KATE, MARKETING MANAGER FOR APW & kARYNE, news editor for Scribd

Sum-up of the wedding vibe: Our wedding was sophisticated, but not stuffy, very (very) intimate, and completely full of joy.

Planned budget: $10,000
Actual budget: $15,000 (including gifted favors and dinner)
Number of guests: 12
LOCATION: Albion, California

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Where we allocated the most funds:

Venue, photographer, florals. We wanted a venue we could also stay at, and we were lucky to have found the Albion Schoolhouse via Airbnb. It’s a stunning property, and it was just perfect for us and our twelve guests. Unfortunately it has since been sold and is being used as a private property.

Where we allocated the least funds:

Kate’s dear family friend Alex is a private chef and caterer, and he graciously gifted the food and cooked the appetizers and dinner for everyone. Our photographer Cristal also charged us a half-day rate of four hours since we weren’t having a large wedding and didn’t need coverage past dinner. We had a cake made for something to cut, but also had everyone bring their favorite baked goods. We had tons of our families’ favorite desserts to fill the table. Our dear friends gifted us special home-brewed beer with labels that Kate designed, which we gave as favors to everyone, along with custom matching pint glasses that Kate’s dad and his wife gifted. Also, Kate found her dress on super clearance on Bluefly for $250, which was amazing!

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What was totally worth it:

Flowers and venue and photography. Hands down. Especially the flowers and photography. Both our florist, Kimberly, and our photographer, Cristal, were just incredible to work with. We worked to find vendors who were either in the LGBTQ community or allies, and ones who were female or minority owned. Instagram was a huge resource, actually, since we were planning a wedding outside of the Bay Area. Lots of hashtag deep-diving resulted in some wonderful vendors! I loved working with Megan of Water & Well to do the lettering for our place cards and smash bags. She hadn’t worked with marble tile before and was totally great about figuring out what worked best, and they just came out beautiful. All of our guests have said how much they love having them on their desks or at home as a reminder of the wedding (bonus favors!).

What was totally not worth it:

The rentals situation ended up being a total pain. The venue had a table that could seat twelve, but they had strict rules around its use. So we rented a table that would seat all of us and checked with the rental company REPEATEDLY about its size; we were assured it would seat everyone comfortably. When it arrived, it was very clear that barely eight of us would fit. We made the executive decision to just use the venue’s table and be very careful with it. We used the rented table for the desserts! Also, videography just wasn’t in the budget (something we still regret), so we set up a GoPro in the chuppah to record the ceremony. We’d tried it out the day before and morning of, and after A LOT of fiddling around finally had it working perfectly. And, of course, it completely did not work the way it had during the practice runs. It was so windy during the ceremony, all you can really hear is the wind and the wood creaking. Fun times.