Wedding things

Wedding planning is stressful, and can be non-fun at times. I thought I'd share some things I've learned along the way (so far anyway, we're far from done):

1. Having a graphic designer fiance is A Very Useful Thing.
Wayne designed our Save-the-Dates (by the way, wedding bloggers, please stop abbreviating this as STDs!! Not good!!), and we were able to have them printed on magnets for very little money. The company we used also pre-addressed all of our envelopes.
Hint: Make sure to get some envelopes printed that are blank except for your address - these are swell for last-minute additions, or address corrections. Sure, they'll look a little cheap if the address is hand-written, but you're giving these people free booze! Come on! What more could you ask for?

2. Kinko's is an invaluable resource.
Rather than shilling out even more money to Paper Source (they are the fine folks tasked with doing our invitations), we decided to print out the hotel information cards ourselves. Wayne was able to find all of the fonts for our invitations online (two were available for free, one was $24), so he designed the cards and had them printed at Kinko's. It was about $7 for 125 cards! Had we known this, we probably would have just done the invitations ourselves.

3. Find vendors who are new to the area.
My fantastic, adorable, lovely photographer had just moved to northern Virginia when I booked her. As a result, we are paying about half what an established photographer would charge (the average price I found was about $3000 for a full day). The only way to get a better deal would be to use a friend, which brings me to my next point ...

4. Friends are called friends for a reason.
Chances are, unless they're crazy busy, they want to help you! I have a friend doing my makeup for the price of a nice bottle of wine - awesome! We also have friends who are lending us their sound equipment, and one who is singing during the ceremony. Don't be afraid to ask, just maybe don't ask for a million dollars. Or for one to serve as a hitman. But, you know. Never hurts to test the waters.

5. Book vendors as far in advance as you can.
Our wedding is going to be on October 9, 2010. I started booking vendors in July of 2009. As a result, I was able to reserve services before prices went up for the next year, which is awesome and leaves more money for us to stock the bar. Essential.

6. Unless you want the works, find a friend, relative, or actor-for-hire to emcee your reception.
If you don't need sound equipment or lighting, the price of a DJ can be pretty extreme (think around $1000 for a few hours). Ask friends and family, or post on community theatre boards and see if you can find someone that way - you'll save a lot of money, and it will be more personal. If going the actor route, beware of divas. They are even worse in the community theatre world because ... well ... no one knows why. It doesn't make sense.

7. Finding a wedding officiant is difficult if you aren't a church-goer.
...Yeah. If anyone has advice on this, please share.