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5 Keys to Having Your Dream Wedding for $5,000 Or Less

  • February 18, 2010 at 10:08 pm

We were recently asked to write an article that has now been published in the Winter / Spring issues of San Francisco Bay Area’s Mocha Bride Magazine and Bride Nine Magazine.

Today, we are going to share our article in its entirety to help you know how to plan your dream wedding for $5,000 or Less.

5 Keys to Having Your Dream Wedding for $5,000 Or Less

By: Tim and Lisa Spooner

When we got engaged, we had beautiful dreams of a wonderful wedding. Many of our friends were getting married at the time so we attended their weddings and imagined what our wedding would be like. We wanted our wedding to reflect our special love for one another while giving our family and friends an opportunity to celebrate with us.

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The only obstacle to achieving our wedding dreams seemed to be our very limited financial resources. In a community where the average cost of a wedding was more than $24,000 the huge cost of a wedding loomed in front of us like a locked door blocking the path to our dream wedding. It seemed ridiculous to sink so much money into our first day of married life. Yes our wedding day would be special but should it warrant such wild spending? We refused to believe that wedding dreams should have to be purchased at such a high cost that would inevitably put a pinch on our newlywed finances.

After consulting both of our bank accounts, we agreed that we could comfortably afford to spend up to $2,000 on our wedding day.

We chose to believe that we could achieve all our wedding dreams by using just five keys. These keys made our dream wedding possible. Since then, we have helped thousands of brides and grooms use these very same keys to unlock the door to their dream weddings.

Key #1: Know Your Budget

Wedding spending can be a very slippery slope. Unless you know exactly how much you can afford for each aspect of your wedding it will be very difficult for you to say no to all kinds of upgrades and add-ons. Before you know it, the dream wedding you imagined will have turned into a monster with a life of its own and your wedding expenses will have snowballed out of control.

You should carefully consider how much you want to spend on your wedding. Keep in mind that after the wedding thank you notes are written you will be faced with everyday bills like rent and everyday problems like a car breaking down. Do your best to make sure that the expense of your wedding isn’t a part of these financial stresses.

You can easily find a helpful wedding budget online that will calculate how much of your overall budget should be applied to each aspect of your wedding.

Your budget should guide how much you spend on each part of your wedding planning. You will be amazed to discover that simply knowing your spending limits will open up great doors to savings that you never knew existed.

Key #2: Know What You Want

The wedding world is full of all kinds of marketers trying to persuade you to believe that what they are offering is essential to the success of your wedding.

Before you get swept along like a flower petal on a river, anchor yourself by thinking about what is really important to your wedding.

Ask yourself why you want to have a wedding ceremony and reception. What is keeping you from simply visiting the justice of the peace or taking a trip to Las Vegas? Once you know why you want a wedding ceremony and reception you can start to envision what your wedding day should be like.

You need to know what goals your wedding is meant to achieve. If one of your goals is to have a fun celebration of your marriage with your family and friends, then you will want to focus on making your reception everything you want it to be. If another goal is to have lots of beautiful photographic memories of your wedding day, then you will want to make sure that you hire a good photographer and choose a venue with beautiful background scenery.

You probably have more than one goal for your wedding but if you think carefully about it you should be able to think of one primary goal for your wedding. The purpose of our wedding, for instance, was to be an occasion for our guests to celebrate our marriage with us. Once you know the primary goal for your wedding, you can make sure that all of your other wedding goals support your wedding’s overall purpose.

Start saving on your dream wedding by downloading

Wedding Planning on a Budget

(Digital Download: PDF)
by Tim and Lisa Spooner

Instantly downloadable Wedding Planner reveals Tim and Lisa’s strategies that made their $2,000 dream wedding and countless other beautiful dream weddings possible.

wedding planning on a budget - wedding planner
Wedding Planning on a Budget

You can then design your wedding with your primary purpose in mind. Knowing what you really want from your wedding will allow you to focus your wedding dollars and your energy on what is really important to making your wedding dreams come true.

