my parents wont pay a cent for my wedding

Children's education, you can buy a new car, save it for a house if you don't already own one, and later put something together for a lot less money and just as classy in your own back yard. When I was helping my sister look at locations for her wedding, my dad wanted her to have her wedding at a location which was $90,000 alone, not to mention all the rest of the expenses that go along with wedding planning. Luckily my sister told my dad he didn't need to spend that much money on her wedding, but do what you can afford to put together. If those who truely love you and will be by your side no matter what kind of wedding you have, then that's all that matters. If you need more tips, please contact me on here. I'm studying to be a bridal consultant and will cater to budget brides, since I can relate. I'd be more than glad to help you wherever you may need more advice.

I know how you feel.I grew up very poor and now I've moved out my parents still don't have extra money for a wedding. if you want a wedding you may have to hold off for a while or just do the greatest budgeting of your life. I chose the latter myself. But I think it's easier to have a budget wedding if you have a longer engagment, more time for diy projects! First off NETWORK. talk to EVERYBODY you know ask if they know a venue you can use for super cheap, maybe a friend has a big back yard or something. maybe someone knows a photographer or a DJ and can work out a deal No need for a wedding gown just go buy a dress that looks awesome on you. Instead of an expensive wedding cake, diy cupcakes, it's like $4/box. Print up your own invites. And you'd be surprised what kind of cheap pretty centerpeices you can throw together from the farmers market (fruits, veggies, cheap flowers). A wedding doesn't have to cost $20,000. Our budget is $5000 and its working great.

Well Good Luck!!

Well, it's not the news any bride to be wants to hear but have hope. My sister got married last year and I'm getting married this year with no help from our parents. You shouldn't go into debt for a wedding so take that into consideration first. Here's what my sister did:

My sister got married at the courthouse and then planned an informal reception at one of the bar's we frequent. Since we knew the owners, they gave us the dining room for no cost and only asked that we order $100.00 worth of food. They even cut us a deal on the bar tab (beer, wine and rail drinks for 4 hours for $250.00). She then had Sam's club cater most of the finger food and had the DJ do the party for $75.00. Most of the decorations from outlet stores and made the invites at home. All in all, it cost about $1000.00 (including tips) for her reception.

There's some great websites for how to save money on everything from invitations to creating your own party favors. It takes time but well worth it.

So you know about my sister's wedding, here's what I'm doing for mine. To save on the reception, we're having it at a family member's house. It's beautiful location and it's free. If that's not an option, try a local park (cheap or no cost!).

I'm making the center pieces with the help of my family. I found some great candle volves at Walmart at 75% that were Christmas pieces. They ran for $10.00 during normal season and I paid $2.50 a piece. A lot of Christmas decorations make great reception pieces.

Another great place to check out is www.orientaltrading.com. They have some inexpensive wedding items and offers great tips on planning a wedding on a budget.

For the food- we're having it buffet style. Saves a ton on the cost.

For the drinks- we're bringing in our own liqueur and hiring a bartender to serve for the evening.

And finally, when sending registry info "although monetary gifts are preferred, we're registered at.."

Good Luck!

One of my friend's had her ceremony at her church and after had the reception in the lobby with her closest friends and family. She might have had 20 people there, and served wedding cake and some sort of juice/punch. Honestly, it was simple yet beautiful. Macy's, Dillards, JC Penney and other department stores sell beautiful, white or ivory floor length prom dresses that you can wear as your wedding dress. Check David's Bridal to see what dresses you can get during their $99 sale. If you can afford it, you could buy a bridesmaid's dress with a small train in an ivory color for approximately $150. If you're creative, buy a dozen roses for like $15 at your grocery store and create a bouquet yourself with pretty ribbon, you can also do that in roses of a different color for your bridal party if you have one. Those are just some ideas to start with. Check local restaurants to see if you can reserve a room. For example, I had my rehearsal dinner at Buca di Beppo.

