Dreams come to life at weddings, which is why planning the perfect wedding for you and your partner is important. Many of us spend the first few decades of our lives looking forward to the day when we finally gather our friends, family and colleagues around to showcase the most beautiful romantic love we have come to find in our life.

Weddings truly are the most amazing form of show and tell for romantics. It is the one opportunity for you and your partner to transform into your best selves, by donning the most stunning attire with hair and/or makeup on point, in the most amazing venue with all the bells and whistles, and to congregate with a selectively hand-picked audience to proclaim your love for your partner and to have your partner tell everyone in your world that you are the one and only. It’s a day for you and your partner to recognize just how special each of you are, as the world around you pauses to stand and watch you walk down the aisle together into your happily-ever-after future. 

At the start, it might feel overwhelming when you add up all the dollars attached to the things you have dreamt will make this day as special as it deserves. And it does add up, which is why it is important to take your time and think through what is most important to you on this day as well as for the rest of your life. 

The best way to make a wedding even more special is to keep that energy going throughout the year and not just for the hours you’ve leased a venue. In doing that, it is thinking about how your wedding fits into the new life you are creating with your partner. In many cases, this is tied to your shared goals and visions. If you are wanting to buy a house to start having kids in the first year or two of marriage, that is just as much a part of your wedding day as what shoes you wear under your dress. Realizing that the wedding is one step in the process of reaching your dreams together as a couple, makes putting together a wedding budget much easier. 

Wedding Budgets

A wedding budget is a smart part of #couplegoals, which is why it is important to work out what your goals are as a couple before even starting the wedding budget. Once you have established your shared goals, you can create a 1-2 year or 5-year plan and accompanying budgets. In these shared life plan budgets, your wedding becomes a line item that can then become a budget of its own. 

By thinking about your wedding budget in this way, it enables you to set intentions for and shift perspective on how a wedding fits into the rest of your lives together, enabling you to make smarter decisions with your finances. Some of the most beautiful weddings with an amazing and magical vibe are the ones that come to fruition from a tight budget. Ultimately it is about the experience and what everyone figuratively takes away with them. 

One solution for couples looking to save money on their big day is a DIY wedding on a budget in Nevada.  

Nevada Weddings

Nevada is an idyllic place for weddings, because it offers the wonders of the desert and the beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains, as well as the high-level energy and bright lights of Las Vegas and Reno. Nevada offers everything you need for most any kind of wedding you envision. Nevada has the highest marriage rate in the country at six times the national average, which means the state is obviously doing something right when it comes to tying the knot. That even includes saving money. 

DIY Wedding

One way to keep your finances in check is to follow your budget wisely and plan a DIY wedding. Now, a DIY wedding doesn’t necessarily mean that you do every single thing on your own and from scratch. What it actually means is focusing on the shared intentions and goals you have with your partner and then artfully customizing your wedding to embody those intentions. Ultimately recognizing it is about showcasing your shared love in a financially minded and creative way.  

DIY Wedding Hairstyles

An easy way to save money is to do your own hair and makeup on your own. Do your research on Pinterest to see what styles you like best and then seek out videos and tips from Instagram and YouTube on how to DIY wedding hairstyles that made it to your personal must try list. Start practicing early, and with time, patience and practice, it’ll be perfect for your wedding day. 

DIY Wedding Photography

Now one of the areas where you don’t want to be too tight on the budget is the photography, as you will want good photos for nostalgia. That is, you want to get a good photographer to come in and take some beautifully shot but standard photos; however, you can save money by not booking them the entire time and encourage your attendees to document the event. In most cases after your wedding, you will have what seems like a never-ending stream of photos that attendees took at your wedding. If you want to make sure you get certain shots, make it into a contest for your guests. Make a list of “Best of” photos that you and your partner will score the week after your wedding to announce the winners. These photos can then be used on your wedding website for everyone to see with calls outs to the winners. 

DIY Wedding Venues

There are a number of DIY wedding venues, or rather places to hold your wedding that are open to your customization and DIY plans. If you are planning a DIY wedding on a budget in Nevada, we recommend that you directly communicate what you want to the venue to make sure that they do not have set vendors from which to pick for your ceremony. Even if you do, check it out, it still might work out with what you have in mind to do yourself. Here’s a link to five of Southern Nevada’s Finest venues.

DIY Wedding Checklist

To help you stay organized, we have created a DIY wedding checklist that you can customize. We recommend that you start with the big picture and then break each one of those items down until you have small actionable tasks. There will be some items that as you break them down, they will become DIY projects while others will be passed on to primary and secondary vendors.

It all starts will setting shared intentions and goals with your partner and then working out a budget. Determine the overall wedding vibe and size, so you know where to start with the items we have listed below. Knowing how many friends and family are in your wedding party and how many guests you plan to have at the ceremony and reception will help you move along the checklist. 

Checklist

• Location
  • Research venues
  • Make appointments
  • Perform walkthroughs
  • Review contracts
  • Select venue and sign contract

For the rest of the rest of the checklist, you will do similar to location and break it down to actionable steps – making and attending appointments with vendors and then signing contracts. You will always need to go through this checklist to add updates and changes and then later to finalize the closer you get to the big day. 

The big question to address as you move through the checklist is: To DIY or not DIY? We recommend doing a cost-benefit analysis of the DIYs in question to determine what is best. It might be advantageous to stick to hiring primary vendors and leaving what is normally handled by secondary vendors as possible DIY projects. Such projects do take time a lot of extra time and should be factored into your timeline and event schedule. 

• Food and Drink
• Style: Fashion
• Style: Décor
• Make it unique with your own touch

When it comes to your checklist consider it a process. Many of your items will not be checked of your main list until you are finally married. For example, you will need to keep checking in with your venue from the day you sign the contract until the day you pack out the last items from the wedding. All in all, a checklist can keep your wedding planning and sticking to your budget easy.

If you are looking to keep your DIY wedding planning simple, book an easy wedding with us today.