Key #3: Know Your Resources

Even if you are not expecting either of your parents to pay for your wedding, you should still check in with them to find out if they are able to contribute in any way. You might be surprised to find out that they were waiting for you to come to them and invite them to help you reach your wedding planning goals. They may be able to offer to pay for a certain aspect of your wedding such as the wedding cake or the wedding dress. Or they might be able to write a check to cover some portion of your wedding costs. They might be able to give you a tip on where you can get a great deal on your wedding and reception venues. Bottom line is that you won’t know until you ask. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your parents can’t help.

As you think about the various roles that need to be filled at your wedding ceremony and reception, try to think of family members and friends who would do a great job filling each position. Don’t forget about classmates, co-workers, and members of your church. Among all of these people you will surely know a crafty individual who could arrange your flowers, a musician, or someone who can fill any other role in your wedding planning.

People are often generous when they know who they are helping and will give you a great deal on the service you need. Just be sure to express heart-felt thanks for any services provided to you at special pricing. You may even want to give a thoughtful thank you gift to individuals who are particularly generous.

As you think about a location for your ceremony or reception, try to also think about which of your friends and family members are associated with that venue. If the owners of the venue know you or someone you know they are more likely to give you a special discount price when you ask to use their location.

Key #4: Know What to Spend Your Energy On

Planning a successful wedding can take up a lot of time and energy. You should try to delegate time consuming projects like flower arranging and table decorations to willing helpers. You will stay busy enough just coordinating and overseeing everything.

Most of your friends would love to help you with your wedding in some way. They are probably waiting to be invited to have a part in your wedding planning and you won’t know it until you ask them.

We were talking with a friend today who told us that she assumed her friends did not want to help her with her wedding because they were not approaching her with offers to help. As a result, she ended up asking only three of her friends to be a part of the wedding planning process. She told us that after the wedding she found out many of her friends were disappointed that they were never invited to have a part in her wedding planning. They were all hoping to help with the wedding in some way but did not feel right interfering with the bride’s plans.

As the bride, it is your responsibility to ask for help. Don’t wait for your friends to come to you – they probably won’t, even if they would like to be a part of your wedding planning team.

You of course do not want to burden any of your friends with too much work. But if you carefully choose friends to help out with key parts of your wedding planning that fit their particular skills and interests, you will find that they’ll consider it an honor to be a part of your wedding planning team.

Just make sure that you honor them in turn by giving them some creative freedom, giving them your time, and by expressing how much they mean to you and how much you appreciate their help.

You could even have some of your friends over for a craft party. Your friends can come over to help you put together a craft that you will give away as favors. You can express your appreciation by providing snacks and buying pizza. This will save you a lot of time while giving you a chance to have a great time with your friends.

By getting your friends and family involved in helping with your wedding planning, you will be freed up to focus on making sure that everything comes together the way you have envisioned for your wedding day.

Key #5: Know Where to Get the Best Deals

When we were planning our wedding, we looked into buying a unity candle along with family candles. We found that the simplest unity candle sets were selling for about $30.

Then we went to the local crafts and hobbies store where we bought the candles we wanted and the desired decorative enhancements for just $7.

At home we assembled them and had our very own unity candle set for just a fraction of the cost that most brides were paying for similar unity candles.

If you are willing to assemble a few pieces, you can find much of what you need at a crafts store where you will pay just a fraction of what you would pay for a ready-made wedding item.

Also keep in mind that your reception is really just a specialized party event. Instead of paying the big bucks for a “wedding reception” table cover, why not take a look at a party store where you will find a “party” table cover at a much lower cost. The only difference will be that it won’t be packaged in a box that says “wedding” on it.

Second-hand is another great way to go when purchasing items for a wedding. Most wedding items are only used one time and then put in storage. Eventually, the owner of the wedding item gets tired of storing it and puts it up for sale on eBay or in the classifieds section of the local newspaper. Check out eBay and the classifieds and you can find anything from tulle to a bridal gown good as new for bargain prices.

