We had people to tell us we should cut costs by asking a friend or an art student to take the pictures, and I am thrilled that we completely ignored that advice. We set out looking for photographers who could really capture the essence of the day. Cheesy photos of wedding parties jumping in the air and grooms dipping their brides didn’t interest us. We wanted the pictures to not only remind us of how we felt during the celebration, but to convey to those who couldn’t make it a real sense of what it was like to be there. Johnny and I are both novice photographers, and we love a more photo-journalist style.  Kitty and Craig absolutely exceeded our expectations. Not only were they in the thick of everything, but they pulled it off without being the least bit intrusive. They were like ninja photographers! And the pictures represent the day so intimately and honestly, people joyfully tear up when looking at them. The added bonus of them living in the very same New Mexico village where our wedding was held was simply too serendipitous to ignore.

And, some last words that are SO important for every bride on a budget to remember…

Using the resources you have, hunting for great deals, going to local businesses rather than large wedding retailers, and incorporating the talents that you have and the talents of others close to you – all of this is my best advice for creating a wedding that is not only affordable but that is truly your own.

The last thing I would add is that all of the guests made comments about how wonderful the rain was, affirming my belief that working with unplanned events (rather than trying to fight against them), is the best practice. Brides in particular get so caught up in the day being ‘perfect.’ We were rained on, ran people from courtyard to tent back to courtyard, had technical difficulties with the father-daughter dance, had to improvise a plan to fill water glasses, my bustle broke, my dress got muddy, the bus showed up too early to take guests back to the hotel, just to name a few mishaps… and it was the most spectacular day of my life. At least 20 of our guests told me that the evening was “just perfect,” and I couldn’t agree more.

* * *

Couldn’t have said it better myself!! Coming up next, we are announcing the Crate and Barrel Favorite Four Giveaway Winners!!! And later today, we have another pretty killer giveaway…in the meantime, check out the AWESOME Gourmet Invitations Giveaway on the Little Black Book Blog!

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Post tags: budget, Do-It-Yourself Inspired, Elizabeth and Johnny, Kitty and Craig Fritz, Twin Lens Images, Vintage
Post categories: The Blog, Vintage Chic

From Elizabeth, the lovely, lovely bride…

We found that buying silverware at thrift stores was more than 50% cheaper than renting it.  We provided one fork, knife and spoon for each guest, and picked up cool serving utensils as we stumbled upon them – all in all about 375 pieces of silverware.

We borrowed napkins from my cousin. She had used them at her wedding, which was also deluged by a heavy rainstorm. There was speculation among my family members that perhaps the napkins brought the rain with them…

It was my little sister’s idea to name our tables after some of our favorite jazz musicians, a passion Johnny and I share. The night that we met we had a lengthy conversation about the film ‘Sweet and Lowdown,’ and our love for the swing era. The head table was then named after the (fictional) lead characters from that film, Emmet Ray and his love, Hattie. The lanterns came from a decor hunt Johnny and his mother went on in Johnny’s hometown of Durango. The jars and bottles we collected at antique stores and garage sales during our engagement. Julie had sage bushes in her yard, so we used branches from them in the jars, and then attached the table markers to the branches with clothespins.

Our desserts were made by three of our friends. One of them made the wedding cake, her first ever attempt, to rave reviews! It was a chocolate-cocoa cake with buttercream frosting and fresh berries. The coconut cake in particular was too delicious to be described. Finally our third baking friend made cookies and mini cheesecakes for those who prefer something other than cake.

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Post tags: budget, Do-It-Yourself Inspired, Elizabeth and Johnny, Twin Lens Images, Vintage
Post categories: Vintage Chic

Annie and Ryan tied the knot at the Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma, California in a complete DIY affair…and I am just completely in love with every little bit of it. I have lots more pictures on the way, so check back in just a bit!

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Post tags: Annie and Ryan, budget, Do-It-Yourself Inspired, Julie Mikos, Real Wedding
Post categories: Casual Elegance, Do-It-Yourself Inspired

And for all of you…the fun is just beginning! That is a little cheesy, but it’s so true. We are doing our first Crate and Barrel Favorite Four Giveaway today…and it just might include a product that EVERY girl needs on her registry.

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Post tags: Alders Photography, budget, Crate and Barrel, Misourrie, Stephanie and Nathan
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

Like Jennifer, the fabulous photographer, shared with us in the last feature…all of the chandeliers and decor details were found on ebay and by scouring flea markets. Hung from trees, they add that bit of sparkle that every outdoor affair needs. I am madly in love…if you can’t already tell!

It’s funny…this wedding is one part sweet, organic, kind of backyard style. And another part total glam. And the best part is that it totally works together. Just goes to show that when you are designing your own wedding style, don’t be boxed in by words like “traditional” or “casual.” Let your real personalities dictate your design!

