Many people don’t know that I am a recovering shopaholic (I’ve never professionally been categorized as one, but I self-diagnosed so I think that counts). Thankfully, I have resources that keep me in line as we plan our big day. I’ve found some really helpful tools such as http://www.weddingwire.com and resources from my venue. Both provide budget calculations and suggest amounts to spend based on typical wedding costs.

As I learned while entering the planning process, the wedding industry takes ordinary things, blings them out and charges 10 times the normal cost. It is very easy to lose sight of your expenses if you aren’t diligent as you go. My big ticket item during this process has been my dress so I knew when I ordered it back in April that all other purchases needed to be curbed.

In addition to being a shopaholic, I have champagne taste. Not really fancy champagne, more like the champagne you can buy in the convenience store which I would categorize as giving a fancy impression at a reasonable price. Recently, I was thinking about accessories for my gown, specifically a particular headpiece I have been eying for months. I polled my maids of honor and several friends and it seemed like everyone was giving me the green-light for my purchase. In the end, I picked a less expensive option because I really couldn’t imagine spending so much for an accessory for just one day.

One thing we vowed early in the process is not to be wedding-poor, pouring all of our resources into the wedding so as long as you set a budget and stick to it, you should have no problem in your planning finances. After the wedding is over, I’ll talk a little more about planning and how we got the most bang for our buck!

Cheers!