An Open Door to Your Wedding Dreams

The five keys we have outlined for you can unlock the door to your dream wedding. Like us, you can grab a hold of those five keys and move forward with planning the wedding of your dreams at whatever cost you are comfortable with. Even if you can only afford to spend $5,000, $3,000, or less than $2,000 like us, your dream wedding is very possible with the five keys we have shared with you.

Download Wedding Planning on a Budget to discover how Tim, Lisa, and other couples have been saving thousands upon thousands of dollars on their dream weddings!

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Honeymoon Budget Planner Extraordinaire!

  • November 26, 2009 at 8:37 pm

Many of you have come to love our wedding budget calculator. It has greatly simplified how brides and grooms plan their weddings while providing full flexibility to match your exact wedding planning needs.

Now  we want to announce the release of our honeymoon budget calculator. You will love how easy it is to use this super smart honeymoon budget planner.

It applies all the beloved features of our wedding budget calculator and adapts them to the special needs of honeymoon planning.

While you are over there checking out the honeymoon budget tool, be sure to also check out all the other great tools and information available at our new honeymoon website:  Best Honeymoon Deals

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$80 Weddings – Beginning of a New Trend? (40-40-40 Wedding Event)

  • November 17, 2009 at 8:27 pm

40 couples in Atlanta got married in a span of 40 hours and each bride and groom had to pay just $40 for a first class wedding ceremony and full wedding reception.

Furthermore it was all for a good cause as the money went towards supporting the Atlanta Children’s Shelter. Guests of the bride and groom were encouraged to donate a monetary gift or gently used household items to help out the families at the children’s shelter.

This charity event was the first of its kind and has earned national attention (see below). We think it’s such a smart and needed idea that we expect to see more organizations follow suit with their own charitable wedding events.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people and organizations became super creative like the Atlanta Children’s Shelter and wedding planner Sylvia Wayfer-Clark (working for Weddings by Stephanie Marie) so that couples could easily have a beautiful wedding and reception for just a couple hundred dollars if that was all they could afford?

We hope this is the beginning of a new trend among charitable organizations so that couples have more options.

We understand that this is not for everyone — not everyone is willing to get married at 2 in the morning! But it really feels good to see people getting creative and figuring out ways to help one another get married without going into debt.

For a powerful guide to getting married within your means we encourage you to download our wedding planner ‘Wedding Planning on a Budget’.

You can learn more about the 40-40-40 wedding event at their website and by watching the video clips below:

Media buzz before the event:

Media buzz after the event:

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Budget Friendly Wedding Locations

  • September 18, 2009 at 4:44 am

bride and groom at budget friendly wedding locationWedding bells are in the air and that day you have always dreamt of is drawing near. The problem most couples face these days is wedding finances. People associate the best weddings with a lot of money. However, that is not the case. You can have your dream wedding at an affordable price with a few of the ideas stated below. Read on:

Favorite Restaurant

Nowadays restaurants have private rooms that can be rented. Most hotels for weddings offer special rental packages for their restaurants, including advice for planning your wedding day. Others have a beautiful back garden if you desire a garden wedding. These are among the best budget friendly wedding locations. Pick a restaurant that you and your man frequent then have them reserve a certain day for the ceremony. Some restaurants will be delighted to do the catering as well for a reasonable price. This is a way to share with family and friends your special place.

The Park

Parks have become a common place as wedding locations because all a couple will pay is a small nominal fee. Most parks are decorated with vintage fountains, lovely picnic areas for guests and are easily accessible. If you intend to go with the park idea, make sure you settle for one with a covered patio and well presentable.

Theater Halls

If you have been to a theater you will notice that this is a romantic place to stage your perfect wedding. Getting married on the theater stage will be breathtaking and you will also be supporting the arts department. Some common theater halls being used these days include the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The second floor of this theater hall is perfect for the wedding reception. If you are a local resident in New York, you will be offered a steep discount. When selecting a theater hall, pick one that reflects your theme, for example an old theater will bring in that vaudeville charm while the modern ones will offer a contemporary theme. For non residents the fees charged here are low and mainly used to maintain the building. With a good decorating team you can turn a theater hall into one of the most magical wedding locations.

