Wedding Advice: Loose from the Zoo

Hello fabulous readers of Cupcakes & Couture! My name is Becky and I blog over at www.loosefromthezoo.com about life with my fiancé Steve and our goofy cat Bert. I’ve dropped by to blog for you while Amy is out of commission, but certainly feel free to head over and say hello anytime!

2014 is the year of weddings in our little world.  Beyond our own wedding in September my sister, two cousins, and several friends all have plans to tie the knot between now and October.  Though wedding season isn’t exactly on the horizon yet, we definitely have a lot of pre-planning to do, when it comes to navigating all the RSVPs this year.

When it comes to weddings, it always seems like they come in waves, which means the costs and craziness of attending can multiply pretty quickly when your Saturdays start filling up.  In hopes to make 2014 an easy breezy year for those of you on too many guest lists, I present to you, a list of sanity-saving tips:

1.       Start Early.

Ok so you should probably wait until you get a Save-The-Date for some folks, but when family members have set their date it’s never a bad idea to put a kayak price alert on the flight you’re going to need.  And pre-paying your hotel when you’ve got some extra Christmas cash will definitely hurt less than scraping up more money for a room when you just bought a gift and shoes.

(Sleek It Out Dress in Cobalt from Modcloth)

2.       Find a perfect Little-Colored-Dress for your closet.

Black isn’t appropriate for every wedding, and white… well… let’s not go there.  But turning out your closet screaming “I have nothing to wear,” is a little less horrifying the day or so before a wedding if you’ve got a solid back-up plan.  A reliable, knee length, solid color or quiet patterned, tailored dress WILL save you someday.

(image source: bethecarefreebride.wordpress.com)

3.       Consider skipping the pre-wedding parties

When engagement parties, bridal showers, and bachelorette parties start entering the situation, 5 weddings can turn into 30 different parties pretty quickly.  Gifts, outfits, and drinks get expensive and that’s if you don’t have to travel to events.  Consider imposing some reasonable limits on the pre-wedding festivities and your pocketbook will definitely thank you, not to mention the fact that the reception will be a lot more fun if it’s not the fiftieth time in a month you’ve all gone dancing together.

(source: theknot.com)

4.       Forgo the guilt of your “regretful decline.”

Certainly there are some weddings you’d rather die than miss, but when attending a wedding feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, remember that there are many ways to show that you care for your friends and their marriages.  Friends who will resent you for missing “their big day,” may not be worth the stress to your finances and life, and many friends will be secretly grateful you kept their guest list numbers from getting completely out of control.

5.       Check the wedding website.

There are many reasons to actually visit that little URL the bride paid extra to letterpress into her invitations.  It’s polite, of course, seeing as the couple took the time to make a website, but the online registry usually can give you a head start on covering gift costs, the hotels they have reserved often come at discounted wedding block rates, and the bride will thank you for not burdening her personally with your requests for information.

Thanks for having me, Amy!