A bit overwhelmed...

How do you other less organized brides keep it together?
I've put in hours and hours of research to find the best but most affordable EVERYTHING... from the smallest detail to where to have our reception or honeymoon-
How do you pick?
What did you splurge on and what did you scrimp on?
Which items were most important to you?

Get an excel spreadsheet and list in one column all the major expenses -flowers,RH, limos, dress, favors, photog, video, etc. Just break down how much you want to spend per vendor based on your research and then put in the avg amt- ie) video is $1500, photog $3000 (just throwing #s) and then gauge where you want to spend more or less. It helped me save on my dreSs and splurge on other items bc I ws able to see where I wanted to move my $$ around.

You will also have a gauge of when to STOP! Haha

First thing I did was get a weddings budget book. Those big ones, with all the advertisement is a waste of money ( just my opinion), I got one with a time line and also used this website and a few others to get figures. Nice and simple.
We booked our RH because the food menu was not a typical wedding menu, area is just beautiful too. We are also splurging on the cake.Just make a list of what is most important to you to the least.
I bought a regular binder, decorated it and I cut ideas out of magazines and tape them in the binder. Anything found on the internet, I copied, saved and will print it out to put in my book.

Take a look at your guest list and set the budget. From there start looking at RH's that have everythin you are looking for. For me, the most important vendors were vide and photo. Definitely take your time when picking those 2 and really find out the type of style you want. You can find video for around $1000 and photo starting at $1700 (all just depends on what you want). Leave out albums to cut cost for photo.

I honestly thought I was gonna skimp on invites and flowers and while I didn't go overboard I did find myself wanting a certain look and spending for it.

For HM that are not to expensive try a cruise. HTH