BRONZE BUDGET BRIDE

Amie and Justin Doucette planned an elegant wedding for 150 guests with a $5000 budget proving that you too CAN have the wedding of your dreams despite your small budget...here's how she did it!

"We were married on Thanksgiving weekend, October 10th, 2009. It was amazing, family and friends came from all over Canada and the United States. Our wedding was in Nova Scotia Canada, and things here are quite a bit more expensive than in the USA. Our Final wedding cost around $5000.00, the bulk of our budget went into our reception which was held at a Ball Room, at the Grand Hotel.

I pinched pennies EVERYWHERE I could. I spend hours looking at every single wedding site imaginable especially Bronze Budget Bride and I honestly believe THAT is what saved us money in the end.



My family lives in North Carolina, so thankfully, some things were able to be purchased there like my wedding dress. I know everyone has seen the show Say Yes To The Dress, where ladies go into this amazing bridal store and try and dress after dress until they find, "THE ONE!" well not this girl. For starters, the closest bridal store to where I live in Nova Scotia is 3.5 hours away and wedding dresses are roughly twice the price of dresses in the USA. I just could NOT bring myself to pay thousands of dollars on a dress, it was just not my main focus.

The Wedding Dress



One morning I spent hours browsing DavidsBridal.com. I looked at EVERY SINGLE DRESS they had on their site. We all know our bodies and we do know what will be right for us so TRUST YOUR JUDGEMENT! I saw THE ONE that I wanted and called my Mother, who was actually at work that day. My younger brother David was home at home however and I have to say that I have the best brother EVER. My 23 year old, hockey player brother drove to Fayetteville North Carolina, walked into David’s Bridal with a picture of “THE DRESS” I wanted and said, “I NEED this dress for my sister!” David called me an hour later and said "Amie…I have your dress, I have your necklace and your earrings!" I could NOT believe my brother would do that for me but he had NO reservations about it, he knew what he had to do and he did AMAZINGLY! He picked out a lady in the store who was roughly my size, and said “I need THIS dress in HER size.” The dress fit me PERFECTLY.I did not have to have ANY alterations done to my dress whatsoever! It was perfect and the total cost was $549.00!

My Wedding Shoes



A little note on our wedding! My husband’s family is a very traditional Catholic family. I personally, would have been totally fine with jetting off to Vegas and getting married by Elvis since it really did not matter to me, but it DID mean something to my In-Laws so it was a very easy decision, Catholic Wedding here we go! However one day I came across Endless.com, a wonderful shoe website and I found my AMAZING wedding shoes in BRIGHT RED! It was my little giggle through the hour long Catholic Wedding. I didn’t realize that my shoes would be seen while I was kneeling down to pray, lol, it was wonderful! Since I bought them late summer they were on sale and I paid less than $50.00 for them if my memory serves me right!



The Invitations

For our invitations, I did them on my own. I went to Michaels and bought kits that included everything. Although it did take me a few days of trying different styles of font, I think they came out beautifully! So for any bride doing their own invitations when you type out your invitations, a slight change in the color and style of the font makes your invites look very professional! Do a Google search for invitations and study MANY then do them yourself and you’ll save TONS of money! I had so many friends ask who on earth made our invitations, they had never seen anything so beautiful and they had NO idea I did them on my own! I spent $39.95 for two invitations kits which equaled 120 invites. That was MUCH cheaper than the printer who quoted me $3.40 - $7.80 PER INVITE. You CAN do them yourself!

Flowers



Another piece of advice, please use real flowers. It is 100% possible to have lovely REAL flowers, at a LOW cost to you. How? Use flowers that are IN SEASON. Do not choose flowers that are coming from far away or that are hard to get and remember that bigger is not always better! We had lovely orange roses, mixed with red berries and greenery and they were STUNNING! Go to a small florist, tell her you are on a limited budget and ask her to come up with what she can for YOUR chosen amount. Everyone knows when you throw the word WEDDING in front of ANYTHING, the cost go sky high, so use the word party instead and make sure to set a limit for everything and stick to it!

I got my bouquet, a toss bouquet, 2 brides maid bouquets, flower girl crown (she threw leaves which was beautifully fall), 3 corsages for our mothers and my grandmother and 7 boutonnières for the guys for $300.00. The little old lady was so sweet; she even sent the extra flowers to be put in our hotel room!

The Cake



Wedding cakes are insanely overpriced in my opinion. I could not believe what people charged to make a simple cake! These days there are so many people who are making their own cakes, but I promise, if you look around your area (I used Facebook) you will find someone who makes amazing cakes. I found a lady who made strictly Birthday Cakes and her cakes were UNREAL! I had never seen birthday cakes like THAT but she had never considered doing wedding cakes because she was so scared of being the one to ruin someone’s day by not making the perfect cake. I looked at every picture she had of birthday cakes, I told her I had total confidence in her and I made the right decision. My cake was a beautiful, three tiered, cake with three flavors for 250.00!

