Here's how much to spend, and on what, according to an expert.
 iStockphoto We asked planner Susan Norcross of South Jersey’s Two Rings One Circus to show us how you can have a fabulous wedding on any budget.
BUDGET: $20,000
- Venue/Catering >> $10,000: Get creative and pick a place where you can control the catering, like a park or Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. Make it a cocktail party with hors d’oeuvres, mini desserts and a limited open bar.
- Photography >> $2,000: Limit the number of hours your photog is there, or look into using an assistant or photography student. (Just be sure you get to see work examples first.)
- Flowers & Decor >> $2,000: Carry a bouquet of simple baby’s breath or one single stem, like a lily. Order flowers from an online wholesaler and DIY your centerpieces—or forgo flowers altogether and use candles instead.
- Invites >> $400 to $1,000: Compare and contrast online vendors; great deals are easily had.
- Favors & Extras >> $400 to $1,000: Make a donation to a foundation that means something to you both in honor of your guests, or go for something simple and inexpensive, like custom-labeled matchbooks or CDs of your favorite music.
BUDGET: $50,000
- Venue/Catering >> $25,000: Look at hotel ballrooms and manors and estates; try a dual entrée offering everyone both salmon and chicken.
- Photography >> $5,000: Opt for a second shooter, to make sure every perspective of your Big Day is captured.
- Flowers & Decor >> $5,000: Work with your florist to use in-season flowers to get the most bang for your buck, and for help steering clear of budget-eating blooms like peonies.
- Invites >> $1,000 to $2,500: Look for customizable ready-made templates, and stick to digital printing or thermography, which will save you money over more expensive methods like letterpress or engraving.
- Favors & Extras >> $1,000 to $2,500: Go for an edible favor or one that doubles as an escort card. Or do something fun for your guests, like a photo booth; they can keep their pictures as favors.
BUDGET: $80,000
- Venue/Catering >> $40,000: Choose a raws pace,then have an event designer and lighting expert totally customize it for you. With food, add in extras where you can—a dessert and cordial lounge, a candy bar, a visit from a late-night cupcake or food truck.
- Photography >> $8,000: Go for a full package that includes an engagement shoot and even a post-wedding session, which many couples do in full wedding-day regalia without the stress and time constraints of the actual day.
- Flowers & Decor >> $8,000: Add pearls or crystals to your arrangements, use a real-flower aisle runner, and go all-out with something like floral centerpieces suspended from the ceilings.
- Invites >> $1,600 to $4,000: Work with a custom stationer to design invitations from scratch, and ask about options like printing on Lucite, wood or laser-cut metal, or about presenting the invites in something like a silk box instead of an envelope.
- Favors & Extras >> $1,600 to $4,000: Send each guest home with a miniature replica of your wedding cake.
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With product recs from a local makeup artist!
 iStockphoto I think it’s safe to say that every girl has got her little list of items that can always, always, always be found in her purse, no matter where she’s heading. That list might include blotting papers or lip gloss or a hair tie—and when you rummage around in your bag for one of them and come up empty, panic ensues. You do not want this to happen on your wedding day.
No, on your wedding day, you want to have put some actual time and thought into what supplies will be in your presence—not in your beautiful little vintage clutch, of course, but rather, in some handy tote stashed somewhere out of the way but where you can always get to it, and in the charge of one of your bridesmaids.
This topic happened to come up this week when a friend asked me what she should be bringing along by way of a bridal emergency kit like this for her sister’s wedding. To help her out, I dug up something I wrote several issues ago that put together a pretty comprehensive list, which I’m going to share with you, now, too. (Though I have, since the below was written, added band-aids and Advil, after the lovely experience of toppling out of the trolley and onto my knees when the bridal party I was in stopped at the Museum of Art for pictures before my friend’s wedding. Ouch. And blood.)
Here it is. Go forth and be prepared.
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 Comstock Q: We’re planning to block hotel rooms for our guests and provide the information on our invitations—but how do we figure out how many rooms to reserve without our final guest count?
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 iStockphoto We love when our buds over at Be Well Philly post healthy recipes! One, because selfishly, we like them. And because two, we can share them with our brides—who, no doubt, never tire of gathering healthy recipes they can make at home as they try their very, very best to eat more at home, and less, well, of Parc’s French fries.
Today, we’ve been gifted with this roundup of 10 underrated veggies, and both why they’re a good idea to eat, and how to eat them. Perfect for these coming months when you’re focusing on your health and fitness—and, you know, how you’ll look in that dress.
We especially love that fiddlehead ferns are called out, as more than one wedding florist has told me, when I’ve ooh-ed and ahh-ed at how cute they look in bridal bouquets, that they are edible. I always scrunch up my face at that, because what? But apparently, this is not just a rumor. Maybe I’ll try that stir fry this week.