Former College

Where you attended college I am sure your institution had an alumni hall or perfect chapel. Why not grace your occasion at your alma mater for merely pennies. Most colleges charge alumni very little while non alumni will still find it affordable. Your former college will be honored to have their student wed on campus and will do anything to make things easier for you.

Unusual locations

While dating your man, there must have been places you loved to go. It could be on the farm or at a certain amusement park. These locations are hardly used for weddings and when you inquire with the management about hosting your own they will be thrilled. The mere fact that people do not stage weddings here will give you a chance to score a big discount on the fee.

Weddings do not have to be too costly, with these few ideas you can make your day one to remember. Use these to save enough in order to get that amazing wedding dress instead.

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Wedding Budget Spreadsheet Just for You

  • August 25, 2009 at 7:51 pm

We have created a super-handy wedding budget spreadsheet to help you in your wedding planning.

All you have to do is enter how much you want to spend on your wedding and the spreadsheet will automatically tell you about how much you should spend on each part of your wedding.

You can start using the wedding budget here>>> My Wedding Budget

If you prefer to create your own customized wedding budget spreadsheet, you should follow a wedding budget creation tutorial such as this one:

But in all honesty, you will probably find that the wedding budget spreadsheet we have created for you is flexible enough to meet all your wedding planning needs. You can enter new titles and you can change how much of your wedding budget is assigned to each part of your wedding. This makes our wedding budget calculator very user friendly.

Let us know what you think and please recommend any ways that we can improve this wedding budget tool for you.

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Wedding Planning in a Recession – Q&A Time

  • July 30, 2009 at 3:19 am

We have responded to some questions from a reporter and thought you would find the answers interesting.

Is the idea that a wedding has to be a $30,000 staged luxury event keeping some couples from tying the knot until they have more money or the economy improves?

We have heard from some couples who have been engaged for years and are still putting off their wedding date primarily for financial reasons. They didn’t think that they could afford their dream weddings and didn’t want to give up on their dreams either so they were waiting and waiting.

It naturally takes a young couple just starting out a long time to save 20-30k for a wedding so, often, they continue to wait until they finally decide that they really need to just get married.

Usually at this point they start looking for ways to plan their dream wedding at an affordable cost — that’s when they find us.

The truth of the matter is that this idea that a nice wedding event has to cost tens of thousands of dollars is simply not true.

The problem is that many brides and grooms often do not have the discipline to stay within their wedding budget.

Most brides and grooms have an idea of how much they can afford for their wedding but they do not have a plan for achieving their goal and end up spending twice as much as they expected.

They have an attitude that as long as they are going to go into debt for their big event they might as well go all out.

What they don’t know is that most brides and grooms do not spend anywhere near as much money as these numbers we hear in the media.

You see, when you hear that couples on average spend $30,000 (now, it’s closer to $20,000 with this recession), you think that the average couple spends that much on their wedding. Not so!

Back when we were hearing that the average cost of a wedding was nearly $29,000, wedding industry insiders could have told you that actually 4 out of 5 couples would spend less than that. In fact, a full 50% of couples would spend less than HALF of that!

We suspect that this is still the case with today’s national average of $20,398. So, the average couple spends much less than the average cost of a wedding. It is the not-so-average couples from wealthy families that skew these numbers. (statistics from TheWeddingReport.com )

But the wedding industry doesn’t make money by putting brides and grooms in touch with reality — the wedding industry makes money by telling couples that this is the most important day of their life and that it is their once in a lifetime opportunity to make their dreams come true.

At least that has been their strategy. Perhaps the strategy will change now that they have a bunch of couples fooled into thinking that they cannot afford to get married.

According to a recent FindLaw.com survey, 40% between the ages of 18 and 34 say they are waiting to get married and have children due to the current economic climate. So, there are a lot of couples out there who aren’t giving the wedding industry a dime right now because they think they have to save up for a wedding costing a small fortune.

