la Rue - The Broke-Ass Brides Wedding Guide

Copyright 2013 by Broke-Ass Media, Inc.

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Potter Style, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

POTTER STYLE is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House LLC.

The introduction and conclusion are created by Daffodil Campbell. How to Feed 40 People for $3 Each is reprinted here courtesy of Daffodil Campbell.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LaRue, Dana.
Broke-ass brides wedding guide / Dana LaRue.First edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. WeddingsPlanning. I. Title.
HQ745.L373 2013
392.5dc23 2013001708

Trade paperback ISBN 978-0-385-34510-1
eBook ISBN 978-0-385-34511-8

Book and cover design by Ashley Tucker
Book and cover illustrations by Astrid Mueller

v3.1

Love does not consist of gazing
at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupry

contents

I am here to guide you over the peaks and through the valleys of the wedding planning path. To teach you means of cunning and survival. To coax from you the inner bad-ass that will make your arrival at the end of the aisle as painless, rewarding, and (dare I say it) as much FUN as possible. Because, people, lets remember that, at the end of the day, youre only planning a party . Chances are, if you havent lived under a rock for most of your life, youve done this before on a smaller scale. So breathe. You got this. I promise. And Im here to help.

Being a Broke-Ass Bride is not about how much you spend its how you spend it!

Heres the deal, though. Im not going to bore you with all the regurgitated budget wedding advice youll find in typical books and magazines. Im not going to offer you second-rate replacements and compromises to help you pinch your pennies. Im not going to expect you to be anything youre not. I wont let you wallow in feelings of deprivation or sacrifice as you plan your wedding. I mean it. I wont, so dont ask me to.

Heres what I can promise you. I will provide you with unique, outside-the-box tools and resources to stretch every dollar you spend to its fullest. Because being a Broke-Ass Bride isnt about numbers and figures. Its not a price range or a pejorative term. Its certainly nothing to be ashamed of, or apologize for. Embracing your inner Broke-Ass means using creativity as currency to rock a bad-ass wedding without breaking the bank . This holds true regardless of your budget. Its about crafting a wedding thats an expression and extension of yourself, your style, and your values. Both of you, as a couple. A wedding that focuses as much on making the journey as enjoyable as the destination. The bottom line? Being a Broke-Ass Bride is not about how much you spend its how you spend it!

Oh, hi. Im Dana. I was never the typical girl whod dreamed of her wedding since childhood. I had cohabitated with my partner for several years. I didnt have many religious ties. Our families werent pressuring us toward the aisle. But I wanted the wedding for three primary reasons:

1. To wear the pretty dress.

2. To throw the best party in history.

3. To sing my love for my partner, Hunter, to the universe in front of our nearest and dearest.

Id been waiting for that ring for five long years, and I didnt want to have to compromise our vision for the wedding because of our financial limitations. So I made it my business to learn the art of wedding planning, in an effort to decode the mysteries and debunk the myths of the process and revise them until they fit me perfectly.

I devoured wedding websites, resources, and books with a voracious passion. But I quickly noticed a void in the market. Most of the budget books felt like generic how to be cheap guides. Their most creative advice was to cut back on the guest list, which involved placing frugality above individuality, or felt more appropriate for a previous generation than for todays forward-thinking, progressive couples. Resources said negotiate, but none told me how .

The one place I felt a sense of relief was in the blogosphere, where I was discovering sites full of unique inspiration and whisperings of more highly stylized, highly personalized events. My brain started churning with ideas of how I could revolutionize traditional wedding planning for myself. I was so inspired that I started my own blog. I figured that other people must be facing similar woes, and I wanted to help them the way others had helped me. With that, the Broke-Ass Bride was born, and through the site, Ive shared my bad-ass, budget-friendly advice with countless brides around the globe. And I planned myself one HELL of a party in the process!

Sharing my experiences and innovative savings tricks online only magnified how much my husband and I grew both individually and as a team during the wedding process. After pulling off a wedding, I feel like I can plan and execute just about anything else. So why waste all that new knowledge on just one day, or on just my day?

In retrospect, wedding planning was much as I imagine business school to be; and when I walked down that aisle, I felt as if I should have been handed a diploma as well as a ring. Treat this here tome as your textbook and playbook. (Id call it a workbook, but wedding planning should never feel like a chore.)

Read the parts of this book that speak to you, but if something doesnt, skip it! Not every piece of information or advice applies to every couple. Use the prompts Ive included to help you find your path, log ideas and information, and springboard your own creativity. Learn from fellow Broke-Asses who not only survived their own wedding planning but also thrived as a result. Absorb all the tidbits and bytes of useful tools and tricks youll find peppered throughout like the hungry spongeling that you are, my friend!

And listen, I am of the belief that love and marriage know no genderso to my LGBTQ friends, welcome! The good news is that my wedding wisdom applies to you, regardless of gender or orientation. The bad news for any male readers is that, for the sake of consistency, I have written this book as though a ladyfriend is reading it. Please feel free to substitute the pronoun of your choice, with my hearty support!