Wedding Planning Tips: Saving Money

With Valentine's Day and my 6 months of being married right around the corner, love is in the air! That gave me the idea to share a post related to wedding planning since I never did finish sharing my tips. Even if you haven't planned a wedding yet, you know that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Today I'm sharing with you some ways you can cut costs when it comes to the paper/printed items. These are some things I did for my own wedding that I believe saved me a little bit of money that I put towards things I personally felt were more important. I'm not saying you shouldn't spend tons of money on invitations and the like, but it just wasn't what I personally wanted.

So whether you’re engaged, know somebody who is engaged, almost engaged, or just want to read for fun, here are some money saving tips I have when it comes to paper/printed items!

Postcard Save the Dates

If you decide to send save the dates, you can cut costs by making them postcards! Postcard stamps in the US are only 35 cents while a regular stamp is 55 cents. That may not seem like a huge difference, but when you're talking about sending out 150 save the dates, that's a $30 savings! We designed ours on our own and then printed them through VistaPrint for even more savings.

Design Invitations Yourself & Order on VistaPrint

We were lucky enough to have a Photoshop-savvy family member who designed our invitations for us but we probably would have figured it out ourselves if need be. Once the invitations were designed, we kept an eye on VistaPrint for a discount. VistaPrint is always offering deals so my suggestion is to get your design done early enough that you have the time to wait for a deal. 

RSVPify

RSVPify is a website where your guests can RSVP online using their email or a specific code you generate for each guest. This will save you the cost of a stamp and possibly even an envelope for guests to return their RSVP cards. The website does have a fee (starting at $29) if you have over 100 guests, but most likely that fee will be outweighed by the cost of everything else you'd need to purchase for the response cards. Also, RSVPify is super customizable. John and I went back and forth with them to come up with a package that worked best for us. Along with guests being able to RSVP online, you are provided with a seating chart tool to seamlessly create your reception seating chart. Oh, and no more response cards getting lost in the mail :)

Print Seating Chart

Individual place cards to tell guests where their table is can add up. Instead, create a seating chart that can be posted at the entrance to the reception that lists who is sitting at which table. This can be done fairly inexpensively if you do it on your own and not through a designer. We purchased a template off Etsy for just a few dollars, edited it on computer, and then printed it through Staples for about $10. You may be able to do individual place cards for each guest for cheaper but just think of the time you save by printing the chart!

Wedding Photos Part 2

Happy Hump Day! If you were around my neck of the woods last week, then you know I shared a small chunk of my wedding photos. If you want to check those out, you can find Part 1 here. For Part 2, I am sharing a lot of the detail shots and the meanings behind some things! For those who don’t know, John and I are high school sweethearts and we attended our senior prom together at the same venue we had our wedding at. Needless to say, it made the day a lot more special! It also encouraged to include a lot of little nostalgic details :) I hope you enjoy!

Believe it or not, this little dragonfly gem was from my original prom bouquet that I saved for 8+ years! AND my wedding bouquet was a recreation of the bouquet John gave me for prom. 

Being high school sweethearts, our class rings served as one of my “something old” items.

These are the same bracelets I bought back in 2011 from Charming Charlie’s and wore to prom!

My wedding band has the prettiest details!

Of course I wore Brooks as my wedding shoes ;)

My “something blue” was my pair of Bombas socks. 

The original picture we took senior year until the same arch we got married under. This is also in the frame we received at prom as a favor. 

Our recreation :)

We had photos of ourselves from each age for all the table numbers!

John designed our centerpieces. 

Wedding Photos Part 1

Hi everyone! I figured since it has been close to 3 months since my wedding, it was about time I shared some wedding photos! Today I am just sharing some shots of John & I and also a few bridal party shots. I don't want to overwhelm you with photos, so I'll make a few other post with more photos from the morning of, the reception, and of course some of the cute little details. I hope everyone is have a great week so far :)

Our officiant was a long time friend of ours and she did an amazing job! She got officiated just for us and it was her first wedding!

One of my favorites!

Our venue was absolutely GORGEOUS! We live right near it and pass by almost daily. This is the view we see so we knew it needed to be in a photo!

Friday Favorites

Is it just me, or did this week feel super long?! I am so excited for it to finally be Friday! John is away for the weekend so I have a pretty chill weekend planned with friends and family. I am definitely looking forward to it after this week! Today I am sharing some things I've been loving this week!

