DIY Life

Well, here we are -- the final edition of Wedstravaganza! It's been a long and bumpy ride for me going through all the final details of the gorgeous wedding that blurred past my wife and I this past August, but now the journey is just about complete for regular readers of this series. For those of you who would like to read all seven past editions of Wedstravaganza, I've included all the links below:

Wedstravaganza, Part 1
Wedstravaganza, Part 2
Wedstravaganza, Part 3
Wedstravaganza, Part 4
Wedstravaganza, Part 5
Wedstravaganza, Part 6
Wedstravaganza, Part 7

View the picture galleries, then be sure and read the rest of this feature after the break.




What I'll be covering in this final edition will be a wrap-up of the wedding day (yes, we had tasks to perform right up until the ceremony!), the honeymoon, and a whole load of pictures from our ceremony and reception. Yes, there will be a few honeymoon images in there too. As promised, I'll also be giving you a cost breakdown for every single part of the entire wedding so you can get a feel for how much all this cost. Generally speaking, the nationwide average for a complete wedding and reception is to the tune of $28,000 -- and that doesn't even include the honeymoon or wedding and engagement rings. Did we stay below that in the midst of putting together an entire wedding in less than five weeks! Yes -- by far.

After Part 7 of Wedstravaganza, you may be wondering where we went for our honeymoon. Well, I pretty much covered the lead-up to the wedding day here, so now I will spill the beans. The morning of August 4th (the Saturday morning after the wedding), we jetted off to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a seven-day honeymoon retreat and, admittedly, vacation. After planning a wedding in such a short time, we were both ready to get away from the daily grind, enjoy ourselves, and celebrate our nuptials. You couldn't have picked a better place, as Playa del Carmen was the prettiest beach I had ever seen and the honeymoon was just fantastic. Nothing beats sitting with your spouse under the Caribbean sun with a tropical drink in hand and enjoying each other's company in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

So, with that said -- and before you hit the gallery of pictures below -- here are the numbers for the bean counters in the audience. Trust me, you'll learn to be a bean counter any time you plan a wedding from start to finish. Well, unless you're Donald Trump or something.

• Dominion House wedding and reception center (rental, ceremony, reception, cakes, decorations, staffing, food and servers, projector rental and alcohol servers): $8,900
• Wedding Dress and bridesmaid dresses: $1,000
• Groom, groomsmen and other male tuxedo rentals: $650
• Invitations: $260
• Postage for invitations and RSVP cards: $45
• Flowers, corsages and boutonnieres: $500
• Reception table favors, cards and misc. decorations and guest gifts: $100
• Photography for ceremony and reception: $400
• Deejay for reception: $225

Total cost for wedding, reception and all other inclusive items: $12,080

• Seven-day all-inclusive honeymoon package for two to Playa del Carmen (RIU Playacar resort): $2,150

So, here is where the total cost is. Ready for it? For the entire wedding, reception, materials, and personnel required to pull together our dream wedding in only five weeks, and a full seven-day, all-inclusive honeymoon for two, stands at a grand total of $14,230.

There you have it; the picture-perfect wedding in under five weeks at half the national average for a full wedding (and I'm throwing in the honeymoon cost to boot!). It seems hard to imagine that we pulled off such an awesome wedding in less than a month and a half, and spent half the national average, but that's how it turned out. We received so much love, support, money, and everything else from all our friends and family that there are no words to describe how lucky we felt during all that time and how we feel today.

I hope you enjoyed this eight-part feature. My goal was to give aspiring wedders hope that you can pull off a picture-perfect wedding for a reasonable cost, even in 2007 (and beyond). Our advice, though, is to try and plan in more time than five weeks. Still, we did it -- and you can too!