The blogging bride

As you can see, I'm new to the blogosphere. I started this blog just a couple days ago for my own mere amusement. I haven't told anyone I know about this blog, but if anyone happens to stumble upon it, great.The concept of this blog isn't new. There are plenty of brides with blogs out there with budgets even more meager than mine (hello, $2000 budget! You are my hero!) I just wanted to document my own experience of planning a wedding as genuinely and sincerely as possible. I'm not a wedding expert. I never looked at a wedding dress catalog until I became engaged. I'm not super artsy either (although I love and appreciate creativity). I'm just not going to pretend that I'm Martha Stewart. But I'm willing to try. I thought this blog would be a great tool to reach out to other brides out there and share ideas, tips and advice.

This blog is just musings from a bride who wants what every bride wants--a memorable wedding. Like many brides, I want to achieve it under a certain budget. I turn my nose up against people who insist that I can't have a nice wedding without shelling out insane amounts of money. While I rebel against extreme consumerism ethics, I have to admit, I do enjoy some of the "finer things." A BBQ in the park or a hippie forrest fest (although they'd be fun to attend as guests) just isn't what I would have envisioned for my wedding (neither does my fiance). While I don't want to drop $1000 on my wedding gown, I just can't bring myself to wear something off the discount rack at Ross (unles it looked FAB-u-lous!). As a foodie, I can't bring myself to serve brown bag lunches. People tell us we'll have to sacrifice quality with our kind of budget, but we're determined to prove them wrong. My mission is to have a budget wedding without it actually looking like it was on a budget. .

When we first began wedding planning, my fiance and I both agreed we want a stylish, elegant wedding, but we didn't want to go broke in the process. We want it to be small and intimate. We want joy and laughter. We want great food. We want it to be uniquely us. We want it to be what it's supposed to be about--a celebration of our love.These are things we just aren't willing to compromise on. Can we do it without the $500 limo or the $10,000 venue? I think we can.

I have to admit, I still hesitate to tell people about our wedding plans. When they hear restaurant they automatically think cheap. When I say I'm willing to pay $100 for wedding dress, people scoff. Where are you going to find that? they ask pessimistically. When I say I may do my own flower arrangements, they smirk. DIY is just another phrase for tacky. I've lived in the OC, I know what real snobbery can be. But I know I must be firm in my budgets plans, and have faith regardless of my naysayers. While our wedding will probably cost less than half of the average wedding these days, I hope it will look and feel priceless.