Cheap City Chic

One of the other things I wanted to write about before my brief time here is up is to level with you all for a minute about us and our city wedding. You see, I had my heart set on having a city wedding. Not just a city wedding, but a Manhattan wedding. Because, quite frankly, I thought I might die if I didn't get some pictures like this:

Trouble is, everything is more expensize in Manhattan. Everything. You don't believe me? I bought a 1 lb bag of bread flour from the grocery store the other day that cost $7. Case in point. And you know what else is involved in that picture up there? A very, very way-out-of-my-budget gown.

So we had to get a little creative in thinking of ways to cut costs to get both our Manhattan wedding and my dream dress (that Mr. Star was 1000% supportive of, I'll have you know -- he's a keeper). I thought I'd share some of our ideas with you, in the hopes that those of you planning a metropolitan wedding on a normal-sized budget might get some inspiration and begin to believe again that it IS possible! I sometimes found it hard to get ideas because we didn't exactly have what many would consider a shoestring budget thanks to the generous help from our parents, but it sure seemed that way a lot of the time with the crazy vendor quotes we got ($15k for catering for 80 people, not including alcohol?!?).

One of the more typical ways we chose to save was the have the wedding on a sunday night. The sunday night of Columbus Day Weekend, to be exact. Sure, we were that bride and groom who "forced" people to spend their holiday weekend with us, but I think everyone involved would say it was worth it and besides, Columbus Day isn't a real holiday, right? Riiiight...

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We also chose to have our ceremony in a very unconventional spot. Rather than being charged thousands of dollars for a "wedding ceremony venue," we managed to nap a fabulous and unique location -- our theater -- for a couple of hundred dollars. A steal. This would work equally well with the NYC Parks if you wanted an outdoor wedding (they only charge a very small permit fee, even for Bryant Park!), or any number of other unexpected indoor venues. The sky's the limit as far as creative locations go!

We really chose our vendors carefully and got some great deals. Our incredible photographer was a friendor who has fabulous and affordable rates. Our DOC (mandatory for me!) was just starting her company up and I found her offering low introductory rates here on the WB Classifieds so she could build her portfolio. Our DJ was also a talented friendor who gifted (gifted!!) his wonderful work to us as a wedding gift. If you are lucky enough to have people like this in your life, take advantage of all the help you can get! And as I've mentioned before, we found our videographer on craigslist and she was also offering very affordable introductory rates to build her portfolio, plus we asked for the gift of videography from some family members who were brave enough to ask us what we wanted! :) I say, never hesitate to take a chance on vendors who are just starting out. When you meet with people, you can tell if they're up to the challenge!

Be flexible with your expectations in areas where you're okay with compromising. I didn't want to compromise on having a wedding in Manhattan or on my dress, so I was flexible with my other expectations. Like, no limo. Good god, do you know how much it costs to rent a limo in Manhattan? Take a taxi. Or the subway. If you really want to have an affordable city wedding, you can't have everything. You can either have a five-course plated dinner OR a couture gown. Sometimes, you're just going to have to compromise, so decide what is not negotiable to you and go from there!

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We also added a LOT of DIY details to cut down on labor costs -- invitations, my veils, our centerpieces...the list goes on. Anything I thought I could make myself (and there are some truly incredible tutorials and inspiration ideas here on WB!) that would be more unique because of it or save us money, I did! Can you say dress money?

A lot of brides getting married in smaller towns lament the lack of options they have when purchasing wedding supplies (I'm pretty sure Mrs. Mary Jane mentioned this), and no doubt, that must be very frusterating. We don't have that problem here in NYC, but we do have another one: a gazillion very over-priced stores with wedding supplies! Sure, I love Papyrus and Kate's Paperie and M&J Trim as much as anyone else, but if I was going to be DIYing projects to save us money, shopping for supplies at those stores wasn't gonna cut it. To combat this, I did a LOT of poking around in hole-in-the-wall garment district shops (one of my favorites is Carnival Trim on 38th between 5th and 6th, if you're wondering!). I also ordered a lot of supplies online from places like Etsy and Ebay. I know it seems counter-intuitive to order a spool of purple ribbon when you literally live right above a store that sells ribbon, but when you can get 100 yards of it for $10, you start to understand why!

We even managed to have an incredible dream honeymoon on top of everything with some creative ideas and more help from our loved ones. We had originally intended on a Mediterranean cruise, but then found out that my parents had bought a worldwide timeshare membership that allowed us to buy a week at a time in any of their affiliated resorts worldwide, which are all five-star resorts. So we were a little flexible and changed our cruise into one week outside of Athens and one week in Santorini and got both for a little over a thousand dollars. Do you know anyone with a timeshare membership? Hit them up!! We also used skymiles to fly over there (thanks, Doc!), which also required us to be flexible, but hello? Free flights. Did I mention be flexible?

Anyways, I hope a couple of these tips are helpful. You CAN have a big city wedding on a small town budget if you're creative and flexible.

What are your best big city cost-cutting tips?

*All wedding photos by John Martin Photography*