The NY Times also mentions a cool website called Bravo Brides. This is a fantastic forum for brides-to-be who want to save money by purchasing pre-owned stuff, and brides-who-were who want to get some money back on wedding items they no longer need. You can buy or sell anything wedding-related, from designer wedding gowns to groom’s attire, veils, shoes, jewelry, candles, isle runners, ring pillows, flower girl baskets, place card holders, cake toppers, centerpieces, wedding planning guides, party and shower items, and much more!

They also have listings for local vendors and wedding tips to help you save even more money on your wedding planning needs!

Why choose Bravo Brides? Here are their reasons!!

	We’re the premier one-stop resource for all your wedding needs
	You won’t find bicycles or fish tanks on BravoBride. Instead, we focus completely on pre-owned designer wedding dresses, jewelry, accessories, ceremony and reception items, wedding favors—everything you need for the perfect wedding. Here’s what some of our satisfied customers have to say about their experience with BravoBride.
	It’s easy to find exactly what you need on BravoBride
	With our advanced search features, you’ll find the items you need quickly so you can focus on more important things like deciding on the flavor for your wedding cake. Search for wedding dresses by style, size, designer, or price—to name just some of the options. If you see what you want but aren’t ready to buy, simply add the item to your ‘Favorites’ list to purchase later.
	BravoBride makes selling your items easy
	Listing items for sale and uploading your photos is very simple, there’s no technical knowledge required. We don’t charge any listing fees or commissions so you can sell your item at the best possible price. Your listing stays on the site for 18 months, giving your buyers plenty of time to find and purchase your items. You can upload up to eight images and make three image and text edits after your listing has been posted at no additional cost. It’s easy to track your sales and update your listings.
	We support the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Campaign
	Did you know that heart disease affects more women than cancer? BravoBride is proud to donate a percentage of our proceeds to the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Campaign to reduce cardiovascular disease and stroke among women. You can read more about the Go Red for Women Campaign here.
	BravoBride is good for your budget—and for the planet.
	When you shop on BravoBride, you’re not just getting the wedding items you need at a great price. You’re also making the Earth-friendly choice to re-use and pass along. Just a little something extra to be happy about when you walk down the aisle!
	BravoBride offers a range of features no free site or auction site can match. For example:
	Featured Item placement Advanced search capability Multiple photos My Favorite Items section Recommend items to a friend

Simply desserts points out that some bakers charge by the “serving” for decorating fake tiers (about $2.50 per serving) so this can actually add a significant amount to the final cost of your cake. Explore all your options to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible!

Take a look at the two cakes below (I got this picture from the savvy event, via  Rachael Ray’s website)… One cost $250 while the other was $2500. The fake cake has a real bottom layer, and the top three layers are fake. The couple cuts from the bottom layer for pictures, then the cake is moved to the kitchen where the bottom is served in addition to a cheaper sheet cake. (One website I looked at pointed out that if you use an entire real cake, much of it gets wasted in the kitchen anyway, since it gets messy and falls apart while being cut.)

You can also create an entire fake cake, and serve sheet cake from the kitchen. If you want to do it yourself, you can find tips on faking a cake here at thrifty fun or party pop. They suggest using styrofoam “cakes” that you can find in craft stores, in all shapes and sizes.  Use a Royal Icing (egg white based icing) that dries hard to cover the styrofoam and decorate as you would a real cake.

Aside from fake cakes, there are other ways to cut costs on your wedding cake. A great source for ideas is big-wedding-tiny-budget. They point out that much of the cost of decorating wedding cakes comes from the labor involved: applying icing or fondant and creating intricate designs. Keeping your cake design simple can save you a bundle.

1. Add fresh or fake flower:

2. Add a Swiss dot pattern and simple piping:

3.Add a jeweled monogram cake topper (which could be a fun do-it-yourself project):

4. Create an elegant, textured look by applying “messy” icing:

Click here for more creative ways to save! Check out Ultimate Baker, Wilton.com or SugarCraft.com for all your DIY wedding cake supplies.

But if you think about it, how often is your flower girl actually going to wear her little princess gown? Once? Maybe again for a holiday or a party?  Either way, it seems silly to spend a lot of money on something that they’ll only wear once, especially when you can get a beautiful dress for less! Why spend $450 when you could spend $45? When my daughter was a flower girl at my brother’s wedding, we got a lovely light-yellow colored dress (sweater and shoes too!) from Target for under $30! There she is, pretty as a picture:

Flower Girl Dress for Less has dresses starting from $29:

Flower Girl Princess has some gorgeous dresses, the ones below are $39.99 and $54.99:

Target has something similar to that blue one (so cute!) for even less ($19.99). The white one is $22.99.

