Archive for the 'wedding costs budget' Category

Wedding Articles on Saving Money

It seems that Weddings are still a hot topic to write about in the third year of this recession. (I know we’re technically out of it, but we still feel like we’re in a recession around here.) I keep running across articles about how to get married on a budget or how to cut costs [...]

Bridal Magazines from the bridal-military-industrial-complex

This morning I ran across an article on Advertising Age about Bridal Magazines. The writer is a soon-to-be groom and he gives an opinion on the outlook for bridal magazines in the current economy.
I do agree that Bridal & Wedding Magazines probably do have a better prospect than most magazines in this economy because they are [...]

10 reasons to have a small simple wedding in Chicago

Its been a few months since I got married and the more I hear about other weddings, the better I feel about our choice to have a small simple intimate wedding in Chicago rather than a huge over the top event. It worked out really well to have just around 100 people and a 4 hour [...]

Chicago Brides have a lot in common with New York Brides

I ran across this article by New York Wedding Guide  and was surprised how weddings in the Big Apple resemble the weddings in the Windy City. Of course we aren’t as uber fancy as the New York ladies, but we face the same issues with family, wedding planning and finding the right wedding gown.
In the article [...]

How to manage-merge your finances together after the wedding

Merging finances and money processes is one of the first things we ran into with planning the wedding and directly after. The main reasons that merging money comes up so quickly in a marriage were that we had to find a way to both pay for the wedding and then we also had to find a [...]

Tips for Planning your Chicago Wedding and How to Avoid Common Problems

After finding out that I could not work, plan a wedding and blog regularly about my wedding all at the same time I stopped updating the Chicago Wedding Blog a few months back. I did get married this past weekend and am ready to pass on the wisdom and things I learned from planning my [...]

Is it ok to move in and live together before the wedding?

So, this post isn’t really about wedding planning in Chicago, but it is an important question in regards to the relationship you are permanently entering with marriage. I am asking this question about when it’s ok to move in together even if it’s before the wedding because I am in the process of moving in with [...]

How to start your Bridal Gift Registry at Macy’s.com and in a recession

A simple yet elegant white china pattern with a robin’s egg blue border from Noritake.

We spent our Saturday starting our wedding/bridal registry at Macy’s last weekend. We knew it would take a while to work through all the possible combinations of silverware and glassware (crystal) with the china I have passed down from my family but we [...]

How to plan your Wedding & Bridal Registry in Chicago

The Wedding/Bridal Gift Registry event we went to at Crate & Barrel.

The time has come for my fiance and I to start our wedding (bridal) gift registry. (our wedding is only 4.5 months away now) We are in our mid 30’s and both own our own places to live so creating our wedding registry is a lot [...]

Chicago Wedding Veil’s Headpieces Tiara’s Flower Hair Clips Accessories

Choosing my wedding veil and how to wear my hair on my wedding day shouldn’t have been that difficult but it was. I wanted a simple short veil and a simple up-do hair style with a flowered hair clip on the side since I saw it in a Chicago Bride magazine and it looked simple and elegant. The veil [...]

Choosing colors for your summer wedding in Chicago and Theme

By far the hardest part of planning our wedding so far (after finding a reception hall) has been trying to find a theme or color combination for the wedding. There are a million options and for some reason we didn’t have any characteristics that were meaningful in colors or wedding themes. In fact we are in our mid-late [...]

Where to choose and shop for a wedding dress in Chicago

After finding my wedding dress last weekend at Priscilla of Boston I was thinking of how clueless I was about this process when I started and what I would tell someone as advice if they asked about where and how to shop and buy a wedding dress in Chicago. I think there are some misunderstandings about wedding [...]

Shopping for a Wedding Gown in Chicago Priscilla of Boston David’s Bridal Watters and Watters

I started my search (journey) for my wedding gown like many Chicago brides do, online and in those glossy perfect bridal magazines. Chicago has many good bridal and wedding magazines written with this area in mind. The two I have are Chicago Bride and Chicago Weddings. I found the Chicago Wedding information very helpful in the southwest suburban [...]

Who pays for what in a wedding? In a recession economy? Bride? Groom? Parents? Family?

Deciding who will pay for what at your wedding in Chicago is one of the most important things to start figuring out when you get engaged. How much money you have to work with and who is taking part in the planning will determine a lot about what you end up doing. The thing is, money is [...]

We Booked a Wedding Reception Location in Chicago - Costs Post

I have written about our difficulty in finding a suitable wedding reception location in Chicago that had a minimum dollar amount and minimum person requirement we could meet! We eliminated the Naperville Country Club ($10,000 minimum), Seven Bridges Golf Club ($11,000 minimum), the Hyatt in Lisle (no minimum but it was $9,500 with everything included [...]

Southwest Suburban Chicago Wedding Reception Halls Sites

Yes, more reception hall sites! ( Carriage Greens Country Club in Darien, the Hyatt Hotel in Lisle and the Glen Oak Country Club in Glen Ellyn) I blogged about our difficulty in finding a reception space for my wedding in the southwest suburbs of Chicago last week and since then we have looked at 3 more locations [...]

Macy’s Bridal Salon in Chicago on State Street Bridal Gowns

I had to start my search for a wedding gown at Macy’s Bridal Salon in downtown Chicago on State Street. I grew up going to Marshall Fields in Oak Brook but they don’t have a bridal salon in that store. I have gotten more familiar with the State Street flagship Macy’s (Marshall Fields) since I [...]

How Much Wedding Planning should the Groom do vs the Bride?

I have heard that most grooms just rent a tux, buy the rings and show up on the wedding day to get married. Everything else in the wedding planning has been traditionally been left to the bride. I think initially that made sense years ago when there wasn’t much to plan and weddings were simpler. Now weddings are a much [...]

How to choose and Buy an Engagement Ring

The first step in our engagement process was to find and buy an engagement ring.
I went through many iterations of what I thought was a pretty engagement ring over the years, and as styles changed I came back to liking a very classic style. I was not sure what Steve was going to think of this since engagement [...]