Wedding Cost-Cutting Tips from the Budget Savvy Bride | The Dollar Stretcher - Down the Aisle : Wedding Makeup

Wedding Cost-Cutting Tips from the Budget Savvy Bride | The Dollar Stretcher


you
Every bride has a dream that she
marries Prince Charming
in a wedding that is long remembered.
And both soon be newlyweds and parents
fear the Bridezilla syndrome and
so we thought it might be time to
revisit what we spend on weddings.
With us today is Jessica Bishop
the founder and editor of the BudgetSavvyBride.com.
Jessica, thanks for
joining us today.
Hi Gary. Thanks so much for having me on your show.
Now, is there such a thing as
an average wedding cost per per
guest these days or maybe a range that
you could
talk to us about,
I'm not sure in particular per guest, but the
national average for
United States is about twenty-eight
thousand dollars for the entire wedding.
Obviously, you know, depending on how
many guests you invite
that's going to equal a different amount per
guest
but the national average is about $28,000.
Wow, that strikes me as a lot of money. Yeah.
Now, is there any one area
that tends to boost the cost
of a wedding
a little bit all over. I mean, you
definitely
kinda can add up expenses anywhere
in terms of the different things
that you need your wedding but one thing
that see that
drives up the cost a lot is the
catering and the bar.
A lot of people you know serve alcohol
and some
like to have like an open bar and
that can be really really costly so
that's the way to
really jack up the price very quickly if
you're not careful.
Yeah I suppose an open bar you could you
could easily
ring up a couple thousand
dollars in just a couple hours.
Yeah, absolutely it is definitely easy to do.
You know, one of the things that I
tell
brides is to find a venue that will
allow you to bring in your own alcohol
or then you can be more choosey about the price range of
the wine or whatever it is that you wanna
serve or
just stick to beer and wine and not
do the full open bar
because that's kinda weird, it gets out of control.
Is there a trend
away from alcohol at weddings these days?
Um, I don't know. I think it probably
depends on the area of the country that you live
in. Obviously, like some
areas might be a little more
conservative, but you know
I think most couples want to really
celebrate their day and
entertain their guests as much as
they can and thenso
most weddings that I see do have
at least some
form of alcohol at the weddings. Now from
your experience,
and you obviously see a lot about
weddings
and have quite a bit of
anecdotal evidence
to go by, is there an area the wedding that is
your favorite for
making a wedding seem expensive but
actually keeping the costs down?
Um, I would say that
I mean one trick that I used
for our wedding was like I said the
alcohol can be so expensive so what we
did was we found a venue that allowed us
to bring our own
alcohol in and we went to Trader Joe's
and we bought cases of Two Buck Chuck which
is very very inexpensive wine and
we peeled all the labels off the bottles and put
our own personalized labels on those wine
bottles that had our monogram on them and our
wedding date.
It's like a cute little detail and so
nobody really knew that we had kinda skimped
on
our wine and they just thought "oh that's so
cute because they have personal wine bottles" you know.
That was a fun trick of mine.
Another thing that I always recommend if
you're really looking to cut down
on your budget is to maybe find
other things
to use as decorations rather than
fresh flowers because they can be very
very expensive and at the end of the day
they only last for the day and then they're
gone.
Flowers is one area I tend to
recommend like cutting back in. Tthere's
just so many different things you can do.
I see a lot of books as
centerpiece or candles and
and things like that that just don't
have to cost as much as
fresh flowers so. Now on your
website
the BudgetSavvyBride.com, and
we'll link to that
at the end, I notice you have a
do-it-yourself section
which has over 20 pages on which I loved.
What kind of things do you
find that brides do themselves,
brides and grooms do
themselves that reduces the costs of a wedding.
Definitely a lot of decor items.
I feel like not only does DIY kind of
give you a way to save money but also
adds like a personal touch your day,
makes it more personal and unique and
so
I think, you know, decor is
definitely a big one
but even a lot of our brides, you know,
will have
friends and family kinda pitch in and help
and
I see, you know, brides having their aunt or
their cousin arranging their
flowers for them or
baking the cake to save
money
because you know we all have talented
friends and family and so why not kinda
bring them in and have them help
keep the cost down and then they
also kinda get to contribute to your day
which makes it special as well.
Now one thing I've always liked about
The Dollar Stretcher over the years
we've always had a section called My Story
where we have readers share their best
ideas and I noticed you have
a real wedding section that's very
similar.
Can you share maybe a favorite idea or two
that you picked up
from other people on the
website? Oh yeah, you know, we
feature at least one, sometimes two
real weddings a week where the bride
actually give
in a thorough budget breakdown of like
how they spent their money.
It's one of the things that makes our
site unique because a lot of their
wedding website out there show these
beautiful weddings but
in the back your mind you're thinking "who
can actually afford this? It is obviously
very expensive."
So it really makes it, you know, easy,
easier to
tell like how much someone spent and how you can
save money
There's always like really really
creative aspects
to the weddings, a lot of girls will
make, you know, their own
bouquets instead of using fresh flowers,
they'll make paper flowers or fabric flowers
things like that and then at the end of the day
those are things that become like a keepsake
you can actually put on display
in your home or
you know kinda something, you know,
that you can incorporate into your lives as
newlyweds
and you can look back and remember the
day rather than a fresh flower bouquet.
that just gets tossed in the garbage at the end of the day.
So things like that I think I really
special
and but I mean there's there's than 100
of wedding that
we've featured that's hard to really
pinpoint just a few.
Now another section that you have on the website
that
I enjoyed looking at was the the
printable section, I know years ago
for our wedding I'll up because
we had a very tight budget
my wife actually hand wrote the
invitations for the wedding and
actually I thought it was at the time was
better than the
printed. Anything special to look
for in the printable section that you'd
like to talk to people about?
Oh yeah,definitely, and that's an area that
we're working on expanding upon.
My background professionally it was
or is in graphic design.
That's what I got my degree in so I like to create
items that, you know, our readers can
download and print out for themselves.
A few of the things that I have
featured on the site have included, you
know, table numbers or place cards
thins that, you know, you could
go to a professional stationary and get them
but they would probably be very
expensive.
These are things that you can download
and print yourself and
you know, cut them out and put them on
display at your wedding and its not going to cost
you anything other than
the paper and the ink so it's a really
great
way to save money and its a resource
that I wanna definitely flesh out more
over time for our readers. Are
there any warning signs that
people involved in wedding planning should look
at where they can say you know this is
starting to get outta control?
Well I think definitely the number one tip
for anybody planning a wedding is to really
sit down at the very beginning before
you
taste a piece of cake, before you go and
look at a venue or think about looking
at a photographer, you need to sit down with
your fiance and, you know, your families
if they're contributing and just kinda
figure out
what is that magic number you got or are
going to be able to come up with for the
wedding?
Because if you go out you start, you
know, booking vendors and putting down
deposits and then you realize "oh no
like we've gone over budget" you know, you
really have to get that hammered
out first thing to set yourself up
for success
when it comes to your budget.
That strikes me as very good
advice, knowing how much you have to spend
before you start spending.
Yeah. Now, do you find that there are
families who often
put pressure on young couples to
spend more than they might on their own?
Possibly. For me it was different because
we paidfor our wedding ourselves but I
know
a lot of couples do get help from their
families
and the one, the one thing that I
hear most from brides is
the guestlist. Obviously
you know, when your families are
contributing they have a little bit more
say of who might get invited
versus who doesn't.
It might end up that a few of your friends get
cut from the list because your parents want
you know, someone from work or something like
that. That's something that I
feel like
can be a struggle and definitely
could you know, contribute to going
over budget because then you feel the
need to add in all these people
that maybe you don't personally know but are
friends
of your parents and things like that so
it's an interesting dynamic. There's many
stressful components to planning
a wedding for sure and I would say the
guest list is probably the biggest one.
Jessica, we thank you for taking
time to join us today.
We want to encourage people to go
visit the
the BudgetSavvyBride.com and get your
newsletter. You also have a free ebook
on the site
and naturally we want to encourage
people to subscribe to the
Dollar Stretcher YouTube channel
and find us on various social media and
visit our website
so till next time this is a Gary Foreman
invited you to stretch those wedding
dollars.
Thanks for being with us. Thank you.