In what ways are you trying to incorporate more veggies into your get-dress-ready diet?
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 Stockbyte WHO: Duportail House
WHAT: Bridal Blossoms: A Free Forum for Brides
WHEN: Sunday April 21, 2pm
WHERE: 297 Adams Drive, Chesterbrook
WHY: Spend a lovely afternoon at this event courtesy of Whimsical Welcomes Floral Design and Wendy’s Affairs of the Heart wedding planning. You’ll be able to tour the historic Duportail House and rustic barn while enjoying light fare from Provence Catering. Brides can get their make-up done by Face the Occasion wedding beauty experts, and check out a vintage photo shoot from Diutz Photography. The Wedding Pavilion will be there showing veils and accessories, and you can peruse the linens from Gala Cloths, as well.
COST: Free; register online here. For more information, call 215-237-7149.
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 Digital Vision Just keeping up with our theme, here, after last week’s infographic depicting what 100 recent brides said they wish they had done differently with their weddings!
Here, we’ve got a slideshow from Refinery 29 concerning dos and don’ts that 22 recently married couples (including their wedding pictures!) would like to offer other couples who are about to tie the knot, that they might not make the same mistakes they did, and that they might think of a few things they otherwise might not have as they head into their Big Days.
No one can advise you better, we think, than other couples who have just gone through it, so take a look at what they’ve got to say! You may find yourself muttering ooh, didn’t think of that more than a few times, and your wedding day might be better—or at least, run a little more smoothly—because of it.
What advice have your recently married friends and family passed along that you’re glad to have heard?
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We saw this fun infographic from New York Weddings today on what 100 recent brides would have done differently when it came to their wedding should they get a do-over, and because a) advice from recent brides is seriously so valuable to brides-to-be and b) we cannot resist a good infographic, we had to share, that it might make you pause and consider a few of the planning items you might have in play right now—and really think about the Big Day ahead of you.
For instance, some wish they hadn’t splurged on programs, wouldn’t have registered for so many damn wine glasses, or stressed so much about the seating chart. Others wish they had been more attentive to reapplying lipstick and maybe spent a little more money on a fab photographer.
It’s all such great stuff to think of before you take that walk down the aisle! Have any of you received advice like this from friends or family who have recently tied the knot and wish to bestow their new wisdom on you?
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 iStockphoto Q: Do I have to decide by the time I send out my save-the-dates who gets a date and who doesn’t, so that the save-the-date can be addressed to reflect that? Or can I just send them out to the people I want to save the date and then later on, their actual invitations will reflect whether or not they get a date?
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Our official stance.
 iStockphoto So, I ignored this whole ‘You’re not invited’ “trend” the first several times I heard about it, in short, because it just seemed so insane I refused to believe it was actually a thing that people were doing. Or, I guess I kind of thought of it along the same lines as those crazy emails you see circulate every once in a while that appear to be from an uber Bridezilla to her bridesmaids (Remember this one? So good.): Like, ok, this does happen sometimes, but only among lunatics, and that does not make it a thing.
But, it keeps popping up! It’s in articles, blogs, in TV news segments—across the country! So, enough. Philadelphia Wedding will now issue its official stance on the concept of couples either sending along cards/emails/any physical notification proactively announcing to various people in their lives that they are not invited to their wedding, or having their wedding planner proactively call various people in their lives to announce that they are not invited to said couple’s wedding: It. Is. Batshit.
Sorry to use a somewhat un-pretty-wedding-world word, but it just is. And thank goodness our etiquette go-to, Mark Kingsdorf of Philly’s The Queen of Hearts Wedding Consultants, agrees with us: “It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of from an etiquette stand point, bottom line,” he says.
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 Hemera We saw a great article on HuffPo this week that we thought a lot of brides would do well to see, even though it covers a subject far less fun than coming up with personalized cocktails or finding the perfect shade of hydrangea: your wedding finances. (Yay!)
Seriously, though, this is actually really helpful. The article is talking specifically about wedding-related expenses that you might be forking over your plastic for—and even more specifically, what plastic you should be forking over, depending on your monetary needs and goals. From cash-back cards and ones that’ll help you pay for the honeymoon with travel rewards to the best cards to use if you want to transfer your whole balance while you work on paying it all off, it’s all broken down, with recommendations given for each.
Like we said, we know it’s not the most fun—but if do all this wedding-buying smartly, it’ll really pay off (ha!) in the end. Just take a minute to put a plan in place, and then reward yourselves afterwards with one of those personalized cocktails.
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