Is it ever smart to delay a wedding just because you haven’t saved “enough?”

Couples need to be financially responsible; however, they must also be practical about their relationship. Couples need to be aware of extra stresses on their relationship while they are waiting to tie the knot.

They have chosen to live the remainder of their lives together and it is natural for them to want to begin experiencing as soon as possible the complete unity found in marriage.

Some couples seem to be able to tolerate long waits while they are saving up for the wedding and honeymoon. Others find the waiting period to be stressful and uncomfortable and are eager to discover how they can achieve their dream wedding at an affordable cost.

On the other hand, is it ever smart to go into debt for a wedding?

We think that couples understand better now the importance of avoiding wedding debt. Job security is at an all-time low and couples now realize that they cannot assume that they can be happy living with wedding debt hanging over their marriage.

We know that financial troubles are very much connected to marriage troubles. The two go hand in hand. That is why we find it so sadly ironic when couples go into debt on their wedding day of all times. They create debt trying to start a happy life when in fact that debt will invariably produce stress and tensions in their new life together making it more difficult than ever for them to have a happy marriage.

Brides and grooms should keep in mind that whether they are on a tight budget for their wedding now or not, they will very likely be on a tight budget once they are married and trying to build a life together. Will they remember their marriage day as a happy event in their life? Or will they wish they had a way to go back in time and spend their money more wisely so they wouldn’t be starting their new life together with so many financial headaches?

We feel that there is an unfortunate superstition among brides that their wedding day will foretell the quality of their future married life together. They feel that if they have a ‘perfect’ wedding day then they can expect a ‘perfect’ married life together.

This superstition does not hold up under analysis and if that ‘perfect’ wedding day was achieved through debt then it may more likely predict a difficult life together with some real struggles ahead.

Are parents still paying for these $30,000 affairs?

Even before the recession, many couples were paying for their own weddings. TheKnot.com did a survey of 18,000 couples married in 2008 that reveals that 43% of couples were paying for their own weddings. 44% of the brides were receiving help from their parents and 12% of the grooms’ parents also contributed.

Whether the parents will be paying or even contributing to the wedding costs has always depended on a number of factors.

First, is the couple financially dependent on the parents? If so, they are more likely to have their wedding taken care of too. However, the marriage age is rising and most young people have left the nest and are on their own by the time they get married.

Couples who have started their careers and have left the home or have independent attitudes will probably not receive much help from their parents because their parents feel like the couple can take care of themselves or because the couple themselves feel like they should provide for their own wedding needs.

Second, we should ask if the parents’ are financially able to pay for a wedding. With many parents getting laid off and seeing their stock-market based retirement funds shrivel up, they may not be able to help much, if at all, with the cost of a wedding. Also the young adults are not as likely to seek help from their parents when they know that their parents are struggling to make ends meet.

The percentage of couples paying for their own wedding expenses has been steadily rising and we expect to see this trend continue.

It isn’t common wisdom, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the cost of weddings drop further even after this recession as more young couples take responsibility for their own wedding costs.

Paying for an event out of your own bank account (instead of your parents’) has a way of making people more practical.

We hope the weddings of the future are not so much about things that money can buy but more about celebrating love and unity with friends and family.

Anyone who wants to have a beautiful special wedding can easily achieve their goals without going into debt. We see it all the time with the couples that visit the resources on our site and share their success stories with us after using the guidance available in our Seven Wedding Planning Secrets mini-course and our instantly downloadable book ‘Wedding Planning on a Budget.‘

Couples are happily surprised to find that their wedding day is actually even more special to them because they had to prioritize and plan the day for the purpose of celebrating their marriage commitment (not just a showy event) and they find that their wedding day is not impersonal but truly reflects who they are because they put their own special touch on each aspect of the carefully planned day.

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Who Got the Marriage Starter Books that You Gave Away?

