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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You know, it’s probably not a good sign if the groom hypothetically throws out there, “So hey, like, if we didn’t actually end up getting married, you’d give me back the ring, right?” Like, that’s not something that I feel should probably come up during a strong and happy engagement. The bride gave him a sure, but whether it was to punish him for simply asking that question or not, that’s not what ended up happening in this messy little situation.
NFL star Mario Williams is suing his ex-fiance because, contrary to her (I’m guessing) shrugged-shouldered response to his hypothetically staged question, she both called off the wedding—and made off with the engagement ring. The engagement ring that cost him $750,000.
No matter what she supposedly “agreed” to, I generally think that whoever calls off the wedding needs to give the other person the ring. Unless it’s a peacefully reached, truly mutual decision—then the couple can amicably reach that decision together. Watch the video below for the deets on this mess.
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 Hemera We know that posting about your marital finances isn’t exactly as fun as chatting about what flavor of macarons you’re going to get for your wedding favors, but every once in a while we’ve just gotta pop into that topic.
We saw this great piece on HuffPo today on the five financial conversations you’ve got to have before getting married, and we couldn’t agree more! It basically covers all of the things we’ve harped on before—how, before you are married, it’s best to figure out things like, say, who’s the spender and who’s the saver; what your longterm financial goals are; how you’re going to combine your finances; who has what debt (this is not an area where either one of you are going to want to be surprised), and all of those things that admittedly are not all that fun to talk about—that can be stressful, even, if we’re all being honest—but that will absolutely come back to haunt you if you don’t hash them out now.
Have you and your groom figured out how your finances will work once you’ve gotten married?
RELATED: The First Year: You, Your Groom, and Your Money
For more about wedding and marriage finances, click here.
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Hemera We’ve told you time and time again that advice from couples who have recently done the ol’ knot-tying is really best. They just did it, they were in your shoes—not your vendors—and it’s just an invaluable perspective to have.
That’s why we had to share this roundup of 50 recent brides sharing their tips and ideas for slashing your wedding budget. And there are some really clever, creative ideas in there that we just know you are going to want to steal! They’re all the kinds of things that won’t make you feel like you’re sacrificing, either.
Just a few tricks you might want to have up your lace, capped sleeve while you’re planning this thing.
What have been your money-saving tricks throughout your planning process?
RELATED: 22 Wedding Dos & Don’ts From Recently Married Couples
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 iStockphoto The wedding dress e-commerce site PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com has been helping brides buy and sell their dresses at about 50-percent of the original retail price since 2004. And it’s been a pretty big hit: Since then, it’s sold over 15,000 dresses, with each one usually hanging out on the site for about 70 days before selling. Whether you’re in the market for a once-worn gown or looking to sell your dress to make back some of your cash, it’s a really solid option.
Now, the site has unveiled a new feature, the Wedding Dress Calculator, to help sellers get an idea of what, exactly, their gown is worth now that they’re putting it up for sale. You just enter in the designer and the style name of the dress, the date it was purchased, the original price, what kind of condition it’s in, and whether or not it’s been cleaned, and boom: You get a monetary value. Kinda like a Kelley Blue Book for wedding gowns, it feels like.
This way, before you decide for sure whether or not to sell your most beloved frock, you can at least figure out how much its sale would contribute to those charges you racked up on the honeymoon.
Are you planning to sell your dress after the wedding—or did you find your gown on a once-worn site or at a once-worn shop like this?
RELATED: Sell Your Wedding Gown, Make Back Your Cash
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Here's the average of a wedding in Philly.
Hemera Well, if you gasped when you heard that the average wedding these days costs upwards of $27,000, then prepare to shriek: Apparently, that number in Philadelphia is actually $38,369!
ABC News reports that a recent study done by TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com declares Philly, actually, to be the eighth most expensive place to get married in the country. (New York is numero uno.) Does that surprise me? No, not necessarily. Does it surprise me that it beats out, say, LA? Yes, definitely. And even Miami, where stuff gets a little flashy.
Actually, the study also notes that that $27K-average cost has also risen to $28,427 (honeymoon is extra, of course), which is the highest it’s been since 2008. And while that might not make the check-writers happy, that is, of course, generally good news. It means that both the economy is doing better and people are feeling more comfortable with their wallets. But if that scares you, consider a wedding in Anchorage: the average Alaskan wedding comes in at a mere $15,504.
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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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Some couples just aren't into compromising what they want for their Big Day.
 Stockbyte I have heard of plenty of weddings that consisted of more than one celebration. You all have, too, I’m sure. The couple who gets married with 20 guests on a tropical island, and then has a 250-person reception in their hometown. The couple who gets married on the West Coast, and throws an East Coast cocktail party two weeks later. The couples who do a quick change once or twice on their wedding day in order to incorporate various traditions and customs from both of their ethnic backgrounds.
But what we’re talking about here is literally having two, separate, full-blown weddings—ceremonies, receptions, bridal parties and all. Whew, do you say? I certainly say whew.
According to the Wall Street Journal, though, this is becoming a thing among couples who don’t want to make concessions or compromises when it comes to the wedding they’ve envisioned for themselves. And whether because it’s something about the geography of their situation, religion, party size, or complicated family stuff, they’re just deciding that instead of doing this and that to make their one Big Day a day that pleases—or at least attempts to please—everyone, they’ll just go ahead and do it twice, and hope that that makes everybody happy in the end.
The article goes on to give a few examples of couples who have done this (as well as some really good etiquette advice for how to navigate these two-wedding waters), and while I actually do totally follow their reasoning—oof. Really sounds like a lot of work and logistics and money, to me. But I guess if that’s the executive decision the couple needs to make in order to actually have the least amount of stress when it comes to tying the knot in a way that makes them the happiest, then that’s what they should do.
What do you think? Whatever the things at play are in your situation—geography, religion, family—is throwing two separate weddings something you would consider? Or would you rather just find a way to make your one wedding a day that hopefully makes everybody happy? Or are you a bride who is doing this? Tell us your stories in the comments!
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 Stockbyte Sometimes, as we know (even if we don’t always talk about it), the show just doesn’t go on.
Obviously, even if calling off a wedding really is for the best, it’s a sad thing—a sad thing that is often compounded with stress, thanks, in part, to the financial loss that can happen on money that’s already been spent on various products and vendor services and deposits and all that jazz. That part of it is so stressful, in fact, that many of us, unfortunately, have heard of a wedding or two that really only ended up happening in the end because at least one person involved felt too guilty at the idea of calling it off because of all the money that would go down the drain.
That’s one of the reasons why this new start-up company that we heard about through ABC News strikes us as such a good thing. Called BridalBrokerage.com, the website facilitates both the selling and buying of weddings that have been called off.
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Hemera There are many go-to tips we bridal-industry people have when suggesting how brides might save a penny or two on their wedding. Sometimes we can sound like a broken record (Consider throwing it on a Friday! Use candles on tables instead of flowers! Don’t spend big bucks on stuff you honestly don’t care that much about!), but there’s a reason they get repeated so often: they’re not-hard-to-follow ideas of the common-sense variety that can really make a significant difference in the finances of your wedding, if you just take the time to put them into place.
That’s why I loved this little round up on ABC News, today: it’s great go-to money-saving tips in one spot! Read it. Take notes. Take heed. You do not have to go broke throwing this party.
What other awesome money-saving tips have you found have really made a difference in your wedding planning?
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