At The Perfect Pear, you can select a dress for your little girls, with a sash that matches your bridal party’s colors ($58):

There’s no need to compromise on style for the sake of your budget! Do your own search online and you’re sure to find the perfect flower girl dress!

1. Determine a Date

Choosing a wedding date can be tougher than you’d think. There are a few things to consider:

• How much time will you need to prepare for your wedding?
• Do any loved ones having a conflicting graduation, vacation, or pregnancy due date?
• Availability of a particular place, caterer, band, or photographer.If you have your heart set on any of these crucial vendors, that may also play a large part in your decision.
• Try to avoid dates of big conventions or other events that draw large crowds, since that might make it harder for out-of-town guests to get hotel rooms. Find out more wedding dates to avoid here

2. Set a Timetable

Consider is how long your engagement will be.  A typical engagement lasts anywhere from six months to a year and a half or more. If you got engaged during the holidays but always wanted a summer wedding, make sure you’ve got enough time to plan without making yourselves wedding-crazy, and keep in mind that many vendors and reception sites book a year or more in advance.

3. Envision the Style

Your wedding style will be reflected first and foremost in the location, whether it’s a luxe ballroom or an intimate backyard reception. Discuss with your fiance where your wedding will take place (in one of your hometowns or in the city where you currently live, for example), and then start scouting sites that can accommodate your wedding style.

4. Set Your Budget

In the end, dollars, not dreams, are a main determining factor for the size and style of your wedding. So, what affects the price tag?

• Formality: In general, the more formal the reception, the more expensive, considering you’ll have to match the site, food, and decor to the overall upscale tone.
• Date and time: Saturdays, summer months, and evenings tend to be the most costly times to have a reception.
• Location: In many cases, a wedding in a major metropolitan area is simply more expensive than in a smaller town.

5. Announce Your Engagement

Call your local newspaper, your alumni magazine, and anywhere else you want your engagement announcement to appear. Find out the name of the appropriate editor or department and ask for the writer’s guidelines or a standardized form, if available. Also, ask if there’s a fee for publication. You can also broadcast the news on your blog, by email, or by creating a wedding web page.

6. Choose Your Attendants

Although not mandatory, some like to honor their closest friends and family members by including them in the wedding parties. Remember, the earlier you ask, the sooner you can enlist their help.  Usually members of the wedding party are agreeing to spend their hard-earned money and donate their precious time, so be considerate and kind, keep them informed, and make sure they know how much you appreciate them.

7. Make a Guest List

Location and budget will have a big influence on the size of your guest list.  If you have a particular ceremony or reception site in mind, for instance, you’re going to be limited by how many people it can accommodate (you can’t squeeze 300 people into a lighthouse). And more guests you invite means a bigger bill, as catering costs are generally calculated on a per-head basis. So figure out how many people you can accommodate, and then work on filling it in with those nearest and dearest to you.

8. Consider a Consultant

If you’re a super-busy couple, hire a full-time wedding consultant to help you prepare your entire event, from the announcement to the honeymoon. You can also hire a part-time planner to devise a wedding blueprint — including budget, schedule, and lists of good vendor and site choices — before you launch solo into the preparations. Another option is a day-of coordinator, who will make sure everything goes as planned on your wedding day so you can relax and enjoy yourself.

9. Start Gown Shopping

It’s never too early to begin thinking about your wedding dress. Start by figuring out which style will look best on you. Learn the lingo by reading up on silhouettes, necklines, trains, and hues that might flatter you. Season will also affect your choice. Summer gowns are made with lightweight fabrics such as chiffon, linen, or organza. A winter wedding calls for brocade, faux fur, and velvet fabrics to keep you warm. Satin, shantung, silk, and tulle are perfect year-round.

Hopefully these tips will be helpful to you as you start planning for your big day! We wish you only happiness as you plan your wedding and prepare for the marriage that comes after it! Congratulations!

1) Name the city I’m living in now.

2) Name at least two of my closest friends.

3) Name my current employer and my past employer.

4) Do I have any kids?

5) Do you know the name of my fiancé? Bonus question: Where and when did we meet?

6) Do you know where my parents are and whether they are still alive?

7) Name at least two of my hobbies.

How old am I?

9) Where did I go to college?

10) Name my last boyfriend before this engagement. Bonus question: if you can name the last two and why we broke up. If you get the bonus question right, that might automatically get you in.

