"I Do" Budget Weddings: Real Wedding: Krissy and Eric

Location: Orlando, FL

When I first stumbled across Krissy’s blog, I was instantly enamored with her super-adorable, DIY wedding. Krissy and Eric were married in Lake Nona VillageWalk in sunny Orlando, Florida (home of where fantasies live—Disney World!). Krissy took charge of every cute detail, from the storybook-themed programs to the cake toppers (how freakin’ talented is she???), but I was doubly impressed when I heard she did all of this on a very modest budget. You might have caught some of Krissy and Eric’s wedding on Wedding Chicks, but Krissy was so gracious in sharing the details of her wedding on my blog!

What was your budget?
Our budget was $5-7K (that included our honeymoon!)

How many guests did you have? 65

What vision did you have for wedding as you began planning?
Our vision was - haha, who am I kidding? My vision was a 'timeless' feeling with a blend of both vintage and modern elements for a broad appeal. I was most guided by the artwork of Mary Blair and whimsical details of classic Disney attractions and artwork.

What was the most creative detail?Believe it or not, I think the most creative detail was the one major project I had my hubby collaborate on - our RSVP postcards. I already designed the invitations, but wanted to get him involved somehow creatively and showed him a picture of old Disneyland tickets, and asked him if he could come up with a design inspired by them...I think he did a great job!

In what ways did you save money?
I could really go on for days about this, but here are a few biggies:

Our venue choice - we visited two venues (both area golf clubs) early in our planning process that were reasonably priced for some pretty nice packages, but as we began our correspondence and negotiations, we realized that what we wanted was very simple: an outdoor setting for a ceremony, a clubhouse for our reception and gorgeous surroundings for pictures. Ironically enough, it dawned on us one evening as we were taking a walk around the neighborhood that we had what we were looking for right under our nose! After speaking with the town center staff, we were excited to find that the room rental was only $500, and that included free use of the lawn for our ceremony - and that $500 had a built in $300 refundable security deposit!

Dress - I surprised even myself with this one - my beginning budget was $600 max, as I really couldn't imagine spending a penny more, no matter how gorgeous a dress might be! To my own budget-happy heart's surprise, I found the dress on eBay of all places, for just $100 plus $25 shipping! After alterations (I switched the dress back to a corset from zipper, and had about a foot cut off on the bottom!) and accessories like crinoline and undergarments, it was still less than $300 altogether.

Bridesmaid attire - over the phone, my sister and I looked 'outside of the box' for bridesmaid dress inspiration and happened upon gojane.com, a low-priced online clothes retailer and decided to look at their formal dresses - we found one we loved for less than $60 - such a bargain that the hubs and I bought the girls' dresses for them and just had them wear gold or metallic shoes of their own.

Paper Products - I designed and created our Save the Dates and Invitation Suites; the STDs were a steal I happened to discover at OfficeMax of all places - it was an outdated magnet pack, that included envelopes for $3.50 (50 pack) so I bought two, created the design and printed on our home printer. The invites were paper packs from JoAnn, embellished with scrapbook paper bellybands and DIY maps printed on creme coverstock from Staples. We also used faux-lligraphy to address the envelopes to alleviate that expense.

Cake - we used a local grocery store bakery and just customized one of their stock designs to our wedding colors! It was tasty and gorgeous!

What was your most favorite detail of the wedding?
It's hard to nail down just one, but if I had to, it would probably be our candy buffet! I embellished the apothecary jars with ribbon and button details, designed the tags, and featured candies from Japan, which were hand-picked by my mom and hand-carried here to Florida for the wedding. It was a twist on what's become quite a popular trend and was very popular with our guests!

What advice can you give brides trying to stay on budget and sane during the wedding planning process?
The best advice is the hardest to follow - just keep positive! While you're busy trying to get all your colors to match, and your vision to come together, it's easy to forget that you're your own biggest critic and after all, it's just a day. A wonderful, important day, of course, but just one of many lifetime memories to come.

Anything you splurged on and don't regret?
This probably won't sound like a splurge to most people, but our DJ was a splurge of mine - I found him online after countless searches, for $399. See, we intended on doing an iPod wedding, and I even had all our playlists mapped out, but as we drew closer to the wedding, I was wavering. Hubs didn't see the need, but we compromised on this decision once I showed him the low price tag! This turned out to be one of our best decisions, as we got tons of compliments on the music and flow of the event from all our guests.

PHOTOGRAPHY! - I cannot stress enough how much I love our photographer, Amanda McMahon. She is so talented and sweet, and I literally teared up when our photos arrived. If you love a photographers work, don't hesitate on this expense because it's the one thing you'll cherish forever.

Food/Drink - We loved our food, and even got to eat a little of it at the wedding, hehe!! Our catering team was outstanding and if your budget allows, please be kind to your guests and have an open bar - we did the standard, sodas, beer and wine all night which kept the price affordable.