The List

Photo by VL photography

 I never get bored of weddings. I am what some would consider a serious wedding junkie. I get excited when people invite me to a wedding because of course they're letting me into one of the most important days of their lives. Also I think as each wedding is so individual, each choice a couple makes often reflects them and you get to know them a bit better although it is of course in a heightened sense of reality. Every day is of course nowhere near as dramatic or stressful-thankfully!

I think my friends are similar to I although we had vastly different weddings. For each of us there was a list of things that we thought were important and things that were less important. I'm always curious to see what falls into the most important category. For me:

Of vital importance-shoes! Save or splurge? Splurge!

Splurge:

My dress and shoes
Photography
Reception Food
Ceremony

Save:

Cars
Table decorations
Bombonierre
Flowers

Our bombonierre. Save or splurge? Save!

And how important something was determined how much we spent on it. A wedding already costs a great deal as it is (ours was easily a house deposit) but we had to put the cap on it some places. And the easiest way was with where we thought was less important. Now that doesn't mean that what you spend less money on is any less impressive. We managed to a) borrow a car from an uncle that had a particularly nice and wedding appropriate car b) used simple table decorations and used scattered rose petals c) found gorgeous heart shaped tea infusers for a steal from the United States (shhh don't tell my guests! ;) ).

My wedding dress. Save or splurge? Splurge!

With that, I felt more freedom to spend on a Collette Dinnigan wedding dress and Manolo Blahnik shoes and a great reception venue. And even though my husband thought that I was slightly crazy, by some minor miracle we came in (just) under the allocated budget.

However, I sent around a quick email to my friends this week asking them what the thought was the most important 5 things and least important 5 things. And what I noticed was one friend said that flowers were the most important thing to her and she spent a small fortune on the flowers (almost as much as a bespoke dress!). And thinking back about it, her flowers were spectacular and we all loved them. The flowers were so very her and so was her wedding. Another friend's (whom I shall call Martha Stewart Jnr) main focus was the table decorations. She worked with the venue to do create some truly amazing centrepieces. I like to think that she is going after Colin Cowie's crown ;)

So tell me Past, Present, Future Modern Wedding brides, what did you splurge on and what did you save on?
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Love & Bombonierre,

L
xxx