I’ve been writing a series over on http://articlesbyann.com about plan­ning your wedding cheaply. The thing I keep stressing in that series is that you can change what you do and how you think about your budget when you focus on meaning rather than money.

In today’s great examiner.com article, Eliz­a­beth Oakes rues the mass purchasing weddings. She asks whether you really save money and reminds us that these weddings require a far greater time commit­ment of brides and grooms. Always amusing, (really, read her, follow her over there.) she points out that you often get exactly what you paid for. Another thing I never have under­stood about weddings is why everyone wants their weddings to be exactly like the next one. Ware­house weddings offer way too many possi­bil­i­ties for that.

Tip: There are lots of good ways to cut costs at weddings. Some of them include not doing some of the “musts” at weddings. (Never saw a recep­tion that wasn’t impoved by skip­ping the expen­sive garter toss!) But here are a couple things to consider.

1. Make a wedding budget, figure out where you want to spend your money and stick to it. So much of wedding cost is over-​​run.
2. Simplify your wedding notions. What are you really trying to accom­plish here? And you know what, there’s nothing that says you can’t have a great party at some other point in your life. Gather your friends on a frequent basis, it’ll make your marriage better and it’ll be a lot of fun.
3. Shift from money to meaning. Create a fabu­lous wedding cere­mony and great wedding vows. Now people are there for the cele­bra­tion and not the party and that’s a good thing.