On Monday we met with our photographer, Mandy Owens, and paid our $200 deposit to reserve our wedding date and selected a date to do engagement pictures. She had the best deal for everything we were looking for. I wanted 2 photographers to capture moments from multiple points of view (i.e. walking down the aisle and seeing both the bride and grooms expressions) and I wanted enough time before and after the wedding along with printing rights to the pictures. I got all of that with her for $1500. 6 hours of photography, 2 photographers, and a CD with 600+ images. Plus her work is awesome (click her name above if you don't believe me)! It has that nature appeal to it, which is what we both wanted. When we first started looking, we had one photographer in mind who is very well known around here, but her work was TWICE the cost of Mandy's for about the same work and quality. We also looked at newer photographers who have great work as well, but the total difference when adding engagement and wedding pictures together was about $200. Here is a breakdown of everything we are getting for a grand total of $1600:
- Engagement Session at our place of choosing (within an hour from Albertville)
- Unlimited outfits (we are just choosing 2-3)
- No set time limit (ours will probably be 1-2 hrs max)
- $10 per image on a CD of the engagement pictures (or $300 for all 100+ images)
- 6 hours of coverage on the wedding day
- 2 photographers on the wedding day
- CD with printing rights of all 600+ images from the wedding day
- Online gallery viewing with a password for both engagement and wedding pictures
One of my bridesmaids told me that the amount we spend on photography will be the quality of the work we receive, and I definitely agree. We could have used a lot less expensive photographer, but I think we selected a great photographer for the money we are spending. Both James and I said we would be willing to pay a little more for a photographer who matched exactly what we wanted because this is a special day that will be remembered by looking at the pictures.
Our second big purchase was...drum roll please... INVITES!! :) I cannot tell you how many hours we spent researching, viewing samples, finding discounts, and looking for a good deal on what we wanted for an invitation. Originally, we fell in love with an invitation through David's Bridal, but after I went in and personalized it, 150 invites would cost us over $480, which was out of our budget. We wanted to keep the invites around $200. Frugal wedding planners and shoppers, perk up here! We spent a total of $78.95 on 250 Save the Dates and 70 Invitations. Backstory- We sate down and made a list of people we should invite. Our original list was about 230 invitations with about 350 people. So we marked through the list and decided to announce it at church instead of sending an invite to everyone (which cut out about 50 or so people). On our second guest list draft, we had about 120 invitations. About this time I was getting frustrated at the prices and stubbled upon Vistaprint. LIFESAVER!!! :) We were going to do 150 invites and RSVPs. Then I got a promo code for postcards. We went through our list one more time and figured that we could order 250 Save the Date postcards for $35 and 70 invites for $75. I also received a promo code for my invites. So here is a breakdown of the costs and savings:
- 250 Save the Date postcards
- Originally $35
- Shipping & Processing $4.99
- Paid $22.48
- Saved $17.51
- Originally $75 (including an upgrade to Premium, 100 lb. White Matte paper)
- Shipping & Processing $9.99
- Paid $56.47
- Saved $28.52
So if you are looking for a budget-friendly place, go check out Vistaprint. Have no shame in it. You don't even have to tell people you got them there. Ours should come in by next Friday/Saturday, so I will post of picture of the final product!
Second tip: Research and dig deep! You never know where you will find what you are looking for. I just happened to come across Mandy Owen's FaceBook page when searching for photographers. I was also lucky enough to score some awesome promo codes with Vistaprint to save even more money, which Vistaprint is great about sending promo codes for just about anything.
We are on to looking for a videographer and comparing prices, so happy planning!
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