Josh & Jessica

The Proposal:

Josh and I met 9 years ago when we both worked at a movie theater. We started dating 1 day shy of a year from when we met. We've been together since that day, 8 years ago. Josh works in the office of a landscaping company, and I work for an attorney. Josh is also a musician. He is the drummer for local band, The Chemistry Set. We spend a lot of our spare time going to and from Fort Worth to Dallas for gigs. Josh planned an on-stage proposal during one of his shows. Almost all our family and friends were there, and it was a great night.

Engagement Pictures:

Professional Pictures:

Our Honeymoon:

Vendors:

Ceremony & Reception Location: Historic Fort Worth Y.W.C.A

Gown: Watters Brides

Shoes: Chadwick’s of Boston

Veil: Occansey Veils

Alterations: Becky Fowler

Hair: Shelton's Salon

Suits: Men’s Wearhouse

Cakes: Crème De La Crème Cakes

Alcohol: Central Market

Photography: Carissa Byers

Invitations & Stationary: LCI Paper

Rentals: BBJ Linens

Flowers: Bigrose.com & Central Market

Décor & Craft Supplies: Michaels, Save-on-crafts, Joann’s Fabric, Cudge.net, and Target.

Rehearsal Dinner: Blue Mesa Grill

Approximate Wedding Budget:

Weddings in the DFW area average in the $20,000.00 to $25,000.00 range, but can certainly go higher, especially in Dallas. We spent less than $10,000.00 for our Fort Worth nuptials, not including the rehearsal dinner, honeymoon, or engagement ring. We had approximately 100 guests.

Ceremony & Reception Location Fee- $1400.00

Catering- $3031.00

Alcohol- $650.00

Cakes- $700.00

Dress- $150.00

Alterations- $95.00

Accessories- $50.00

Hair- $50.00

Wedding Bands- $127.00

Marriage License- $41.00

Flowers- $465.00

Decor supplies- $350.00

Linen Rental- $291.45

Invitations, embosser, & postage- $232.00

Programs- $39.30

Guest Book- $16.50

Music- $100.00

Photography- $1080.00

Gifts- $300.00, avg. of $34 for 9 people

Miscellaneous items & expenses- $200.00

My Wedding Deals:

12 8" Bubble Bowl Vases @ $1.87 ea.- $24.29 including tax from Michael's

1 Silver 'H' Initial Cake Topper @ $5.99- $6.48 including tax from Target

1 Red Kolo Newbury Ribbon-tied Album @ $10.00- $16.50 including shipping from eBay

Watters Brides dress 5069B in Ivory- $150.00 at Watters sample sale

1 pair Champagne Ankle-strap 2" heels @ $2.99- $9.67 including shipping and tax from Chadwick's Catalog Outlet.

YWCA Rental- Friday rental discount of $200 and bridal show coupon discount of $200

Group of 3 faux pearl bracelets @ $6.99- $7.57 including tax from Target

500 roses @ $398 from Bigrose.com, 6 dz. roses @ $64.89 after tax at Central Market- $462.89 for 572 roses total

14K White gold wedding bands 2mm @ $47 & 3mm @ $80- $127 including shipping from e-weddingbands.com

Things We Did to Save Money:

I'm not especially skilled at crafts or DIY projects, but with some help from friends and family we managed to save a lot of money by taking on a lot of the wedding items ourselves. We made our own invitations with supplies from LCI Paper. I was in love with all the square invitations w/ wraps that I kept seeing on the knot, but couldn't justify the expense of them, even the DIY ones were a bit out of my price range. Then I came across these from LCI Paper. They had the wrap element that I liked, but were unlike any invitations I had come across before (I used the wrap horizontally, as opposed to vertically as is shown). They cost more than the generic DIY kits I could have gotten at Michael's or Target, but they were still a great deal and gave me the unique look I was going for. We got a lot of compliments on our invites. We also ordered just plain 8.5 x 11 cardstock from LCI in the matching ecru color to use for our rsvp and direction cards. My MOH's husband helped me design the invitation components, and I assembled them all. I also ordered the tri-fold program paper I was looking for from LCI because I was unable to find any unembellished ones at the craft stores. Again my MOH's husband helped me design the layout, and the two of them printed and folded them all for me, which was a wonderful help.

