.

Just wanted to give everyone an update!


I met with the florist that my friend recommended to me last week and they were AWESOME. Super friendly, understood my vision, and made great suggestions. They sent me a proposal within hours of our consultation. Happy to report that I have booked them! Thank you all so much for the kind words and advice 🥰

View Quoted Comment

Congrats! Glad to see it worked out.