Customer Reviews

How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget: Cut Your Wedding Costs by Half--Or More!

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Boy, some really mean-spirited reviewers below! I bought the first edition of this book in 1990 when I was overwhelmed with planning my own wedding, and every other planning guide just assumed my family would jump at the chance to spend $10K (then the average wedding cost) on a one-day event. I thought then and still think this book was one of the best purchases I made that year, not because the ideas were so wonderful but because Warner's tone was so very encouraging -- you CAN have a classy wedding on a budget, even if you've never planned a large scale event before. I think so highly of it, I've recommended it to several friends. I found the organization suggestions particularly helpful. Yes, many of the ideas are found in other books, but how many wedding planning guides are you going to buy? This is a wedding, not the invasion of Normandy. The best aspect of this book is that it makes you think creatively of ways you can save money on your special day -- if you don't want to rent chairs from the local funeral home, maybe you can rent them from some other community organization. True, not everybody does have a cutting garden at their disposal, but I plan an annual event for 300 people at the height of the Maryland azalea season where people regularly "donate" cuttings from their bushes. If a suggestion isn't appropriate for your situation, move on. Just think creatively. And buy the book.

I seriously doubt whether or not Diane Warner has planned anyone's wedding except her daughter's. Some of her "brilliant" money-saving ideas are just plain laughable. Can't afford a big cake? Make one out of Styrofoam and have someone stand behind it, serving a regular sheet cake. Can't afford a honeymoon? Tell everyone you know you're going to the Bahamas and stay at home for a week.

Give me a break. Sometimes, cutting corners cuts good taste right in half.

When we announced our engagement, all of our recently married friends gave us the books they used during their wedding planning and this book ended up with us. The title spoke to our needs since we are paying for the event ourselves yet would like to have a fancy affair. I agree with an earlier post which suggested that the author has most likely never planned a wedding other than her daughter's. She speaks of the specific budget cutting steps her family took and expects that they would work for everyone. She tries (but fails) to come across as an expert, but I found myself hesitant to trust her ideas. The amount of money in the various budgets she suggested were rediculously low to the point where I am sure she was making them up - she couldn't have honestly found these prices anywhere (believe me - I have tried). Some of her suggestions were just sad and I found myself wanting to hear from her daughter to see if she had really been happy with her wedding because I could not imagine including some of these very cheesy suggestions in my wedding. A much more helpful book is Bridal Bargains.
Good luck with the plans!

I bought this book after I got engaged. I have since read it twice, looking for ideas that may help me save at my wedding. I found several ideas that I could try, although most are directed at the do-it-yourselfers. I can't seem to find the time to do all the planning, along with making decorations, baking food and growing flowers. As a young woman with a small baby to raise, I found this book helpful with some nice ideas, but without the time to do them in. Overall this was a good book for those that have the time and energy to make most of the wedding yourself. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.

Although this is not the best bridal budget book, its still, all in all, a good book with some good ideas. It does stress getting everyone involved, which for some, is welcoming. If you're a bride who has a family who's always giving you their 2 cents worth, this may be the budget planning book for you. It will get everyone involved in planning, helping and setting up for your wedding. If not, there are a few tips you can still use. Diane Warner has many books worth reading and I think she's knowledgeable in her ideas. This book is much better than Denise and Alan Fields' "Bridal Bargains". The book itself is more comfortable to read and hold (it's a standard size book with dark, large print, which "Bridal Bargains" is definetly not!) Besides, Diane Warner has some very original ideas which are legal and "Bridal Bargains" tells you some not so "authorized by law" ideas. Compare the two and I'm sure you'll agree, Diane Warner's "Big Wedding on a Small Budget" is much better! Just glimpse through and you'll see what I'm talking about.

This book was a lifesaver! I called a friend who was an amateur photographer. I had her take some photos of us and also reviewed her portfolio. We discussed the photos she took of us and what we liked and didn't like. We made a list of must have shots and ideas we had in mind. They came out beautiful!

