Having a budget also reminds you that you have friends!

This week was an amazing week for us, we managed to find a videographer and a photographer for the reception, both for free!

He Says

Wow! That’s all I can say for this past week. A friend of Kate’s family was reading these blogs and afterwards contacted both Kate and myself via Facebook offering straight out if he could be our videographer as he has done it a few times for people and enjoys doing it. He’s not a professional videographer, but Kate and I had decided at the start that we just wouldn’t have a videographer as it would extend our budget by about an extra $2,000, which we simply can’t afford. So he gave us a couple of sample DVD’s that he has done earlier in the year, and after watching them, we just couldn’t say no! Having photos of the day is going to be great, but also having an entire recording of the day is just going to be amazing.

Not long after that, we were looking for further wedding ideas or tips and we came across one story in a magazine where the bride and groom had someone at the entrance of the reception before guests arrived, who’s job was to take photos of people as they entered the venue. Seeing as though the photographer is only at the reception for a short while and doesn’t get photos of everyone we realised that we have a friend who’s already coming to the wedding and reception, who isn’t in the bridal party and also knows how to use a camera. Inspired by this idea we got into contact with them and asked them if they wouldn’t mind arriving maybe 20 minutes early to the reception so they could get people to pose for a photo as they entered. Of course they said yes, which also gave rise to the idea that after we have all the photos of everyone, we can individually personalise each of the thank you cards with photos of the guests.

She Says

Being on such a tight budget, we decided that we wouldn’t have a videographer at the wedding and that we would just get a family member to bring along a camera and record what they could of the day. This was one of our ideas for keeping the wedding budget as low as possible and also seemed redundant at the time because we are going to have photos to remind us of the day. After writing our last blog, a friend of my uncle, who was keeping up-to-date with our wedding plans was kind enough to ask us if we would like him to record the wedding for us. He mentioned that he has recorded approximately 5 weddings in the past and knowing that he is really good at photography, I got the impression he would also be really good with a video camera. When he asked us I got so excited and couldn’t stop smiling! Donald noticed my face just light up instantly. It was so nice of him to offer! 🙂