Down the Aisle : Wedding Makeup


they say every girl dreams of her big day
but we all know that it can be super stressful
for this big occasion
whether you're the Bridezilla
or the maid of honor for the 10th time
this look will definitely make you look
beautiful and stand the test of time
using a primer has never been more important
you want this look to stay until
the last guest goes home
start with a clean face
then dab the primer lightly on your face
and with your fingers or foundation brush blend it out
to ensure photo ready foundation
coverage apply your foundation with your
favorite foundation brush
here I'm using this stippling brush
I love it because it creates the perfect air brush finish
you want to make sure to apply it evenly
all over your face and don't forget to
blend down to your neck
and then go back with your fingers to touch up under and around your eyes
next step I'm using here my great cover up concealer
what I'm gonna do is blend it by using
my concealer brush
to ensure maximum coverage under my eyes
okay, next step I'm using here my
final edit finishing face powder to set
my face makeup
it feels really light on the skin and it leaves a clean finish
you want your face to be either matte or natural
but never shiny
next step redefine your brows
what I'm using here is the arched brow
liner
you want to make sure that you're
creating the right brow shape for your look
if you're going for a more sweet and
innocent look, create fuller, straighter brows
but if you want a more glamorous look, arch them just a bit
but not too much because well, you don't want to look mad when you're walking down the aisle
now I'm finally going to create a soft
wedding eye look using my shade play shadow palette
and here I'm using shanghai lavenders
start off by applying the lavender
on the center of your lids as a base color
next step mix the shimmering earth
brown color along with the purple color
and contour the outer V of your eyes
this is going to help give your eyes more
definition
because when you're taking photos
your eyes won't look as flat
and now just use this mauve color to
line the lower lash line
to help balance out your eyes
I'm going to use the color facets sparking topcoat
and I'm going to apply this along the
inner corners of my eyes to create a highlighting effect
this is going to make your eyes look
really bright
next use a plum color as eyeliner and line your eyes
alright now I'm going to mix the orchid
and lavender colors to line the
lower lash line
to complete the eye look for the big day
apply this volumizing mascara to bring more drama into your eyes
to recreate that famous bridal glow
use your dewy skin makeup mood enhancer
and apply this on your cheekbones to highlight them
the pearl particles will catch in the light
to create a clean, dewy skin effect
I'm going to use my chiaroscuro light stick
to contour and highlight my face
use the darker side of the stick
to create contour on the sides of your nose
you can just blend out the lines with your fingers
and then just flip it over and highlight
the top part of your lips
brow bone and cheekbones
remember, because you're going to be taking tons of photos
bumping up the definition of your face
is so important because flash photos
can flatten out your face
now it's time for blush
add a healthy glow by using the shade play artistic cheek color palette
I'm using here pinched by pink palette
for that blushing bride look
to add a touch of color to my lips I'm
using the shade play artistic lip color palette
you can mix the colors to create whatever
rosy shade you think works best on you
and now you're finished
and you're ready to walk down the aisle
don't forget to smile
that's the most important step that no
makeup can ever recreate
good luck on one of the most beautiful
moments of your life