My MOH and I did all the flowers for the wedding. If you are going to take on DIY flowers I highly recommend you do a test run a few months before the wedding. I, foolishly, assumed that arranging flowers would be simple, especially after I read the instructions in the DIY flower bio and considering I just wanted some roses in a bubble vase. Well, as my MOH and I discovered the day before the wedding, I am terrible at arranging flowers! Luckily she was practically a pro. On the other hand, I was great at making the bouquets, which weren't her strong suit. Everything worked out fabulously, the flowers were beautiful, we got tons of compliments, and we had over 500 roses at our wedding for less than $500. I have no regrets, just something to keep in mind when it comes to DIY projects that will be done close to the wedding. I also have nothing but high praises for Bigrose.com. I would also recommend that you order more than one shade or variety in your chosen colors. We ordered 3 different varieties of ivory roses, and 3 different varieties of red roses. It's not automatically obvious to the observer that there are different shades, but it creates depth in your arrangements and allows for some textural interest.

My mom and I made table runners for all the guest tables, the head table, and the cake table. Well, my mom did most of them, although I helped when I had the chance. We procrastinated a bit, so I didn't have all the time in the world when we got around to doing them, the week of the wedding, ha. It cost about $75 for all the fabric and supplies to do 10 guest tables, the length of the 3 part head table, and the cake table. It made such a huge difference in the decor, and for a rather small amount of money. Also, my mom is a woman on a budget, so she hadn't been able to contribute a lot financially to the wedding. This didn't bother me in the least, but I know it made her feel great to be able to contribute her time and effort on this project.

Our dear friend Diggy had offered early on in the planning process to do a reading if we needed anyone to speak. After awhile of searching I was very discouraged at the prospect of paying some stranger $250 to marry us, as we aren't a member of any church or close to any clergymen. So, I asked Diggy if he might be interested in becoming certified through the ULC and performing our ceremony. He was thrilled with the idea, as were we. I wrote the ceremony, with the help of many informative knot bios and some internet research. We got so many compliments on our ceremony, and it meant so much to be able to have a friend unite us in marriage.

My husband is in a band and music has been a very big part of our lives, seperate and together. Early on we decided that it would play a big part in the wedding as well. We asked his bandmate and friend Steve, if he would consider performing our ceremony music. He accepted, saying he would much rather be a part of the day than just sit on the sidelines and watch it all happen. We chose several songs of importance to us and Steve had no trouble learning them. He performed on acoustic guitar and we got a lot of compliments, on the songs themselves and his performance of them. We chose Silver & Gold by Neil Young for the parent & bridal party processional, Calico Skies by Paul McCartney for my processional, Grow Old With Me by John Lennon for the Interlude, and All You Need Is Love for the recessional (think we like the Beatles?).

Again, because music is so important to us, and a lot of our guests, we chose the iPod route for our reception music. We hired my MOH's BIL, who worked through college as a DJ, to run the music & MC for the evening for $100. We built playlists broken up by the evening's events and everything went smoothly. It made me very proud to be able to tell people that every single song played at our wedding was hand picked by us.

We purchased our own alcohol from Central Market. I wanted to create a bar that would help save us money, but also be interesting. We decided to go with just a wine & beer menu, but since we were purchasing it ourselves it gave us the freedom to make it interesting. We love beer. I love trying different kinds. So we decided to make that the feature of our bar. We had 6 different beers- Miller Light, Blue Moon, Shiner Bock, Red Stripe, Fat Tire, and Newcastle. We got a TON of compliments on the variety of choices. We also served a red, white and sparkling wine. I did some research on the sparkling and we went with Cristalino Cava Brut. It is very inexpensive and very delicious. The sommelier at Central Market helped us chose a red and a white that would compliment our menu and were in our price range. We taste-tested them with FIL, who has a better wine IQ than us, and he approved. All total we spent about $650 on alcohol, and we had enough beer leftover to give some to our parents and friends, party with friends after the wedding, and throw a Halloween party with our Best Man. We still have a couple bottles of our white selection at home in our wine rack, which we intend to enjoy over the next year.

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