My 5 months of wedding planning was amazing and it taught me so much about myself and was so fun! From my experience I would love to share what I learned those five months of engagement.

*Personalize Your Wedding

Make your own theme that fits you…I had a personalized, Midwestern, English Garden, Fall, and Thanksgiving themed wedding in which I incorporated Thanksgiving food, topiaries, white roses, monograms, wheat sprays, and red berries to mention a few.

My ‘something old’ was my mother’s pearls draped in my floral bouquet, my ‘something new’ was my dress, my ‘something borrowed’ was my grandmother’s lace Bible that I carried with my bouquet, and my ‘something blue’ was a rosette I had in my DIY garter.

I wasn't able to find that perfect garter, so I decided to create my own. I was given a garter band, so I chose to incorporate my wedding colors in it by adding 3 satin rosettes I ordered from Etsy.com (blue, gold, and white). I then bought a peacock feather from Michaels and added it to bring a little sass to the garter. I attached the rosettes and feather with a hot glue gun and let it set over night. It took me less than 10 minutes and cost $10 to a personalized, perfect garter! It turned out exactly how I envisioned.

*Organization

Keep a Binder with tabs to organize your many ideas, dreams, magazine pictures, and receipts! Along with a binder, keep a small notebook in your purse to jot down ideas and notes that you keep with you at all times. Take the small notebook to all of your showers, so that someone can make a list of your guests and their gifts to make thank you cards easier for you.

*Reception

My caterer was a friend from church and we sat down and brainstormed within the first month of engagement a working menu that included thanksgiving style foods. We had two desires: the food would be a hit with my guests and fit into our budget! We had everything I could wish for: black forest ham, turkey, green beans, sweet honey glazed carrots, yeast rolls with cinnamon butter, baked Minnesota apples, Wisconsin cheese, assorted pickles (thanksgiving family tradition), and a variety of butters and jams from a Minnesota Apple Orchard.

There was a round table designated for desserts including carrot cake, pumpkin rolls, fudge, snicker doodle cookies, molasses cookies, and pumpkin cream cheese cupcakes. We served a coffee bar, warm apple cider, sweet tea, and lemonade.

*Budget worthy Pointers

Set the budget and stick to it! I created the atmosphere I wanted in the space provided for me. I had my ceremony and reception at Gateway Free Will Baptist Church, which decreased the cost of a reception site. I wanted a dim, romantic, mingling environment at the afternoon reception so I borrowed identical electrical fireplaces to place on stage, had flameless vanilla candles on the cocktail tables, formed a chandelier look with twinkle lights with the netting of lights that go on bushes for Christmas decorations, used no fluorescent lights, and created a tent feel by running plastic table runners from the corners of the ceiling to the chandelier which looked like fabric, but cost much less. The woman that helped me decorate had that amazing money-saving idea, Janet Postlewaite! I mixed classical music with jazz love songs!

Look for deals and promotions! I hired boardwalkphotobooth.com to come to my reception and I paid a 1/4 of the original cost by getting a living social ad. Our favors were strips of pictures with our monogram on them for keepsakes.

To personalize our wedding I used the monogram from weddingchicks.com and used them in our invitations, ceremony slides, reception sign, photobooth sign, and placed on the photograph my guests went home with! Great inexpensive way to be cohesion to our wedding!

*My Advice

My wedding was perfect to me and couldn't have happened without me accepting the help of my family, friends, and church family! Don't deny help offered to you; people are willing and sincerely want to be a part of your wedding celebration. One piece of advice I was given was make sure you still place more time and emphasis on your marriage than on planning the wedding during your engagement! Your marriage is what lasts and your wedding is just one day!