My husband and I paid a total of $630 total for 22 people and that included soft drinks and a family style meal of chicken parmesian, cheese manicotti, salad, and cheesecake for dessert. We couldnt afford to pay alcohol for everyone so who ever wanted a drink other than sodas paid for their own. PF Changs has a similar setup. There are options out there for couples on extremely tight budgets. I can sympathize with you. Every bride dreams of their big day and having their parents financially support or help to support her to make it happen. But we don't all have that luxury. Remember that it's a day to celebrate you and your husband, and not how elaborate the ceremony and reception were.

If you register anywhere, tell your parents or bridal party and let them spread the word. It is poor ettiquete to announce where you are registered on your invitation. If someone throws you a Bridal Shower they can put on their invitations where you are registered at, but it's a big no no to put it on your own invitations.

If you have trouble with the guest list, keep it to you, your fiance', your kids, parents, any siblings, and Grandparents, and maybe a few close friends. If you own an iPod or a CD player especially one that can hold multiple CDs in it, you can make your own play list and not hire a DJ. A pack of blank CDs are extremely inexpensive. You can even do a sing along (something Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick did at their Wedding), and instead of having music let every one sing songs. Something my Aunt and Uncle did at their wedding years ago was made a note on their thank you scrolls letting everyone know to come up with songs with the word Love in them and that would key them to kiss (rather than guests clinging on glasses or bells), you'd be surprised how many songs your guests will come up with. Check into Sams/Costco/BJs or if you have a Wegmanns by you or even your local grocery store or deli, sometimes you can get meals from them cheap. Even Boston Market caters weddings.

I'm so sorry I feel like I am hoarding your discussion space with so many ideas. I thought of some others for you too. If you can't afford a wedding gown but you are the same dress size as someone else you know maybe see if they can lend you their dress for the day and go with the tradition of "Something Borrowed." Just make sure you clean it before getting it back to them. If you have a wedding at a beach or a park, you can provide the cake and punch, or even some cases of bottled water and ice and maybe sparkling cider and small dixie cups for a toast, and invite your guests to pack their swim suits (if at the beach) a towel, a picnic blanket, their fave bottle of wine and fave picnic food. There is nothing more romantic than a picnic on a beach or in the park and your kids might even enjoy having the space to run around too (you can still keep it in budget).

If you have a pool in your back yard, a friend has a pool they will let you use for a day, or if you live in a gated community and management will allow you to have guests, throw a pool party reception. If there's a clubhouse that you might be able to use too, that would give you space for a ceremony and reception and if you live in a gated community usually it's already something you pay to use. Your wedding is in September, it should still be warm enough depending on where you live to have a pool party and if not if the pool is heated then you can still do that.

Another invitation idea and shouldn't cost much to put together is going paperless except for maybe the envelope. If you throw something together that isn't formal, why not go with an invitation on a CD-Rom. Use pictures of you and your Groom to be and either in a slide show or in Microsoft Powerpoint, put your invitations as a slide show on a CD, especially if you're having a rehearsal dinner and maybe a brunch the day after (if it's in your budget) and let your guests e-mail or phone you to reply (no extra postage for reply cards and no extra paper), as long as whom you invite has a computer. If you go in the route of card stock, go to Staples or an office supply store and you can make an invitation on one color paper, your RSVP card on another, a map card with directions (I'll send you a link for a free wedding map website to draw up your own map for your Wedding) on another color card stock (which each pack contains 500 sheets). If you print your invitations yourself, use black ink

Avery's website and Microsoft's website have some great Wedding Clipart which is free to use. You can do something like that and even use the extra card stock and regular white or colored printer/copy paper for programs which you can do yourself on your printer. Something cute that someone mentioned on another discussion if you include your kids given they're young, if you own a wagon, decorate it with tulle (bows are extremely easy to make out of it in your colors) and have the younger one in the wagon and have the older child wheel them down, and make a sign for them to flip over after with your names on one side of the wagon and on the other Just Married. I forgot to mention if you use card stock and print your own invitations, go to the craft store and some ribbon is as low as $.50 a spool maybe even cheaper, an idea is to tie the outside with all the inserts with a bow and then put them in the envelopes.

If you or a friend owns a Karaoke Machine (if you're into that kind of thing), and have Karaoke CDs, that could make some fun entertainment for your Wedding Reception, not to mention that you'd have a microphone and speaker to use for any toasts.

