confessions of a cheap bride

 Also known as Dom Perignon taste on a Natty Light budget.

I’m finally here on a Wednesday with some wedding juice for you..or rather, a bit of a spill-sesh when it comes to our wedding. Are you ready?

I think I got spoiled in this wedding planning process when I got my dress that retails for $6,700 for $1,200 including veil and tax. It really ruined me for the rest of this, because let me tell you, deals are few and far between in wedding planning unless you’ve got oodles of time and creativity to spare.

This week we got our invitations in the mail from the ever-so-lovely and talented 26 Press. If you’re in the market for custom letterpress invites, they are your girls. Ashley and Erica totally rocked our stationery world. While I’m not posting a full shot of our invites until all our happy guests have one in their hands, here’s a tiny sneak peek.

Saying we love them is the understatement of the century. Anyhow, with invites comes the arduous task of mailing them out. I say it like that, because it is. Double checking addresses with people constantly moving all around, proper spellings on the first try (those shiny metallic Sharpies are pretty unforgiving!), buying all the stamps, double checking spreadsheets..it becomes a lot.
Now here’s where it gets tricky. I was purchasing my stamps at Costco and the cashier made a remark about me doing a bulk mailing, so I made a wedding invitation joke and she gave me a pretty sick look. As if OMGZ WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE USING LIBERTY BELL STAMPS WHEN THERE ARE STAMPS YOU CAN PUT YOUR ACTUAL PICTURE ON?!?! She would have absolutely shat herself had I divulged I was handwriting the addresses and not using a calligrapher.

…and sadly this is not the first time I’ve faced judgement for wedding choices we have made.

 The reality: Pinterest gives us unrealistic aspirations in wedding planning.

The fact is that most of these invitations I’m spending all this time on are going one place in the long run…the trash. It’s sad, but true. How many old wedding invitations do you have sitting around? I don’t see that pinned anywhere.

The point (I have one I swear) is that weddings mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Don’t get me wrong, Dane and I are absolutely over the moon excited to celebrate our day. That being said, it’s one day. One day that can cost more than a down payment on a house, more than a car and half a year’s salary. <insert OMG face here>

At the end of the day if I’m married to my best friend, I’ll be the happiest girl in the world.

So yes, while I’m sure calligraphers and fancy stamps on envelopes are absolutely stunning and more pin-worthy than what I’m sending–I’d much rather allocate funds to something like cake and a honeymoon.

What are your thoughts? Does Pinterest give us unrealistic expectations of weddings?