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Post tags: Alders Photography, budget, Misourri, Nathan and Stephanie
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

If you are just now joining us, Jennifer over at Alders Photography sent us this affair, and I am in love! It took place this past May at Sailboat Cove in Paradise, Missouri…

From Jennifer at Alders Photography…

This was a really personal and intimate wedding.  It is also a “low budget” wedding…the bride found the chandeliers, lanterns, and table decorations at flea markets and consignment stores and dressed them all up with home-made crystals. They also had a fun DIY photo booth with props borrowed from their four nieces.  It just goes to show that you can make personal decisions without breaking the bank. So while this isn’t an example of an extravagant and expensive wedding, I think it’s the perfect example of a detailed, personal, and unique wedding.

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Post tags: Alders Photography, budget, Missouri, Stephanie and Nathan
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

And guess what ladies…the perfect bride, Stephanie, made the jewels herself!  The groom went with all-vested attire for his groom’s men.  The bride allowed all her bride’s maids to choose their own dresses in the beige/taupe color palette for the wedding.

We have so many more gorgeous details on the way in just a bit. And, if you haven’t already entered the Fuzzynk Giveaway, don’t forget to do that today!

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Post tags: Alders Photography, budget, Nathan, Necklace, Stephanie
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

Well, lucky for me, this past weekend my husband and I attended one of those weddings that can make any girl fall in love all over again. And it MORE than excited my wedding nuttiness! So I owe a HUGE thank you to Jennie and Matt for letting us share in their big day and for single handedly making me jump out of bed to start writing today.

Today’s featured wedding just might take the cake for my new favorite wedding on SMP. It’s pure perfection. Sent to us by Jennifer at Alders Photography, this is a budget wedding…with more beauty and more unabashed romance than most of the expensive weddings I’ve seen!

WE have TONS of gorgeous photographs and details coming up today so check back in a bit! Also, a sneaky peek of whats to come this week…more giveaways that are going to make your heart skip a beat, a pretty incredible rehearsal dinner, some engagement sessions that are absolute loveliness and a handful of real weddings that will make you giddy!

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Post tags: Alders Photography, budget, Nathan and Stephanie
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

And Amy and Matt’s wedding, sent to us by lunaphoto is one that anyone would love, filled with a simply elegant style and sweet but utterly sophisticated details.

From Amy…Both my husband and I have two sets of parents and we really wanted them to feel included, so we decided to have a moment during the ceremony were they all came up and made a circle around us and vowed to continue to love and support us as we join our families together. This became especially important to us since 10 days after our wedding my husband’s step-dad passed away. We are so thankful that we were able to have such a special and intimate moment with him before he passed.

For our wedding favors we decided to give different types of trees for our guests to plant. Instead of having a guest book my mom had a great idea of making us a quilt, so we had a table where guests wrote little messages to us on squares of cloth to be sewn into the quilt. It will be something that we can keep forever and as my mom put it “feel surround by love”.

From Amy…

Our caterer (Primizie) and baker (Coco Paloma) are small companies that we found locally in Austin; and the best part is that they both only use the freshest most natural and/or organic ingredients! We saved a ton of money by doing a dessert table instead of a big wedding cake; we had a small 8 inch cake, different sized cupcakes, cookies, 2 pies and a big bowl of fresh fruit. Our invitations (made by Viola from Chewing the Cud, who I found on SMP!) were made using all environmentally friendly products, and we had a local artist do the calligraphy on the envelopes.

We chose to not do the traditional cake-cutting, flower and garter tossing, etc so that we could have more time to spend with our family and friends, particularly because most of them flew in from all over the United States and even Singapore! There is so much that I could write about our wedding; everything went so well and since we were planning everything long distance we hired Aimee Villa with Lizze Belle Event Management to help us bring everything together, she did such a wonderful job of helping make our wedding magical for us. Along with hiring Aimee, one of the most important things that we did was hire amazingly talented photographers; Mike and Paula Luna of lunaphoto were a joy to work with and did such an incredible job of capturing such a special time in our lives.

* * *

Thank you so much to Amy and Matt for sharing their day with us!! We have a pretty awesome giveaway coming up next and later, find out who won the Sarah Darcy Giveaway!

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Post tags: Amy and Matt, Austin, budget, Coco Paloma, Lizze Belle Event Management, Luna Photography, lunaphoto, Primizie
Post categories: Budget Beautiful, Casual Elegance

Ahh…I can just breathe a sigh of pure happiness when I look at these photographs. They were shot by Luna Photography and do an absolutely brilliant job at conveying the soft, pretty elegance of the day. Here are a few more details from Amy…

We recycled everything that we could and along with having some yummy micro brewed beers we chose to get a keg of my husband’s favorite organic beer to cut back on the waste (and cost). For a year we collected glass mason and milk jars, some vintage and some spaghetti sauce jars to use as vases and candle holders. All of our candles were hand made by a local man who only uses soy and chemical free products. We wanted our flowers to have a “hand-picked” feel and we brought down a bunch of potted herbs that we planted ourselves. This was a big money saver for us and now the herbs are growing in our garden and in some of our family and friend’s gardens too! The day after our wedding was Mother’s Day so we decided to take our left-over flowers to a retirement home so that the flowers could be enjoyed by the mothers there. We hated the idea of just throwing them away!

All flowers were done by Bouquets of Austin and event planning was done by Aimee of Liz Belle. More on the way!

