Simple wedding budget tip

If you know how much you can spend on a wedding dress, follow these rules:

• tell your sales person that you can not go a penny over and do not want to see any dress above that rate
• if you aren't sure of the wedding dress shop, call and find out their wedding dress options in YOUR price point. maybe call ones you know are high end to get a sense of how many dresses in your price point they would even carry
• do not shop at stores where you've got free range to look at all dresses in all price points (or rather, do not look but let your sales person or wedding party pick out dresses in your price point)
• find designers who sell dresses at your price point, then go to their websites and find the retailers that sell their dresses.
• do not try on a high priced dress out of curiosity. It can sometimes really mess with our minds to see a high end item and all the sudden see our "favorite" in a new, less attractive light
• do confirm if you have any restrictions from your religious institution
• talk with your fiance on whether he has any strong feelings about general style (great example is whether the two of you agree on whether brides should have clevage or not!)
• once you commit to a dress do NOT TRY ON ANY MORE WEDDING DRESSES. There is no faster way to lose money than to have to sell a dress because you bought a second one.

Chosing a wedding dress

One of the earliest things most brides do after getting engaged, is to start shopping for a wedding dress. This is one of the most exciting, girliest moments for a bride who will eventually get stuck chosing between a million choices of paper for invitations, flavors for cake, flowers, finding all the important vendors. Wedding dresses are one of the rare wedding tasks where you have a tactile experience, an extremely personalized experience (your very unique body on different dresses), and you ultimately have full control. Most other things you lose some control to "packages", or rules about number of invitations you have to buy (often in groups of 25), etc.

There are many elements that go into wedding dress shopping and sometimes they only strike a bride in the moment. Here are some common experiences!

• Chosing the WRONG people to shop with you. Whether it's friends who show impatience and want to leave, or no-show for the shopping day, or friends whose style is very different from you. It could also be your mom who wants a very conservative look and you want a more strapless, sensual look.
• Chosing the wrong wedding dress shop. Hopefully you have different options in your area and if you do, it's very likely you'll feel more comfortable in some over others. Some dress shops are very high end, where a purse would be the same cost as your entire wedding dress budget. You may also enter some stores and the sales staff is too young, or old, stuffy, or pushy. The dresses may be too busy, too simple, the lighting and dressing rooms may not be very well designed, or the store may be so busy you feel rushed and stressed out.
• Your vision vs reality. Most of us have no real idea what style dress would look best on us. I remember trying on a very nice dress in a 1930's style. Apparently everyone in the store gasped and told my mom how the dress was meant for my body. Meanwhile another bride was trying on the same dress and her friends were trying to not gasp, in a "that is NOT for you" way.
• Your body shape is not likely the model body shape. Whether you are so annoyed at your large, or small breasts, big hips, or no hips (if you want the curvy look), wedding dresses can be an infuriating experience! You want to look like A BRIDE, however you imagine that "look."
• Indecision, insecurity, exhaustion. If you aren't confident after trying on a lot of dresses, you may start questioning if you're too picky, if you need to look at higher-end dresses, if you want to lose a lot of weight, or maybe you realize you need to bring other people to help you out. Some brides completely exhaust their friends. I know of a bridesmaid who was yelled at by the bride for not going on a THIRD weekend long out of town trip to dress shop. The bridesmaid didn't have the money and did not think it necessary to leave, for a third time, because the bride was indecisive.

Don't forget with all of the stuff that happens, you also want to make sure you're clear with the dress style and location of your ceremony and reception. You also want to make sure you and your fiance have agreed on the general look so if he is like my brother, who WANTED to wear a tux (that was part of his vision of being a groom), that your dress is not so casual you look imbalanced. Similarly a very glittery, fancy wedding dress should probably not be paired with kahki pants and a casual shirt.

Good luck! And for more help on all the interpersonal dynamics that happen at EVERY SINGLE turn in wedding planning, our book has increased confidence of countless engaged couples. It's called Take Back Your Wedding and is available on Amazon or our website.

Vanity or VIP for your wedding day?

