A Beautiful Wedding on the Cheap- Part1

As a ministers wife in a sizable church I attend a lot of weddings. I also attend a lot of funerals but that's another post altogether. I've seen a lot of great money saving ideas and a lot of "why did they do that" things. Don't have money for a wedding planner talk to a minister's wife of a big church most likely she will have some great ideas.

Building-First of all a problem we run into a lot is a couple is a member of a small church that can't hold all their guests or the couple isn't members of any church, finding a location that's an actual church sanctuary in the traditional sense of stained glass windows and a long center isle is the "picture" a lot of brides have for their wedding day. If you go looking for this type of church you can expect to pay a rental price, this is in addition to the Pastor's honorarium, keep in mind someone has to play the piano , run the sound system and clean up the pews after your ceremony, most large sanctuaries aren't cooled or heated to a comfortable temperature except during regular times so that is also an expense. Those things also have to be done for your rehearsal so for those people involved they will be giving up their Friday night and Saturday.

Decoration- Our church actually has beautiful candelabras, an arch and white pew bows and greenery most people don't even know the church has these and you can use them free of charge so they buy their own if your talking a hundred pews that a considerable savings. If you are investing in fresh church flowers make sure someone will transport them to the reception so they do double duty.

If your church doesn't have these there are party and banquet supply companies that rent them.Don't waste your money!

In this day and age so many women have tattoos, I mean big ones, if you have bridesmaids with these, please don't pick a dress that will show them off, nothings more distracting the looking at the tattoo on a bridesmaids back through the whole ceremony trying to figure out what the Chinese characters say.

Find out what flowers are in season and work around those. I got married around Halloween but had Lilies and pink roses, not in season! I ended up ordering 12 dozen of each from Sam's Club and doing my own flowers, yes, I saved a lot but I sure was tired. I probably should have had Autumn colors.