Hello! Welcome to Real Bridal Advice. Having just gotten married and gone through much learning (and some suffering) planning the wedding, I wanted to share all I've learned with other brides. It can be an intimidating thing planning your wedding without the help of a wedding planner. I did have lots of help from family and friends (thank goodness for them!) and now I get to share their ideas and advice with you as well. Each week I plan to discuss a new topic and let you know what worked (and didn't work).

First I'd like to give you a little background on me and the wedding so you know where I'm coming from. My advice may not apply to you, or it may hit home immediately. I'm 26 and marrying the love of my life after two years of dating. We lived together before he proposed so that changes some of the dynamic of our experiences. Our parents were both in support of the marriage, but my parents were a little skeptical of having a big wedding. My husband still being in school and me only having an entry level job, kept us limited in the kind of wedding we could have. With our parents help we were able to throw a wedding for sixty close friends and family for about $4000-5000 (give or take). Not a bad price compared to some of the books I'd read. Some of the stresses I dealt with were designing and helping my mother make my dress from scratch, finding a vegan caterer and baker, and trying to estimate how many RSVPs to expect from my large extended family who live far away.

I'll go into more detail on all this later. I really look forward to sharing my thoughts and ideas with everybody. Please don't hesitate to share your ideas and advice as well! Hopefully some bride out there will find a pearl of wisdom in my blog and find their wedding planning goes smoother. If I share nothing else with all you brides out there, let me express, "Congrats! and Good Luck"!