  • July 15, 2009 at 6:24 pm

We recently did a blog giveaway of our three marriage starter books. Today we want to share with you the results of the book giveaway so that you can get to know the winners.

Every participant was a winner.

Newlywed GuideBy posting a comment to the blog entry sharing why they needed to save money and what they were doing to save money on their wedding, each respondent received a set of three prizes including our book The Newlyweds’ Guide to a Happy Marriage

Meet the 2nd Place Winner

Our 2nd place winners are Steve and Anne who plan to get married this fall.

They are on a super tight budget for their wedding with an allowance of just $2,000.

Their tip to other brides and grooms on a tight budget is to use Craigslist for your wedding purchases. Anne writes, “So far, I have bought a wedding dress, shoes and veil, all unused, off of Craigslist for a total of $125!”

Steve and Anne’s lucky entry has won them The Newlyweds’ Guide to a Happy Marriage and the wedding planner’s perfect companion Wedding Planning on a Budget.

wedding planning on a budget Newlywed Guide

And the 1st Place Winner

Steven and Mishia are the very lucky winners of our complete set of marriage starter books.

Mishia writes of their love story: “We met in Junior High and were best friends since! A few years ago our friendship became something more and I could not be happier! He proposed on Valentine’s day last year and it has always been my dream to have a Winter Wedding!”

This romantic couple will be married on December 19th of this year.

Steven and Mishia hope to plan their dream wedding for less than $5,000. As Mishia says, “I need to save money so that we can have money for other things such as bills!”

The set of books they won should help them meet their wedding planning goals. They are receiving a full set of our three marriage starter books Wedding Planning on a Budget, The Ultimate Honeymoon on Any Budget, and The Newlyweds’ Guide to a Happy Marriage.

wedding planning on a budget Ultimate Honeymoon Planner Newlywed Guide

Congratulations and Thank You!

To each and every one of our book giveaway winners, we give a hearty congratulations and heartfelt thank you.

The comments you posted about your experiences in planning your dream weddings on a budget will be helpful to everyone who takes the time to read your comments.

We wish every reader of this blog post a beautiful, dream-come-true wedding. You don’t have to be a winner of our book giveaway to get your hands on our books. You can download the books for yourself and learn how to start out your marriage right while saving money.

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Wedding Gift Giving Tips For Brides and Grooms

  • June 15, 2009 at 5:30 am

Brides and grooms typically give a gift to their parents, each member of their wedding party, and each other.

They may also want to give a gift to anyone who is going above and beyond in helping with the wedding. We for instance, gave a gift to the videographer who provided his services at cost as well as the minister who provided his services for free.

We recommend making each gift as personal and meaningful as possible. You are trying to show appreciation to the people you cannot thank enough. You need to move well beyond monetary value and attach, instead, sentimental value to each of these gifts.

We, for instance, bought some wooden desk clocks and wooden stools. By themselves they were rather inexpensive and unimpressive. But we added a lot of sentimental value to these items by refinishing the wood and burning our names and the date of our wedding into the wood.

What we really did was attach our wedding day and ourselves to these items in a material way to indicate that the people who received these gifts were very important to us and our wedding day. Understanding the sentimental meaning attached to these gifts, those who received these items would treasure them just as we treasured the people to whom we gave these gifts.

Another great way to attach sentimental value to a gift is to make the gift a reminder of a happy memory.

For instance, Tim’s father, Rick Spooner, is an artist who recently completed a commission from a bride and groom. The bride commissioned a painting of her fiancés Oldmobile 442 to be used as her wedding gift for him. The groom commissioned a pen and ink drawing of his 1967 Olds 442 and his best man’s 1967 Camaro to be used as a gift for his best man.

These are not simply paintings and they are not simply about classic cars. These are all about powerful and happy memories associated with the classic cars being captured on canvas. You can be sure that the groom and his best man will both proudly display their respective wedding gifts in a prominent location and have very happy feelings associated with the thoughtful wedding gifts they received from some very caring individuals.

Please share your wedding gift ideas with your fellow brides and grooms by posting your comments below.

