This weekend, we went to the church where we will be having our ceremony. It is Dave's church (mine used to be a school, and isn't built very well for weddings!) back home. We signed the contract (finally), and looked at the sanctuary, the other rooms we'll be using, and the decorations they have available. This was the first time my mom's really been there, so it was really good for her to see everything. I had no idea what all they had available, and thankfully they do lots of weddings, and have lots of decorations that we can use for free! However, I've hardly spent any time thinking about the ceremony, because the reception takes so much more effort (it's a shame, because really, while the reception is longer, the ceremony is more important!).

So, basically, I need your help! This is the sanctuary:


It's currently decorated for Easter. The whole stage will be cleared off for us, meaning the chairs, the modesty rail, the communion table, etc.

These are some of the decorations availiable:
They have flowers in every imaginable color that we can decorate the stage with, as well as pew bows and holders, tulle, white Christmas lights, and so much more I don't even remember. However, I think this is my favorite part:

Actually, my favorite part would be those rectangular beams lying on the floor there between the pillars. Those make a frame that can go over the pillars. As all my favorite ceremony pictures have been of Jewish weddings and their huppas, or canopies, I love this idea!

Here are some of the ideas I have:
This is a huppa. Yes, we are Christian, but there is nothing that says I can't borrow the lovely idea of a canopy for my own wedding! Symbolically, it stands for the home that the couple will build together.

I'm trying to decide if I want to use the basic white puffy pew bows that the church has, or if I want to come up with something of my own. Ideas?

OK, now I need help! Even with these few ideas, I have no idea what to do! I've spent little time dwelling on the decor of the ceremony, and many of the inspiration pictures I have are of outdoor weddings! What have you seen done that worked well? What did you do? What do you think I should try? I could really use the advice!

Did you know that the average wedding in the US costs $27,000? That’s actually more than one year at the very expensive Christian university I attend. And I can’t afford to go there. This whole wedding planning thing will be oh so fun.

So, how do I go about tackling this business? I started by registering for all the best wedding websites out there. They have planning pages, and galleries of gowns, and bunches of bouquets, and all the dresses they have listed are designer. Which means they cost on average this: $$$, and more often this: $$$$. What exactly those dollar signs mean, I don’t know. All I know is that they scare me a little bit. Because I’m pretty sure my entire budget consists of this: $. Oh this will be fun.

So when I realized that these wedding websites are catering either to the wealthy socialite princesses who have billionaire Daddies willing to cater to their every whim, or the normal middle-class ladies who have no apparent problem with taking on loans rivaling that of our national debt, I decided that this may not be the best place for me to get all my ideas.

So I started looking at what their ideas were, and stumbled across this article titled “The $10K Wedding Budget Challenge.” Here, the discussed how they challenged wedding planners in different places across the country to plan beautiful weddings on only ten thousand dollars. While I found some of the things listed here somewhat useful, I found two main problems with this idea. One, the cost of hiring a wedding planner to plan the entire shebang costs upwards of $40,000 (four times as much as the actual budget for these weddings…). Second, $10K is still not small enough to reflect my budget. Now, I am confident that I can plan my wedding on my budget, and that it will still be gorgeous, but I don’t quite know where to begin! It seems to me that any vendor prefers to cater to heiresses. I can’t imagine why no one would be interested in someone like me, hoping for big savings, not looking to shell out millions.

Man, I should go into the wedding planning business. I’d be rich!