I recently read an article on 5280 Magazine’s web site about a Colorado couple who pulled together a wedding for two grand. Shocking, I know, but not impossible. For the sake of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I spent less than that on my own wedding. Our venue was only $100, which ended up being free because the guy felt badly it was raining so much that the view was obscured (we married in the top of a lighthouse). Our cake was from the local grocery store, flowers from the local market, and our reception was dinner for 12 at a fancy restaurant. Throw in a 10-day honeymoon drive up the pacific coast and our total wedding bill was around $1400. It can be done.

While I completely and totally understand the gist of this article is creative ways to save money on your wedding while still keeping it special, you should know that you get what you pay for. And if that’s what you want your wedding to be, great. You can stop reading now. Otherwise, if you think it’s realistic to have the wedding of every girl’s fantasy on that kind of budget, read on.

What I do love about this article, is their approach – the most important thing to nail down at the beginning of your wedding planning is what you expect out of your day and go from there.

So if you want exotic tropical flowers for your November wedding, and you want a photographer that comes with her own entourage and you want a cake with multiple tiers and custom flavors and you expect to have your wedding at a high-end country club on a Saturday night in the middle of summer, do not expect to fit that into a $2000 budget. While there are certainly ways to minimize the costs, you still need to be realistic on where you’re willing to give in. Is it more important to you that your guests rave about the delicious menu, or that the DJ gets them all out on the dance floor? Decide on your priorities and then you can find ways to fit the details into your budget, not the other way around.

Keeping this in mind will help you to have a special wedding day,  no matter what your budget is.