Favors

Everyone feels the need to have the "right" favors for their wedding. We did a candy buffet and it was a HUGE hit!! Honestly, who doesn’t like candy? I bought all the containers from the Dollar Store in different sizes and shapes as well as the scoops. I decorated the containers with a ribbon and a small leaf. .
I had about 12 different kinds of candy, all favorites of mine and my stepsons. I also made sure to add licorice and nuts for the older ladies who don't like the sugary things we do! I used Cello bags for the guests to help themselves to and trust me, after hours of drinking and dancing the candy buffet is the BEST sight at 2am!! Scatter a few candles around the table and POOF it’s beautiful! Total cost of favors was $110.00 for 150 guests.

The Centerpieces



My girls and I made our Centerpieces the evening before our big day…talk about getting down to the wire! BUT with that being said, we had the best time, sipping champagne, and carving out pumpkins! We had out hotel room covered in garbage bags so we did not make a huge mess, pumpkins are perfect for fall weddings and my inner Martha Stewart came out in me that evening. We carved the pumpkins out and used a melon baller to make random holes in the pumpkins, not all the way through, just shy of making a full hole. I added a tea light to the inside and the most wonderfully warm, romantic glow filled the reception area! Just picture my two girls and myself loading pumpkins onto a luggage cart and creeping through the halls of a hotel to the ballroom at 1:00 in the morning in our PJ’s. It was priceless! Oh and we allowed the guest to take home the pumpkins and they loved it!

The Photographer



I can without a doubt say the best 'purchase' of our day was the photographer. First of all, he had only ever done ONE wedding but I saw many of the other photos he had taken and they were STUNNING. I can not express how happy we were with him. I am not great at "smiling on cue" I usually end up looking a little "special" but our photographer was everywhere he needed to be…without us knowing he was there! Ladies don‘t be afraid to give someone 'new' to the wedding scene a shot if they are looking to get into the wedding business and are willing to give you a great price,, just GO WITH IT! I have to say though that if you are someone who stresses over everything and would totally die if something did not turn out "perfect" this is not the best way to go. I consider myself VERY lucky that every single thing I took a chance on turned out to be 100% perfect! I just wanted to have FUN on my wedding day with my amazing husband, family and friends so I think the less you stress over things, the more you WILL enjoy yourself!

Food & Venue



The bulk of our expenses went into having a full meal for our guests which was a Turkey dinner since it was Thanksgiving weekend, it seemed fitting. The cost of the Ball Room, Meal and Hotel rooms were roughly $3000.00. If I was to do it over again I would 100% forget the meal. Honestly, if you are having a dance, set up a lovely dessert table, fruit and some munchies so that way those who are hungry can eat! Generally, people at my wedding were there for drinks and dancing!

The reception, dance, was what I was most looking forward to and I was torn between getting a band or a DJ. There is a band in our town that is KNOWN for being "THE" wedding band to have. They play ALL music that everyone from 8-80 years old enjoy. I went with them and it was money well spent, even my 78 year old grandmother danced most of the night! I was scared of going with a DJ since most DJ's generally play newer more popular music and I knew if the DJ played even one rap song my mother would have attacked him. The band was the way to go and they cost us $800.00.

Parting Words

This little blurb got crazy long but this is the first time I sat back and thought in detail about our wedding day in a long time but I am going to end this here by saying it is YOUR DAY, ENJOY IT! If you choose to be a "BRIDEZILLA" I promise you, you will only ruin your own day. Be considerate of your family and their feelings. Go into this whole day thinking “this is going to be the BEST DAY EVER. I am going to MARRY MY BEST FRIEND!”

 Stay POSITIVE through all of it because once you start stressing or getting worked up things can go down fast (like a sinking ship). Chances are that SOMETHING will not turn out 100% perfect but just let it go ladies, seriously, let it go. Put on your BIGGEST SMILE and go hug EVERY SINGLE GUEST that took time from THEIR lives and helped celebrate YOUR new life!

One of the things my husband and I did was we tip toed out the door, midway through the dance and went to stand on the side walk and looked up at the stars. We could hear the music and our guests inside having an amazing time but for just that minute standing by the side of the road it was like we were the only two people on earth.



The day goes by SO fast, make sure you enjoy EVERY MOMENT of it! If you feel yourself getting over whelmed, WALK AWAY, get a breath of fresh air and convince yourself that “NOTHING is able to ruin THIS DAY!”

Best Wishes to all of you lovely brides-to-be! If there is ANYTHING I can do to help, be it a question, advice or if you need to know how to do something please feel free to shoot me an email, I would be happy to help!"