One Little Splurge

As you're planning your wedding, there will be things that come up, things that scream to you "YOU HAVE TO HAVE ME!!" They might be towering cakes that look like works of art, gorgeously glamorous reception venues, or Vera Wang dresses. After a while, it's hard to stick to your budget, and you might be tempted to just charge it.

After all, you just have this one day, right?

Well, yes and no. You'll only have one wedding day (hopefully!), and it should be a dreamy day full of all the people you love enjoying themselves and having a grand time. At the same time, it is just one day. When it's over, you probably won't want to be paying credit card bills for the next 5 years or going without new shoes for the next decade to finance a wedding beyond your means.

We decided to stick to a pretty strict budget. For me that meant staying out of bridal salons with temptingly perfect gowns that I knew I couldn't afford. Here is a photo of my dream dress, a Reem Acra beauty (photo from http://www.theknot.com/)

Isn't it a beauty? Well, for our wedding, we were quite frugal with many things. We didn't spend a fortune on a fancy cake or a glamorous venue, and I decided against a spendy gown. But there was one thing that we wanted more than anything, and we decided to splurge

on . . .

a photobooth!

We hemmed and hawed about it for about a month before we decided to go for it. While we're glad we kept within our budget on most things, we're really happy that we chose this one thing to splurge on. It really gave a fun, casual vibe to our reception. While I'm at it, I should put in a good word for our photobooth vendor, Photoboof! Justin and his assistant from Photoboof! were there all night making sure the photobooth was operational. At the end of the night, they even printed out some of the best strips from the night so that we could take them home with us. I highly recommend them to anyone contemplating a photobooth rental in the San Francisco Bay Area http://www.thephotoboof.com/

As far as the budget goes, if you have the money to splurge on the designer dress, and that is important to you, then by all means go for it! A luxury here and there will make your wedding special, even if your shoes are from Payless, your music is played on an iPod, and your cake is from Costco. Have fun with it and make it yours!

Till next time,

Jen