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Watch Tim and Lisa Spill the Beans on their Wedding Planning on a Budget Secrets

  • June 11, 2009 at 8:37 pm

wedding plannersHey Tim and Lisa here with an exciting update…

We were interviewed the other day by Marriage Guru Interviews

They are putting together a really nice product that gives you access to valuable interviews with top wedding and marriage experts.

In our interview we share the story of how we planned our dream wedding on a tight budget and reveal the strategies that led to our success.

Marriage Guru Interviews is a new website and will continue to add many more valuable interviews with leading wedding and marriage experts.

Since they are just getting started, they are currently allowing free access to all of the interviews including the interview with us.

This is unbeatable value and you could save a fortune on your wedding planning as well as learn how to have a very happy marriage by getting in on this now while it is still free.

Get Your Free Pass: Marriage Guru Interviews

Enjoy and let us know how you like the interview.

Tim and Lisa Spooner
Authors of ‘Wedding Planning on a Budget’
www.WeddingPlanningOnABudget.com

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Watch This Interview and Learn Our Strategies for Wedding Planning on a Budget

  • June 6, 2009 at 10:37 pm

Since we were first noticed by the media for our success in planning our dream wedding for less than $2,000 we have accepted  a number of interviews for news stories, magazine articles, and so forth.

Usually, the reporters and journalists take a few tidbits from the interview and pass them along in their story and tell their viewers and readers to learn more about us at our website.

This last interview was different. For about 18 minutes the interviewer asked us in-depth questions and allowed us to share freely. The best part is that you get to watch the entire interview — not just a story drawn from the interview.

In the interview, we share great tips about how to save money on your wedding and go into detail about the contents of our book.

Now, finally, the interview is available for you to watch.

Access is limited. But we want you to have a free pass.

While there, you can enjoy listening to the other interviews available, which offer valuable marriage advice.

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Three Wedding Contests You Don’t Want to Miss…

  • February 26, 2009 at 11:22 pm

There are three wedding contests that we would love to see our blog readers win. Each of these contests is featuring outstanding prizes…

The ”I Do with Mirassou” Contest requires that you be 21 or older to enter. If that’s you, definitely apply because you could win $10,000 ! And the age restriction should really help elliminate a lot of your competition.

Besides the prize of $10,000, you could also win a trip to New York City for a 4-hour dream wedding consultation with a Brides.com editor; and an elegant Reed & Barton 5-piece dinner service for eight, 5-piece flatware for eight, and 3-piece crystal stemware for eight.

To go to the contest page, click this picture:

The “Do it Yourself Invitations” Contest is a chance for you to show off your creative side and get rewarded for your frugal creativity.

This contest  features some great prizes plus a couple of random drawings as well. The prizes go to the top three handmade wedding invitations, and it runs until May 31st.

Again, we feel like the odds are in your favor, because most brides who hear about this contest don’t make their own invitations and even those who do may not enter the contest. There are a lot of prizes being offered and we imagine that those who are proactive and enter this contest have a good chance of winning — especially if they have made some nice-looking invitations.

To go to the contest page, click this picture:

The final contest we want to tell you about is our “Wedding Planning on a Budget” Book Give-Away Contest.

Anyone reading this post is eligible. All you have to do is comment on this post. On March 20th, we will randomly select the name of one of the readers who posted a comment. On March 23rd, we will announce the winner.

Since the drawing will be random, it is not important what you say in your comment. But we would all be interested to hear what you are doing to save money on your wedding.

Enter our book give-away drawing by commenting below…

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Recession-Proof Your Wedding Planning!

  • February 12, 2009 at 5:39 pm

You have always imagined that you would have the beautiful wedding of your dreams. You imagined rose petals floating down from the cathedral vaulted ceiling, the tinging of Waterford Crystal champaign glasses, a lilly-white bride’s dress with a train a mile long.

Now that it is finally time to start putting your fairytale wedding together, the headlines and your bank account report that the days of big spending are over. Even the famous Waterford Crystal factory in Kilbarry, Ireland stopped production at the end of January.