Sugar Free Pumpkin Pie Torani Syrup

A while back I shared my love for Torani's sugar free vanilla syrup that can be added to coffee or tea. I ran out of my vanilla flavored syrup last week so I went over to Bed, Bath, & Beyond for a new bottle. While I was there, I saw they had a sugar free pumpkin pie flavor and I was SOLD! I have been adding it to my chai tea all week. SO delicious! And zero calories!

Bride Starbucks Mug

I brought my girls to Starbucks the morning of my wedding to treat everyone to a drink and also get myself a drink with "bride" written on the side. Long story short, the girl at the register wasn't super friendly {and must've missed my bride shirt..} because she didn't even acknowledge the fact that we were a bridal party even though we were all in matching shirts. Plus they did the stickers instead of handwriting on the cups. I was a little bummed but still excited for my iced chai tea latte {and my wedding, of course!}. A fellow blogger, Mackenzie, found out and ended up surprising me with an ADORABLE reusable Starbucks mug with "Bride" on the side! I am so obsessed with it and love using it even though I guess I'm technically not a bride anymore.

Gabriel & Co. Hoop Earrings

This is probably the most off-the-wall favorite I've ever posted but I just NEED to share these earrings with you all... even if they are over $1,600! SO backstory: I realized recently that my wedding band had a brand name on the inside, Gabriel & Co. I decided to google the brand to check out what other jewelry they offered. Well man was I surprised when I found out they make hoop earrings that are exactly like me wedding band! Let me just say that I am obsessed with my wedding band so to see earrings just as beautiful, I want them! I jokingly asked John for them and he didn't seem to on-board with spending over a thousand dollars for earring. I mean, I can't really blame him haha. SO I pretty much wanted to just share these beauties with you :)

Question of the Day: What is something you're loving this week?

Honeymoon Days 5-8

Happy Hump Day! This week has been dragging on so I was happy to see it was finally Wednesday this morning. Today I am sharing with you the last 4 days of our honeymoon! It feels like it was forever ago but it was actually less than a month ago. Or maybe it just feels like it is taking me forever to post about it? Oops, haha. Enjoy!


After our busy day on Wednesday, we spent Thursday relaxing around the pools.

At one point, one of the pool side activities was bracelet making so I joined in with that!

After our relaxing day, we went to the beach party where we got fun drinks! It was due to storm that night so the beach party got moved more inland but that was okay :)

We sat on the balcony for a bit when we got back that night. Our views were just so lovely!

Friday was another busy day so we were up bright and early! I started my day like usual with oatmeal and a crepe with strawberries and bananas. I'm really missing that breakfast now!

Friday was spent at the Xplor park where we ziplined, went rafting in caves, hammock splashing, and more! Unfortunately I don't have too many pictures from that because my phone mostly stayed in our locker. However, we did order all the photos they snapped of us that day, they are just on John's computer. I'll save them for later because they were all cool!

Xplor was centered in these caves that were so cool to explore!

We came back that night to more towel friends :)

Our dinner that night was at Spice, the Asian cuisine restaurant, and it was delicious!

On Saturday morning we took advantage of one of the resort activities and took a bike ride into the local town, Puerto Morelos. The bike ride was about 15-20 minutes and then we had about a half hour to explore the town once we arrived.

We found the greatest souvenirs for Tommy- handmade Cars toys!

There was also some historical aspects of the town that we found interesting.

After spending a little bit of time on the beach afterwards, a storm rolled in.

We did get a chance to take some pictures after the storm cleared up.

 On Saturday night we went to Spice again but for hibachi this time. We were seated with a few other couples who we enjoyed chatting with the whole time! Afterwards we stopped by the Mexican night party for the drinks. It was decorated so cute! I wish I got some more photos.

On our last morning we had our honeymoon breakfast in bed. It was A LOT of food. There was waffles, eggs Benedict, fruit, breads, and more!

After breakfast we took one more stroll along the beach before heading out.

We arrived at the Cancun airport super early so we grabbed some Johnny Rockets and relaxed while we waited for our flight!

Adjusting back to the real world was so rough once we got home. Now, almost a month later, I am just really missing relaxing in paradise!