Eco Couple Has Dream Wedding for $2,000

 

When Sara Cotner and Matt Bradford of Houston, Texas, set out to plan their wedding, they decided on a budget limit of only $2,000.

Seven months later, they held that wedding and a reception for 80 people… and came in under budget!

The process started with the creation of a wedding constitution, the eight guiding principles by which all their wedding decisions would be made.

Among their goals:

• Make this a celebration of love, not a show.
• Ensure that the celebration is connected to nature and kind to the environment.
• Keep the focus on friends and family.

Then, the couple took to the web and kept a diary of details on their wedding blog, 2000dollarwedding.com.

The pair shopped for bargains, involved wedding guests in celebratory preparations, and employed a lot of discipline.

The wedding rings were also creatively crafted; Sara and Matt invited family and close friends to contribute broken and unwanted jewelry, then eco-jeweler greenKarat took the broken and unwanted jewelry, refined it, and made it into new rings. Not only were the rings made with post-consumer recycled gold, but the gold had emotional value, too.

Says Sara:

“They were made from the recycled gold of our friends and family, so they have a ton of sentimental and symbolic value. It’s as if we took all of their influence and are now shaping it into something new.”

Cost to the couple after the credit for gold submitted? $109.00.  Retail value of the rings?  $1,275.00.

Now that’s impressive!

Say Sara and Matt:

“Our goals helped us stay focused on what really mattered to us throughout the entire process. Planning a meaningful and memorable wedding did not require us to lose our sanity and our savings. We had the wedding of our dreams, on our own terms.”