Audry Irvine claims that this is a tactic she’d love to use to weed out unwanted wedding guests. Anyone who answered less than half the questions right would not be invited to the wedding.

Humorous of not, you don’t really need a silly quiz like that to decide who to invite to your wedding.  Making a guest list should not be all that confusing or burdensome. Remember, it’s about having those near and dear to you share the most special day of your life! If they are NOT near or dear, don’t invite them! If you posses a little delicacy and common sense, you’ll do jut fine.  I’d suggest asking YOURSELF the following questions:

1. Who do I love the most? This one’s easy! If the thought of your old college roommate makes you smile, even if you haven’t spoken to her in years (and she may not know the name of your employer or your past boyfriends) invite her!

2. Who am I obligated to invite? This generally includes family members, even the ones you don’t know well or don’t really like.  And yes, you do have to invite your dad, even though he lives in Alaska and never even sends you a holiday card. That’s called RESPECT.

3. Talk to your parents about a few close friends they want to invite. (Key word is “few,” unless your parents are helping you pay for the wedding.) Even though it is your day, your parents are proud of you and what to share your big day with their closest friends too. This goes for in-laws’ friends as well. Unless you like being completely selfish, this is the right thing to do.

“Behind the Wedding Scenes” blog suggests removing entire categories to help keep the guests to a minimum. “Decide no kids, no work-related people, no relations beyond first cousins, no dates for singles, no redheads.”

If you find that even with all this trimming and cutting you still have too many people on your list, consider cutting something else. Maybe you can skip the wedding favors or reduce the amount of flowers. Use a DJ instead of hiring a band.  Search the web for many more ways to cut wedding costs and do-if-yourself options, and put the money saved toward expanding your guest list.

“Behind the Wedding Scenes” also suggest making it hard for a large number of people to attend:

• Hold the wedding in the middle of the week.
• Hold the wedding at a distant location.
• Require formal attire or elaborate, expensive costumes.
• Hold the wedding at an inconvenient time (6am).

And a little more helpful advice:

• Send out the invitation six to eight weeks before the event. As you get negative responses, send out your “B list” invitations to people who didn’t make the cut. Stop sending invitations out a month before the wedding date; last-minute invitees will realize their status and be insulted.
• Manage expectations among potential guests. Let it be known that you plan on a small wedding so that no one is really expecting to be invited. If an invitation arrives, the invitee will be deeply flattered, but those who are not invited will not be hurt–at least that’s the theory.
• You are expected to include spouses, fiances or long-term live-in companions of your guests. If a guest is only casually dating, you are not obliged to extend an invitation to his date.
• If you forget to invite someone, the next time you see them act annoyed with them for not sending back the RSVP card.

“It almost never works out that way, and then you’ll be left with massive credit card debts and monthly minimum charges that can stretch you thin, starting off your marriage with money fights,” says Sharon Naylor, author of 1,000 Best Wedding Bargains.

If you want to plan your wedding on a budget, but not sacrifice your dream wedding, Naylor and Christina Friedrichsen, (author of Intimate Weddings: Planning a Small Wedding that Fits Your Budget and Style) have some important tips for planning your wedding.

Here are ways to plan your dream wedding on a budget, compliments of Koko.com:

• Create a budget: Decide how much you want to spend total, and stick to it! Figure out what is most important to you, what you want to splurge on, what you can cut back on, and what you can do without.

• Shop online: There are many online resources that can help brides find ways to cut costs. You can research wedding vendors and wholesalers online to compare prices. Then, try to beat those prices by being creative and doing things yourself, such as bouquets and centerpieces.

• Cut back on frills: New wedding trends include brunch or lunch weddings, which can cost far less than a formal dinner. Skip an elaborate dessert course and just serve cake. Instead of an open bar offering mixed drinks, offer guests wine, beer, and wine coolers. For a rehearsal dinner, keep it casual, such as a backyard BBQ.

• Save on Beauty: Do your hair and makeup yourself, or ask a friend to help you. Check bridesmaids dresses for gowns- you might find just the style and color you want, at a significant price cut.

• Don’t overdo it! If you serve only soup and pasta, don’t serve dessert, and have a cash bar, chances are your guests will be a little offended. You don’t want your guests leaving hungry and disgruntled. Naylor suggests that there are some things you shouldn’t skimp on, such as food, entertainment, photographs and dress alterations. Remember that while there’s no need to go all-out in order to impress your guests, a wedding is a time for celebration, and you want those dear to have a good time and share your happiness.

For more good ideas, check out Koko.com.

Photo compliments of yurikofloral.com