Any brides paying for there own wedding?

I can't say 'we', my future husband is basically fitting the whole bill. I'm in my senior year of college and can only work full time, the FH is in the military so basically he's the one with the savings and money to spend. We decided right of the bat we wanted a small wedding (100 people) and he gave me a very reasonable budget to work with so I can't complain too much.

We both decided we rather pay for the whole thing even though his parents originally offered money because we are both very strong minded and really didn't want anyone elses opinions. So the moral of the story is it's sort of difficult becuse it's always easier spending someone elses money but unfortunately for me my FMIL loves to impress her opinion so if shes not paying she can't really say much.

We got engaged January 1, 2009 and were married on October 17, 2009. When we got engaged, we had no clue as to how we were going to pay for it. And due to cultural differences, both sets of parents though the other would cover the costs.

So....we told them that we would do this on our own. It was too early in the planning process to have anyone upset over money. We both knew we had generous parents that would pitch in and help if we really really needed it, but we were also determined to do this on our own.

In the end, we made it. Barely, but we did :). I am NOT an ultra picky bride. I did not have custom invitations, but I did find the CUTEST castle invitations for my reception at The SandCastle at invitations4sale.com. An evening Saturday wedding would not make it possible for us to get married in 10 months as it would probably be close to double the price of a daytime wedding, so we had an afternoon wedding. I also found that Saturday night sometimes meant starting at 7 and ending at 1am. I didn't really like the time slot. My hall had beautiful arrangements (fake) so I saved money there. My hall also included the cake. The other thing I did was go for a package deal with True Love Wedding. They took care of my hair, makeup, engagement photos, dresses (3!), limo, video, day of photos, aisle runner, etc. That saved me a LOT of time and money, and overall I thought they did a great job.

At the end, our generous parents were very generous with our wedding gifts. And since we had spent almost an entire saving, we were able to keep ALL our gifts. We were also able to learn how to budget our money better, and to us, this entire saving for the wedding thing turned out to be the best thing ever. We were extremely proud of ourselves.

I know its not easy, and it may be stressful, but in the end it will make you better, stronger, and the sense of accomplishment is unimaginable.