The cake we purchased from Albertson's. Who would have thought of purchasing a cake from the grocery store? But I saved a couple hundred dollars and it was beautiful and delicious. I knew what I had in mind for the cake and the baker listened to my thoughts and added some from her own experience and we came up with the perfect cake! They make cakes often enough so they turn out beautifully, but not so often that they don't get excited about creating the perfect cake for you.

These are a couple of the suggestions I used to save a ton of money. While not all worked for me, they did help me think creatively in planning and saving money on the things I needed to spend money on.

I bought this book last year early in my wedding planning process. I was determined to have the wedding my fiance and I wanted and not what everyone else wanted or what other people expected. There are so many great ideas in here, though I might agree that some of them may not be my taste. My fiance and I were paying for our entire wedding ourselves and wanted to save some money for a downpayment on a house. With the ideas in here, we did just that, and even more than we expected. You obviously won't use every idea in this book but it really opens your eyes to other possibilities. You do yourself what you can handle, don't be afraid to ask for help, decide what you don't mind spending a little extra on (for us that was the photography) and you can have a ceremony, reception and honeymoon for an amount you are able to afford. People still tell me, nearly a year later, how beautiful our wedding was and how it really reflected *us*. This book gave us the ideas to do that within our budget.

I bought this book when I began my wedding planning three years ago. I recently passed it on to my best friend with this caveat, which I'll share with other brides out there: the ideas aren't for everyone. Some of the ideas are quite practical, such as altering a dress you find elsewhere to fit you, whether it's from a family member, friend or you find it through the want ads. However, she does advocate asking a lot of people for help, which I personally think would be seen as begging for things you should never ask your guests for. I would never have felt comfortable going to my neighbors and asking to cut a bunch of flowers out of their yard (hello, most people plant flowers to have them in their yard, not to give them to you. Unless you live next door to Martha Stewart and get the flowers from her cutting garden, I don't think this is realistic) or asking them to bring a dish to my wedding. Although people do offer to help when you get engaged, I think it's insensitive and frankly tacky to ask them to take on a huge responsibility like making dishes or donating sheet cakes. I have a hard time believing that there are many people out there who are so poor they have to rely on neighbors to cater and decorate their wedding, and if you ask people to do these things you had better be dirt poor, because I wouldn't agree to do this kind of stuff while I was eyeing your brand-new car in the driveway. It is absolutely possible to have a nice wedding on a small budget -- my husband and I had a very elegant wedding, albeit only for 50 people, for under $4,000. I used some tips from this book and did a lot of the work myself, including making favors and centerpieces out of silk flowers. My advice is see what you can do yourself, but leave the stuff that requires a lot of expertise -- designing fresh flower arrangements, catering, cake-making, dressmaking -- to a professional. You wouldn't try to give yourself a root canal, so don't try to sew your own dress unless you have a lot of experience. (And as for relying on a family member or "free seamstress" to sew wedding or bridesmaid dresses -- forget it. There are some fantastically horrifying stories out there about brides who did this and paid the consequences on their wedding day -- which you don't really get to "redo" even if you get remarried.)

I enjoyed reading this book very much. Like many people said before, it's very comforting. I haven't been to many weddings and had no idea what is costing how much in a wedding. I really appreciate Ms. Warner's breakdown on average cost per category in different geographical areas. She then provides alternatives and gives estimates. It helps me decide how much I want to be involved in order to save money. From what I understand, this book is intended for those Do-It-Yourself-ers. That's why there isn't much information on choosing vendors. It's a mistake to compare it with Bridal Bargains. Both books are good, for different people. The only thing I don't like is the use of language such as "Fool them with ..." Other than that, it's a good book.

I bought this book while planning my wedding in 1996, and found it invaluable! Yes you have to do some work, but what do you expect when you want to save money? Not all the ideas are for everyone, of course, but you can use whatever works for you and skip the rest -- if the photographer is important and the cake is not, splurge on the photographer and go cheap on the cake!

I like that the author doesn't try to talk you out of having a beautiful wedding, but rather fits the beautiful wedding into whatever budget you have. I love her idea for a Christmastime wedding, and I almost wished I was getting married in December so I could have used it!