If money is that tight and you can't afford postage and go paperless and those you're inviting have e-mail (only if you do something really casual) you can go to http://www.evite.com and it even tracks your replies for you.

Hi Bri,

I'm sorry to hear about your hardships but there are lots of ways around this snag.

David's has great 99$ sales periodically and another route is to find a lovely bridesmaids gown in ivory or champagne. Or borrow a dress from a friend or your mom and make small alterations to reflect you and today's fashions.

Instead of cake, cupcakes are a less expensive alternative and really trendy. Candy buffets are wonderful for favors and affordable. Check out your local grocers bulk section.

Off season is also good it's ok to ask for a discount from vendors, the worst they can do is say no. I think fruit centerpieces are hip, best part is you have healthy snacks for you and your kids after the wedding! Pot lucks are great! I think the only hiccup with them are being aware of who has food allergies, etc.

Photography is an essential. I offer registries for couples for their packages so for a gift idea people can help pay for it. Shoot me an email- we'll chat!

Melissa

The tradition of the brides' family paying for the wedding and the groom's parents the rehearsal dinner and honeymoon is rarely followed. 70% of my weddings are paid soley by the bride and groom, about 15% are a combination of contributions and the last 15% are by one or both sets of parents.

I would suggest a small intimate wedding with your closest family and friends to keep the cost down. The most important part of the day is the love the two of you share and your children.

I thought of a couple more ideas for you that might work food wise and in your budget if you can get your location free of charge. Like most of us have mentioned doing cupcakes, if you bake them yourself it will cost a lot less and you can choose whatever flavor you want for less money than having a baker make it for you. I had seen recently in the baking section that they now have colored frostings already made for cupcakes so if you wanted to create something a pro could, you can do it for less money. Your 3 year old might even have fun helping you decorate cupcakes too. Another idea with the cupcakes is leave them untopped and unfrosted and as something your guests can do is decorate their own cupcakes. You can use sprinkles, M&Ms, etc. and let them have fun with it. Pasta is a pretty affordable meal. Stouffers makes party sized lasagnas which can feed a lot of people if you don't have time to prep one yourself and freeze it and pop it in the oven when you need it, Fettucini Alfredo

Is extremely easy to make if you don't make the sauce yourself, pasta with either meat or tomato sauce doesn't take much effort to cook either. Same goes for the frozen loaves of Garlic Bread or just get regular loaves of italian bread. If you can have someone help you out in the kitchen, and see if any culinary schools can help you out with the kitchen work while your guests can enjoy the ceremony and festivities, as long as you give them referrals for future jobs and give them some pictures to put in their portfolios as well, most culinary schools won't charge you anything. That's an affordable option with a salad to serve your guests buffet style if you want to serve a meal on a tight budget. Also any no heat, make ahead appetizers/hor d'oeuvres will help you out too.

You know what...it's ok that you feel bad about your parents not chipping in...I would feel hurt too. And I don't think it's being selfish feeling like that, because as a mom you probably think about how much you'd love to be able to help your daughter financially on her wedding day! I think you know that you can do something very inexpensively, but that must not be what you imagined, or you wouldn't have submitted this. It sounds like you have the choice of getting married, and celebrate when you can afford it, or be very frugal...and the results might be more wonderful than you imagine!

I agree, unfortunately, with many of these posts.... my parents cant afford to help pay for my wedding, although they would love too. In order for us to save money, we bought most of our decorations, server, topper, garter, etc off ebay! WE have also found some cheap things off Amazon and Overstock. Also, we dont have an officiant fee or anything because we are getting married in our church. Also we got the muscians from our church as well... They told us they dont want to be paid but we are planning on giving them somehthing. We made our wedding favors for 300 ppl for less than $40. We bought 3 our three colors in dime sized artificial flowers & tied them with ribbon with our names and date we orderd off ebay. Artifical flowers has saved so much money and time, and you or a friend came arrange them. Another thing is watch the pricey foods for the reception. Stay away from things like nuts, fresh fruit in off season and such... Go for cheap foods! hope this helps.