Wedding Nonsense - In Sum

Clearly, I'm not going to get around to writing extensively about all the cost-saving tricks we used for our wedding. So here's a (hopefully) quick summary.

All told our wedding cost a hair over $4,000. That includes the rings, my dress, his suit (purchased, not rented), two nights at a hotel, all the equipment for the photobooth my husband built (web cam, printer, ink, photo paper, wood, etc etc), anyone we hired (officiant etc), monetary gifts to those who helped considerably, and much more. A quick run down of our cost-saving techniques:

1. Invites: designed by ourselves, printed at Costco: very cheap
2. Hiring people: the only person we really hired was the officiant. We gave money and giftcards to a family friend, her granddaughter, and her granddaughter's friend for more-or-less running the potluck part of things. Friends and family took turns grilling food, and we paid a friend of my husband's brother to check on grilling and other things.
3. Renting equipment: I must be the luckiest girl in the world. After I'd called around to find out the price of a tent, tables, and chairs, I learned that my uncle rents tents and other equipment, and that we could borrow tables and chairs from my parents' church and church-friends. My uncle also had several drink dispenser machines, a popcorn machine, a bubble machine (probably the most awesome thing we had), and much more. Oh, and we have friends with a sound system. I made a playlist, and that just ran for the evening.
4. Dress: Ah, the dress. Often a big expenditure. I tried on a traditional wedding dress or two, but really didn't feel like myself. Then I tried on a mostly white bridesmaid dress, and that was it. $145. Awesome.
5. Alcohol: We bought a few bottles of hard liquor, margarita mix, and a case or two of Trader Joe's wine (it's good stuff). One of my mom's cousins works at a winery, and he brought a keg.

Am I missing anything? We skipped many of the traditional wedding things. And it was perfect. Despite rain and lots of mud. At one point, my flip-flop got stuck in the mud and the resulting suction threw mud up the back of my dress when I pulled it out (the photo in this post shows the mud, although it's a bit hard to see it). And I thought it was hysterical. :)

A friend even wrote a review.

The one drawback was that it was a lot of work. We had to do all the setup and takedown ourselves. My husband and I coordinated almost everything - how the items and equipment would get to the location, where it would go, who would take it back, etc etc. It's a lot of work on top of being the center of attention. As my best friend said, we should have found someone else to do all the day-of coordination.

But still, totally worth it for a very nontraditional, fun, laid-back wedding.