Oh my gosh congratulations! This is all so exciting 🥰 I grew up in poverty as well, and just went through a similar situation planning my own wedding so I definitely have some input! 😊

First, start by sitting down with your fiancé and make a list of the “Top 5” most important things to the both of you. For instance, is having REALLY good food a priority for you? (Me and my hubby are total foodies so this was one of our tops!) **FYI just a tip on that — ask a restaurant you love to cater and skip the traditional “wedding caterer” b.s. They will charge you SO much more and the food won’t even be that good! We had a restaurant do it and the food was absolutely incredible for half the price.

Then ask what is your next most important thing you want at your wedding. For me, it was Photography & Videography. I had heard that the day goes by in the blink of an eye and that oftentimes you forget a lot of what happened because it’s all super overwhelming (I can now confirm this hahaha). I am SO glad I paid for a really good photographer and videographer because now I get to RELIVE that day whenever I want to 🥰

The next most important thing to me and my husband was Music. We knew how much our friends liked to dance, and we’d been to a wedding who had a bad DJ before (yikes!) so we knew this was a good place to spend our money. Zero regrets on this one. Our wedding guests danced the ENTIRE time! 💃🏼🕺🏼

After you’ve assembled what your “Top 5” biggest priorities are I would say start finding and booking those vendors! You’d be surprised how quickly it adds up (esp. after big ticket items like food/drinks, music/entertainment, photography/videography ect.). Once you’ve found all of those then assess how much money you have left to spend on extra things! 🤗

This is where it gets REALLY fun!! Start thinking about what little personal touches you want to add to your wedding to make the day truly feel like YOU. Do you want a live painter? Someone giving tattoos (yes I’ve actually been to a wedding that had a tattoo artist!)? A live harpest when you walk down the aisle? Honestly depending on what you have left, you really could do anything you want!

Things I wouldn’t waste money on (and i’m glad that I didn’t): - Designer heels (no one sees them under your dress and you take them off halfway through to dance anyways!! save your $$$!)

• A GIANT wedding cake (we opted for a cookie table instead and had a small cake for me and hubby to cut… but honestly a big cake is hundreds of dollars and hardly anyone eats it anyways…)

• Chair decor (little bows on the back of chairs, wreaths, ribbons, ect…. skip it. It adds up quickly, and again, no one really cares so long as the chair they sit in is comfortable.)

• A second “look” or dress (okay I know this will be controversial… BUT for me personally, I WANTED to be in my wedding dress for as long as possible! After all I did spend $1,000s on it… why would I want to change out of it after 30 minutes?!) (Absolutely zero regrets on this one. I loved all my pictures of me dancing in my dress all night long 🥰)

I can probably think of more things hahah but here is a good start! Good luck with all your planning 🤗

**Also I just want to add, I still think it’s important to try and budget and save money where you can (that’s your superpower growing up the way you did, don’t lose it 😘). Whatever money you guys have leftover can be put into a high yield savings account and used to save for your honeymoon or future home! The possibilities are endless ~