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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…

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”

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.

50% Divorce Rate? Really?

  • February 5, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Today, while doing research for a free guide he is putting together, Tim discovered a shocking truth…

The statistic that 50% of marriages end in divorce is false! That’s right, not true. Just an urban legend.

Simply stated, it is the careless piecing together of unrelated statistics. Number of Marriages in one year divided by the number of Divorces that same year equals the number of those marriages that failed.

This is of course a silly mistake. The divorces for a year do not necessarily correlate to the marriages in that year. In fact, it is more likely that those divorces correlate to vows made over a long series of many years before that year the divorces took place.

Most of the divorces in the calculation are probably from marriages from many years past that finally see a green light to divorce. Let’s face it, it has only recently become more acceptable to divorce. So many marriages that have been expired for years and years suddenly sign divorce papers making it look like there is a sharp increase in divorce per marriage.

The problem is that wrong information can lead people down paths they don’t need to take. All of a sudden, couples are feeling like their marriage is doomed from the start. But they don’t realize that statistical odds are in their favor.

Unfortunately, divorce rates are much higher than we would like but couples need to know that marriage really can work “till death do us part.”

To learn more about the actual statistics, see these two articles:

Fifty Percent of American Marriages Are Ending in Divorce-FICTION!

Divorce Rate: It’s Not as High as You Think

Contributed by Wedding Planning on a Budget