How do I plan the perfect wedding for a friend?

My friend is a 28 year old woman who deserves the best wedding. However she is on a tight budget. Please help me find put her wedding together wedding date is the 4th of July 2007.

How do I plan the perfect wedding for a friend?
I was on a super tight wedding budget but ended up looking like I had spent a fortune! The best thing to do is prioritise the things that you DO want to splash out on first like dress or transport. Then after that you just find the cheapest option for everything else.


For example have a friend take the photos, bake the cake, arrange flowers, do her hair and make up, as those are the things you don't really notice if they haven't been done by a professional.


I got my flowers done by a local college who ran a floristry course and so they sold flowers dirt cheap because it's good practice for their students.


The most expensive thing is probably the reception. I had mine in a local restaurant, which was really classy but far less expensive than typical wedding venues.


Most of all the personal touch is what makes a wedding really special. The thing people remember most from ours is a dance we planned with the wedding party for travelling back up the aisle to 'You're Just too Good to Be True'. Having friends sing a special song, write a special poem etc. are the things that make your heart burst on that special day.
Reply:Well find a friend or go to the internet on wedding planning./
Reply:A beach-themed wedding (even if you live no-where near an ocean) is always great in the summer! The colors could be white (or off-white) and a caribbean light blue... at the reception, have each table's centerpiece be a glass bowl filled with sand and seashells and little tea light candles.


For gifts for the bride, groom, or for yourself, check out Breezy Beach Wear at www.breezybeachwear.com





Have fun!
Reply:What is "the best wedding"? Whose standard is being used? You know that saying "you can't please all the people all the time"? It's relevant here.





Weddings are kind of a chore. Lots of money and really, ultimately, pragmatically speaking, they are NOT for the bride and groom. You can try to make them for you, but it's two against however many are on your invite list. A wedding is a show that is put on for the benefit of the audience (whose approval is solicited presumably by the fact that you are having this wedding and invited them). So by having a wedding, you are basically planning a big show with you and your partner (or your friend and her partner) as the stars and let me tell you, EVERYONE is a critic.





So weddings can be very stressful on brides at least. They would be more so on grooms I suspect if more grooms were more clued in to social stuff. But even the socially clueless are subject to secondary stress of watching their little buttercup melt down with increasing frequency as the date approaches.





Therefore, if you want a wedding for her to actually ENJOY, don't look for the picture perfect Martha Stewart/someone else's definition of perfect/best/mostest wonderfulest thing. Look for what fits her tastes, what makes her life easier, what can be made low stress with little money while still having the elements she requires for it to feel special and having lots of opportunities for her to just relax and enjoy herself.





I personally recommend eloping or having an extremely small ceremony then throwing a big huge less formal party/reception after. Could be weeks after, days after, whatever. But after and separate. A big plus for eloping is that no one feels more left out than anyone else. It also circumvents the whole divorced parent crap if there is any of that. Another is that it asserts the couple's independence from their families which sometimes really needs to be asserted around age 28. A negative is that iit will probably piss off some people. But if they are so easily offended they can't be calmed or reassured in advance with a sensitive and caring explanation (and with a promise of a special role for them in the reception), they would have been pissed off at a wedding ceremony too. You know the type - not happy about where they stood at the wedding, why they didn't get to read from Corinthians, or why their kid wasn't a flower girl.





Here's a specific suggestion that fits with the elope/small ceremony and reception later idea. BTW, please feel free to discard it or ignore it entirely or in parts if your friend is really a I want a big fat wedding type (in which case the nicest thing you can do for her would be to bring valium).





