Staying Within Your Wedding Budget: DJ & Flowers

Well, it’s officially been {almost} a year since our wedding day! I have decided to reflect back on our wedding day with a series titled, “How to stay within your Wedding Budget when it’s less than $20,000”! Welcome back for part five of this series!

My dad gave me a very strict budget. My sister had gotten married two and a half years before me, and he wanted me to stay within the same budget as her. My dad set a budget for each category of my wedding. He was not going to go over that budget, and it was a pretty low budget compared to other weddings in the DFW area. I was determined to stick to it though, and worked really hard to stay within the budget! My dad budgeted pretty much every category possible, but I was allowed to move money from category to category. So if I overspent in one category but underspent in another, it was ok!

When planning a wedding in the DFW area, it is very hard to stay within a budget that is under $17,000! My budget was $16,519. The average cost of a wedding in Dallas is $28,810. That means I had about $12,291 less dollars than the average bride in the DFW area. However, I was determined to stretch this money as far as it would go, and that I did! Therefore, I want to help any other brides who might appreciate the tips and tricks!

Here is a breakdown of my budget:

Category	Budgeted Amount	Amount Spent
Invitations/Envelopes/Stamps	400	262.50
Wedding Dress	1700	1595.50
Photographer	1500	1515.50
Videographer	1300	1150.15
Wedding Cake (Bride’s Cake)	575	535.00
DJ	600
Flowers	700
Alterations	150
Shoes	54
Hotel Rooms	700
Wedding Ring for Matthew	400
Chapel & Reception	300
Security	210
Wedding Coordinator	375
Venue Rental	955
Food	6000
Bar	600
Lights in Reception	Not Budgeted
Grand Total:	Budgeted: $16519	Spent:

Topics that were previously discussed will be linked in the above chart!

Today I am going to focus on the fifth and sixth categories: DJ and FLOWERS!

DJ:

My dad had budgeted $600 for our DJ, and I’m just going to be really honest and say that it is almost impossible to find a DJ in DFW for that price. Also, my venue had a little catch to it- you could use a DJ on their preferred vendor list for free. Or, if you brought in your own DJ, you had to pay an extra fee for them to bring their equipment in. So it was most definitely impossible to find a DJ for less than $600 when you included that extra fee into the budget. So this was a category I had to splurge in, but it was well worth every penny! My venue recommended Chris Brown, and he was amazing! He met with us multiple times before the wedding to set all the music up. He had excellent recommendations for songs, and never complained when I changed our first dance song a million times! He was always quick to respond to my emails. Matthew and I had been to 12 weddings in the year leading up to ours (yes, 12!) and we had quickly learned that the DJ can make or break your reception. We wanted our reception to be fun, where our friends danced the night away. Chris made sure that happened for sure! He played the perfect amount of fast songs and slow songs, and did an amazing job of reading the crowd. He even had a cute game that we played together that everyone loved! Our reception was so much fun, and that was in large part due to Chris!!

My one and only tip on the DJ (And it isn’t going to help you save money!):

1. don’t go cheap on the DJ if you want a fun party! A good DJ is worth every.single.penny.

Flowers

My dad had budgeted $700 for flowers. Almost everyone told me that was not enough money and I would never be able to stick to this budget. I was amazed at how well I did though! I only spent $289.75 of this budget! I was so lucky here though.

Tips for staying under budget on flowers:

1. Book a venue that includes flowers in their cost!! My venue did just that! The price of the venue included flowers for the aisle, flowers for the front of the ceremony, and flowers for every centerpiece in the reception! Therefore, we only had to pay for bouquets, boutonnieres, and the flower girl ball.
2. Shop around and do research before committing! I did a lot of research when it came to flowers, too. There are some expensive places out there! I did research online, called around, and met a lot of them at bridal shows as well. I met a lady named Nancy from Ceila’s Floral Connection at a bridal show in Plano. She was precious. We met to discuss options and prices, and her prices were amazing! Her work was even more amazing. I booked her in a heartbeat! Her work was beautiful.

My girls, me, and our beautiful bouquets.

An upclose shot of the bouquets. Weren’t they gorgeous??

A shot of my bouquet with my dress. I love this picture so much!

My bouquet was exactly what I wanted! I also ordered a single yellow rose from Nancy. My brothers placed this rose in what would have been my mother’s seat. It is a tradition that we have done at all of our weddings.

My brothers walking down to place my mother’s rose in her chair.

One of the centerpieces that the venue created.

My venue did an amazing job with the flowers as well. I think all of the different flower accents went together so beautifully. Each centerpiece was a little different. Down the aisle were mason jars with similar flowers as well! I’m in love with all of the yellow!

Another one of the centerpieces that the venue created.

 

Mason jars with matching flowers were down the aisle!

My beautiful flower girl and her flower girl “ball”. (I have no idea what to call them!)

This was right after we were announced husband and wife, but it’s also a great shot of the floral that the venue created for the front!

I hope some of these tips help another bride save money in this category! I’ll see you next time for the next section of “How to stay within your Wedding Budget when it’s less than $20,000”!