Things we're splurging on:

Photographer - it's the one thing (other than each other!) that we'll have left after the day, so we went for a better package than we might have planned on otherwise

Location - It was really important to me to get married in a particular town (Lake Geneva, WI) because my family has a lot of history there. Unfortunately, it's a huge resort town, and we're getting married during their busy season. Luckily we've been able to get some discounts due to family friends still there, but it's still a little pricey.


Things we're going moderate:

Food - Since we're having an evening reception on a Friday night (well past dinner time) we're having a dessert and hors d'oeuvres (I don't think I spelled that right) reception. It'll come up to about the same money-wise as a cheaper plated dinner, but we'll be able to offer a lot of selection and a lot better quality food than we could have with a sit down dinner. Plus, I don't think many people would want to wait until 9:30 on a Friday night for a cold piece of chicken

Flowers - We're mixing some silk with some fresh... silk for the decorations that no body will be up close and personal with, and fresh for the bouquets, bouteniers, table decorations, etc.

Invitations - We had planned on not going all out on these, but we found some we absolutely loved that were in the mid-range. I'm glad we did now, because I've really noticed that it stands out when you get a low-end invitation. At the same time, it wasn't worth the $4 a piece ones, either

Things we saved on:

My dress: I found my dream dress in the informals section, because it has a sweep train instead of a chapel or longer - perfect for our outdoor wedding. It was actually well under what I had budgeted.

Music: I got a deal on a string quartet through some friends for the ceremony. For the reception, the father of our best man does DJing as a side business and is going to play our reception pretty much for cost.

Cake: Since we're having cocktails and desserts as the main reception focus, we may just cut out the cake alltogether (since Mr. Ginger and I both hate it) and focus more on the other desserts. Otherwise, we'll have a small mockup cake and the dreaded SHEETCAKE