My husband and I got married relatively young. It’s funny now but I remember how we brainstormed and wrote out a list over a few days. We then sat my parents down and explained to them why we wanted to get married and how it was a good plan. We really wanted my parents’ blessings and we thought that would have nailed it and convinced them that we knew what we were doing.
How (almost adorably) naive, now that I think back!
My husband was also supposed to enlist in the ADF (Australian Defence Force) and we were supposed to have our wedding when he was back from training after 3 or 6 months (I can’t remember now). However, on his enlistment day (yes, we said our teary goodbyes, he boarded the train into the city with his bags packed), he actually got sent back because he had skin cancer removed a mere week before and had big stitches on his back. They then told him he could not enlist again for at least the next couple of years to show that the skin cancer doesn’t return (or something along those lines, that was years ago now). Is this all TMI? But anyway…
We then brought our wedding forward since he wasn’t enlisting anymore. With the wedding date brought forth, and being young, and relatively penniless, we then had to put together a ‘budget’ wedding. This is not exactly a “Tips for a Budget Wedding” post but rather, a simple recount of what we did.
1) This might be a big shocker to the people who attended my wedding but I’m letting the cat out of the bag now. I actually had the guts to do my own wedding make up. My interest in make up coupled with the fact that we didn’t have an arm and a leg to pay for a professional make up artist meant that was the next best choice.
I don’t think anyone noticed that my make up wasn’t done by a professional (phew!) but I am honestly shocked now that I think back. You see, back then, youtube wasn’t that popular and there weren’t many, if any, beauty or wedding make up tutorials online. I didn’t even know about beauty bloggers. I didn’t even know about highlighting and contouring back then. I knew nothing much about make up. I have no idea how I pulled it off but looking back, there are so many things I would have changed about my make up then (that’s another post for another day re: DIY wedding make up).
2) Again, we had no money to hire professional photographers. But we were so blessed. Our lovely church friend introduced us to 2 of her friends who were professional photographers and actually owned a photography business focusing on product photography. They were so incredibly nice, they offered to do our wedding shots for us. They spent a whole day traveling around with us for a pre-wedding photo shoot and then following us all day on the actual wedding day. They even brought props like flowers, balloons and scouted the locations.
We tried to treat them to lunch but they ended up picking a cafe for a quick casual lunch which we felt really wasn’t enough to show our appreciation. They then spent a couple of weeks or more editing every single photo and gave us all the shots. Seriously? We were just so grateful with all they blessed us with. We had gorgeous shots of our wedding that were professionally done at pretty much no charge at all.
3) A budget wedding meant no fancy gown. In fact, my husband and I picked out a simple gown together. Yes, there was no surprise at the aisle. We decided to do away with that tradition. We found a lady who made wedding gowns from home at an affordable cost and I wore that same gown for our pre-wedding photo shoot and on the actual day.
4) These days, I see more and more couples booking bands for wedding entertainment. Well, we had none of that so I actually sang 2 songs with a church friend as my guitarist (again, such wonderful people! We had to practice quite a few times before the actual day). It was definitely very tricky – I already had so many things to worry about as a bride, much less try to calm my nerves to remember my lyrics and make sure I sang well!
5) My aunt was generous enough to lend me her expensive earrings and necklace for the day. My parents helped with so many other details such as hosting guests from overseas. My 2 best friends pretty much helped me plan out the wedding from scratch. 1 of them even did my hair for my wedding. She was really reluctant to do so since she wasn’t a professional and was worried about messing up my big day but I convinced her that I would appreciate her help. It all went without a glitch! More friends chipped in to help… we have a friend who is a film maker now and he actually asked us if he could do a wedding video for us. Of course we said yes! That video of wedding highlights that he made was so amazing, we still talk about it today.
Overall, it really was the collective efforts and time from our friends and family that really helped make the wedding possible.
As I attend more weddings now, I’m seeing how a ‘full fledged’ wedding is like. People spend thousands of dollars going overseas for their pre-wedding photo shoot. Or thousands of dollars on a gorgeous beach wedding. They spare no expense in creating the wedding of a lifetime and good on them if they create the wedding of their dreams. Truth be told, I do sometimes wish we had a little more money back then and I could have gotten a professional make up artist or a nicer gown or hire a really cool wedding band. But at the end of it all, it turned out to be a small, cozy wedding that was made possible by so many of the people close to us. People who loved us and earnestly wanted to help make it a memorable event. It was so incredibly special and I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
Did you have a budget or simple wedding like us?
Linking up with Essentially Jess