Are you hiring a professional make up artist for your wedding day? Are you doing a trial run of your hair style with a professional to try out a lot of options? Are you getting a manicure and pedicure a few days before your wedding?

If you answered "yes", you are in the great majority. Indeed, at least some of the pampering above is so taken for granted that when I was talking with someone who is a high regarded marriage educator, who knows thousands of high powered people, talks to journalists all day long, she mocked, among other things, the bride who got a professional make up artist at the wedding she went to recently (she hadn't been to a wedding in many years.)

It brought me up short! I mean sure, I can argue the typical logic about how weddings are so expensive these days, it's such a waste, about how if "people only spent a tenth of the time on their marriage as they do on the wedding...." But, even I felt defensive for my decision to have a professional make up artist! I have written about whether you should splurge, and mention my own "need" for this type of splurge. My real weakness was not being disorganized, or procrastinating, or having troubles deciding vendors, it was FEAR OF LOOKING GOOD! I knew that having a professional "do their thing" would give me great confidence up to and through my wedding. (I was right.) My wedding nightmares were all about showing up in my 4th grade, dark brown prairie dress my mom made for our Oklahoma "boomers and sooners" mock land run.

I will try to dig up two photos that will shock you. One is the day after my wedding at the post-wedding brunch. The other is my wedding day. You would be shocked that my hair could do what it did and you'd be amazed how different I look. My dad kept saying, "this is a real plus for women like you who never wear make up! When you DO wear make up you look SO different and it really stands out!" I think many women who wear make up daily might argue they'd rather look good EVERY day, not just on their wedding day. ;-)

The first manicure and pedicure of my life was for my wedding. I could not stop staring at my glorious nails for the entire two week honeymoon! I was enraptured with how great my hands looked. I have since had quite a few and get one at least once a year for a big conference.

So the question is whether weddings bring out the dark, evil vanity of us, or are weddings becoming more and more of a VIP event where this is your one chance to shine with all your glory and there is nothing to hold you back. We have even gotten to the point where you'll even ask your bridesmaids to use Botox, as the New York Times wrote about this summer, instigating massive message board postings on whether it is appropriate or horryfing to ask others to alter their bodies for your big day.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

It is fine to want to enhance your appearance. Women do it every time they go to the hair salon to get a 'cut and style.' Women do it every time they either get a new prescription for contacts, or shop for new, stylish glasses. They do it when they buy make up, buy clothes, shoes, skin creams, eat right and excersize. But when does it cross the line to being a crazy bride?

Perhaps one way you have gone over the line is if you would not do ____ if you weren't having a wedding. Or if you have to spend a lot of time justifying the cost or procedure/product to yourself and your fiance. Or if you do the "ask 10 people on the street" test and you get a majority response of shock and horror at your idea. Or if you are afraid of telling a dear friend what you are planning on doing because you know they will disapprove of you. (Being afraid of their response shows a lack of confidence on your part, and demonstrates the respect you hold for that persons opinion.)

The two "wildest" things I did in response to my wedding vanity was to get contacts for the first time ever, and to get a facial and buy all the products to improve my skin for the wedding day. I could have done both without getting married and nobody would have thought twice. The contacts were ultimately justified as both wanting to be more timeless on my wedding day (glasses are always dating and I had this irrational desire to have a timeless wedding album) and because it seemed like most adults have contacts and why not give it a try. I hate being sweaty with glasses, and I couldn't be in the sun as easily because I didn't have RX sun glasses. Turns out I had fun with contacts on a daily basis - it inspired me to wear make up more because without glasses my eyes "popped more." I went back to glasses pretty quickly but still don't regret the contacts.

The skin products were great and produced a lovely inside joke with my husband about being a "planty lady", using the Aveda products. It really did clear up my skin and I spent a winter with soft facial skin and not feeling the normal itching, burning cracking of my skin in the winter. But, as usual with everything I try new I also stopped using it and went back to my normal, neglectful, non-vanity self.

So picture the worst case scenario - your groom ditches you or dies before the big day. Are your "vanity plans" well reasoned enough that you'd still pursue the...Botox, or plastic surgery, or other more extreme and costly procedures, even if the wedding wasn't going to happen?