You and many other brides-to-be wonder, “What kind of wedding can I have now?”

Let us be loud and clear: “This recession cannot have your wedding!”

Do you understand? Your wedding is off-limits. You just go ahead and plan the extravagant, beautiful wedding you have always wanted.

Your bank account should not dictate what kind of wedding you have. The only thing that changes is how you create your dream wedding.

Money is only a tool. Okay?

For a long time, brides have relied heavily on money to get the weddings they desired. Now, it is time to consider alternative paths to the same destination.

Instead of focusing on how much money you have, focus all your attention on how you can create the wedding you desire.

Regardless of your financial situation, your beautiful wedding is very much possible. All you need is a positive outlook and a handful of super smart strategies.

Forget the recession!

Stay focused on your wedding dream. Wedding dreams are not purchased. They are imagined and created through smart planning. As Walt Disney said, “If you can dream it, you can do it!”

So, keep dreaming! On your wedding day, you will still feel like you are in a dream as everything goes perfectly and you enjoy the very special day that you have been anticipating for much of your life.

Don’t let anything get between you and your dream wedding. You really can plan a financially responsible wedding that surpasses all your expectations and dreams.

To learn the powerful strategies that saved us over $22,000 on our wedding and continue to help brides plan their dream weddings for one-tenth of the national average cost or even less, then get our instantly downloadable book “Wedding Planning on a Budget”

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Reader’s Review: Best Value For Your Money

  • February 7, 2009 at 8:01 pm

A reader recently posted a very kind review of our wedding planner on her blog.

She is the editor of the popular budget wedding blog WeddingsAffordable.com so she gets the chance to review many different wedding planners available on the market.

Here are a few excerpts from her review:

“Wedding Planning on a Budget is just one of the many budget wedding planning ebooks on the market right now – but it is, in my opinion, the best one available today.”

“Tim and Lisa’s advice goes above and beyond their competitors, offering solid, informative guidance for brides everywhere.”

“Out of all the budget wedding books I read when planning my wedding, this was my absolute favorite. Tim and Lisa’s down-to-earth advice is superb – I don’t know how many thousands of dollars I saved on my wedding, but a lot of my savings can be directly attributed to tips I picked up in this book.”

“I really believe that Tim and Lisa’s book, Wedding Planning on a Budget, is the absolute best value for your money on the market today. The advice is good, and you’ll find it easy to save money by applying their tips to your own wedding. You owe it to yourself not to start married life buried in debt from an expensive wedding – so do yourself a favor and pick up the book now.”

Thank you, Vicky, for your very nice review. We are glad to hear that you found our book helpful and wish you continued success with your cheap weddings blog.

Read Vicky’s entire review of her four favorite wedding planners.

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How to buy a wedding dress and save money

  • January 24, 2009 at 8:37 pm

Finding the perfect wedding dress can be very exciting. Knowing a few tips for finding your perfect wedding dress can make the process of selecting your dress much easier.

After watching the video, read on to learn some valuable tips for saving money on your wedding dress.

Wedding Dress Savings

We have created a free wedding planning guide that among other things reveals how to get your perfect wedding dress for just $200. Just get the Free Special Report called “Seven Wedding Planning Secrets For the Bride and Groom on a Budget” and discover how to get your wedding dress for just $200.

On the same webpage you will also have the chance to read about how we planned our dream wedding and the strategies we used to save over $22,000 on our wedding. You will also have the opportunity to learn how you can have your perfect wedding dress custom-made for you at a cost of just $200. Start discovering how to save a fortune on your wedding planning today.

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Your Wedding Budget: Five Steps to a Debt-Free, Dream Wedding

  • December 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm

We have just written an article called “Your Wedding Budget: Five Steps to a Debt-Free, Dream Wedding.” We hope you find this helpful as you plan your dream wedding.

The full article is available here: “Your Wedding Budget: Five Steps to a Debt-Free, Dream Wedding”

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