A 4th of July reception date lends itself quite well for a big friends and family picnic in a park (pick one with a gazebo, see if the gazebo can be reserved). You can look into whether or not a caterer will do a picnic/bbq type event outdoors or you could commit several good friends to agree to cook and bring picnic/bbq food potluck style. More formal, get a tent, hire a band, have a real receptiony type reception (you can still have friends cook just shhhhh about it).
Reply:not marrying him\her, first.


then up to you.
Reply:Well, my daughter is getting merry too and I have been shopping on e-bay for most of the things. Go there and you will find on wedding section lots of beautiful thing and on very low prices. www.ebay.com
Reply:dont do it they will hate you for ever
Reply:i had a tight budget too, you just have to really look around, be creative, we did it on $6000.00, and it was GREAT, you have to work with what you got!!!!
Reply:I am planning my wedding at the moment for October next year and everyone keeps giving me the same piece of advise - spend money on the things that are most important to you first (ie. making sure you get a good photographer to capture your memories of the day) and then spend less on the least important things or get people to donate things as your wedding preset (ie; has someone got a really nice car they could drive you to the wedding in? Is anyone good at baking and could make your cake for you? Is there anyone who is creative that could do your invites/flowers?).


Your true friends will all pitch in to help to make it such a special day - its all about utilising theire talents to make it the best possible day.


Good luck for next year!
Reply:get her tattooed up...spiders webs on the elbows...the whole shooting match.
Reply:go to the library and find a book on wedding planning
Reply:first of all why are you planning her wedding?





The most important thing is to get a decent photographer, don't pinch the pennies by leaving it to family and friends the quality can be really poor, and cannot be guarenteed.





A beautiful dress, and a reception everything else is a bonus
Reply:the main thing you have to consider is how many guests there will be at the ceremony and at the reception as this determines where you can have both. if you are able to accommodate them in the local village hall / town hall / bowling club etc instead of paying for a pricey hotel, then that will make a dramatic difference to the total cost.





if you can involve the guests by getting each of them to do/provide something then this keeps costs down too. do they have friends in a band? dressmakers? bakers? that way you can offer to supply the raw materials but the chances are high that the friends would prefer you accepted their contribution as their wedding gift.





also, you can get loads of items on ebay. practically anything you can think of and they're not all second hand...check out the ebay shops. because they're selling directly to the customer they have little overheads so they can offer you a decent price for products and services that are just as good (sometimes better!) than you can buy in the high street.





and don't forget handmade invitations, decorations and favours are not only less expensive...they're personal which is so much better than mass produced items.





for really good ideas in the uk, including all legal info, check out: www.confetti.com
Reply:First of all, find out what she wants from her wedding day. What her hopes and dreams are (or always have been) then try to find economical ways of putting these dreams into reality. You will end up asking everyone you know for things like 'do you fancy videoing....' 'you know your lovely classic car......' 'you know you did that flower arranging course....''you know that lovely dress you made.....'. Dont forget local knowledge and sources as well as the internet. (oh, and when you search for things on the internet, don't use the words wedding, marry, bride, groom etc... they bump the prices up to 3x the worth!) I have just helped my friend trough her wedding day. She had various friends do the different jobs and only employed 2 professionals - the photographer and the registrar! My main job was keeping her calm, doing all the running around %26amp; telephoning - oh and making the dresses, cravats, hankies, bags etc.... her mother made the cake, her friend did the flowers, we did the tables %26amp; settings ourselves, a friend loaned a car, another friend loaned a motorbike for the groom, her step-mum designed the stationery which we printed ourselves at around 1/30th of the cost of buying them (that way ge had the place settings etc to match) her father videoed, his step-father etitted and cut dvds.... the list goes on..... it is amasing what people will do for a wedding if you are well organised and ask in plenty of time. get started, look at the wedding websites for ideas, go to the wedding shows - but don't buy anything! good luck, you are going to have so much fun!
Reply:theknot.com is a great resource! Also, check out your local library and bookstores for books on planning on a tight budget! There are lots of resources. Also, try doing a search for wedding on a budget websites as many others have come before you in doing the same thing! Best piece of advice I can give is hurry up and decide on your venue/location and get that date locked in!
Reply:Find out what she and the groom likes and dislikes, than go to the library and work from what you have. Do they like formal? Informal?Traditional? Intimate? So many things to choose from, just remember there will always be one person that will disagree on something, you can never make everyone happy! But just remember to Have Fun!!