Challenge: Part 1 of 2 in How-to do a DIY wedding

It all started in a midwestern high school way back in ‘97. Seriously. However, there were eleven years of romantic whimsy and wanton deviance of all sorts between our awkward adolescent fumbles and a two-week courtship in December ‘08 that led to an impassioned engagement and subsequent whirlwind wedding taking place this month (and, no, I’m not preggers, before the thought even enters your mind)!

Which, in very short form, brings us to here and now, with my fingers furiously and nimbly crafting away as my mind goes through a mini-checklist of ‘to dos’ for the forthcoming DIY nuptials.

Getting married is hard work (but the prep is satisfying too and I am silly excited to become Mrs. Teas). No doubt about it, dears. Even with shed loads of dosh, I bet it’s still a full-time job. The minutiae of it all boggles the mind. The Future Husband (henceforth referred to as FH) and I decided to do it on a temporal (out of necessity) and monetary budget (out of principle. I would rather die than spend a mint on a wedding), having only four months and limited finances to pull it off. Now, if you truly wanted to do DIY, you could just elope and carry a crate of wine to a mate’s house for a cozy party but doing that would have broken my mother’s heart and I don’t want that on my conscience. If elopement’s not an option, then I’m hoping my blow-by-blow posts might shed some light on how to make a wedding look fabulous without costing a fortune and leaving you insolvent before the words ‘I do’ even leave your lips.

The challenge: spend as little as possible while creating a stylish, intimate wedding by hand where possible; maintain my sanity; have a good time (I outright refuse to be so stressed out that I don’t enjoy the lead up to the big day or the day itself. What’s the point if I don’t enjoy it!?).

The checklist:

1. Booze
2. Cake
3. Centerpieces
4. Decor
5. Dress
6. Flowers
7. Food
8. Games
9. Glasses/utensils, etc.
10. Guest book
11. Guest Favors
12. Hair and makeup
13. Honeymoon
14. Invitations
15. Judges
16. Marriage license
17. Music
18. Parents gifts
19. Photographer
20. Rings
21. Suit
22. Tables/chairs, etc.
23. Thank you cards
24. Venue
25. Vows

(You’ll notice a few things missing, like ridiculous engagement ring, rehearsal dinner, bridal party and all its trimmings, shower et al. The first and easiest way to cut down on the price of your wedding is to cut out all the unnecessary faff.)

And now the fun begins. Tools needed are: elbow grease, creativity, an eye for bargains and a well of personal favours. To date, we’ve nearly completed our wedding checklist for just shy of $10,000 (approx. £6,000. Sounds like a lot but add up everything and it’s a steal, really). The average cost of a wedding in American in 2009 is apparently $30,000 says the Bridal Assoc. of America. (And let’s be honest… I don’t know many who’ve spent even close to 30K… as FH has said, 100K is just an entry figure in the parlance of so many people. Stats are misguiding and this one is a national average and thus includes the full spectrum of weddings. Plus, it doesn’t include the price of engagement rings, which men spend too much on.) So, in reality, we’ve planned ours on a fraction of the typical spend on a big wedding nowadays (we still have 100 people coming. Big families).

And it’s friggin’ fun.

How are we doing it? Visit this space to find out.

(We’ll break down the numbers below for you post by post as they’re written since this in a sort of reverse chronological order.)

Total spent: £6,280 ($9,500 at today’s exchange rate)

Total saved: £13,554 (based on the average cost of an American wedding  at today’s exchange rate)