Oh and here’s a hint about the upcoming giveaway…we are officially calling June, Green Wedding Month, so think super chic, super green, unbelievably awesome.

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Post tags: Amy and Matt, Bouquets of Austin, budget, Liz Belle, Luna Photography
Post categories: Budget Beautiful, Casual Elegance

Paula and Mike of Luna Photography are the talent behind the gorgeous photographs. Although they aren’t a budget studio, Amy and Matt saw the beauty in their work (and so did we, as we’ve asked them to be a part of our Little Black Book!) and were able to sacrifice in other areas to book this duo and fly them out from San Diego!

Here are a few words from Amy, the lovely bride…

There are a lot of things that are important to my husband and me; a couple of the most significant are family, healthy living and the environment. With those things in mind, when we started planning our wedding neither of us wanted to do anything too wasteful or meaningless, so we strived to make our wedding simple yet elegant and as meaningful as possible. We really wanted our wedding to feel more like a family reunion or garden party. In choosing our vendors we tried to find people that have the same ideals we do and it was really important to us that we support small and/or local companies. We wanted our money to go towards helping support fellow artists (my husband is an artist) and people trying to make a living doing what they love.

So much more on the way! Oh and guess what…we have THE BEST GIVEAWAY today. Seriously, you are going to die!

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Post tags: Amy and Matt, budget, Luna Photography
Post categories: Budget Beautiful, Casual Elegance

Sounded reasonable enough to me! So, I sent out a twitter (or a tweet, however you are supposed to say it) and ended up getting some pretty fantastic budget friendly affairs! This one, sent to me by the incredibly talented Paula of Luna Photography, made me actually squeal with glee!

Before I show you the wedding, though, I wanted to share these ADORABLE pictures of the bride and groom outfitting the Allen House in Austin, Texas, for their big day!

With a couple this cute, and this chic…you just KNOW the wedding is going to be good!! Back tomorrow with all of the incredible details!

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Post tags: Allen House, Amy and Matt, budget, Luna Photography
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

I mean, seriously!? Is this not the most adorable wedding you’ve ever seen?? Here are a few more fun details from Courtney…

The flowers were adorable- striped tulips & runnuculus in the bouquets & bouts & adorable wheat grass & daisy centerpieces. The food, by Thank Goodness, It’s Sophia (TGIS), was super fun & delicious. They had a burger bar & a salad bar. Instead of plates, red & white check paper hot dog trays were used. Jess had originally wanted to get the In-N-Out catering truck, but it is a bit difficult to find a site in downtown LA where you can pull a huge truck right up to the event.

My favorite touch of the entire night, though, was the dessert bar. One of my favorite dessert companies, Vanilla Bake Shop, made the most incredible mini-cupcake & icebox dessert display. Words cannot express how delicious these treats were & they looked completely adorable as well!

What I loved most about this couple was that they were not afraid of taking a chance and doing something a bit different. The wedding was very intimate- only 40 guests, and was full of personal touches. Each table was a different food photo; Jessica takes incredible photos of food- she even has a blog where she posts them. It’s so fun! The programs & invitations featured a retro-style photo of the two of them sitting on a big hamburger. They gave each guest a pair of knock-off Ray Bans to wear during the ceremony and Jess found an amazing grass doormat to use for the escort cards.

Thank you so much Courtney Toney for sharing all of the fabulous details! I am in love! And of course, to the adorable Jess and Christian…I kind of want you to be my new best friends.

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Post tags: budget, Burgers, Joyful Weddings and Events, Kim Fox, Red and White
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

So, when the fabulous Courtney Toney of Joyful Weddings and Events sent me today’s second featured affair, I swooned! The wedding came in at just around $10,000 and it was ALL about the fun.

I mean, any bride that can rock a pair of red shoes and outfit her girls in candy stripes (from Anthropologie) while still looking fantastic is OK in my book. The photos were all taken by Kim Fox who together with Courtney must have had a complete ball helping to make this wedding a reality. We have more to come including some pretty fun details!

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Post tags: budget, Joyful Weddings and Events, Kim Fox, Red and White
Post categories: Budget Beautiful

A few quick details from the fabulous photographer behind the affair, Kelly of Kelly Melissa Photography…

“Jaime’s son, Sam walked her down the aisle and gave her away. It was so sweet. They had one of their closest friends marry them, and let me tell you, she was amazing! Their friends got up during the ceremony and read poems. And, to top it off, Jaime and Todd wrote their own, extremely loving and emotional vows. I found it so hard to take pictures because I was crying like a little baby!  There was great food, great drinks, great music, and a lot of great dancing! Seeing Todd dance with Jaime’s daughter, Olivia, was so sweet and so apparent that they already are a FAMILY. “

Thank you so very much to Jaime and Todd for letting us have a little window into their perfect day. It is more than inspiring, dream-worthy on so many levels. And to Kelly Melissa Photography for sending us this beautiful affair!

© Style Me Pretty : The Ultimate Wedding Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budget, Jaime and Todd, Kelly Melissa Photography
Post categories: Budget Beautiful