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It’s a bride’s dream – the perfect dress that makes her groom mouth "wow" as he turns to look at her for the first time. Going for the designer look that dominates the bridal magazines is one path to the dream dress. However it comes at a price. With an investment of your time, you can really save a lot of money. It is very important to have a budget for your dress as part of a bigger budget plan. Investing all your funds on a dress may lead to the bride wearing her ideal dress but the rest of the day being poor in comparison.

The first steps

The best way to decide on who, where and how the dress will be made is to gather all available contacts who could help. These include

• finding close friends who know how to make one
• checking out shops that offer large discounts on old designs and stocks
• for people who are really working on a tight budget, borrow or rent a wedding gown for them to use.
• Evening gown hire shops who might have a vintage dress or other ideas than may save money but still look stunning.

Ask around other recent brides for their contacts and talk to people like local hair dressers and florist for other ideas. You might find someone who doesn’t spend a fortune on advertising and likewise does not charge a fortune. Most importantly as you work through this list of suppliers and start looking a dream dresses … try not to show you have fallen in love with a dress. At least not to the supplier, if you do this they have the advantage in negotiating price.

Negotiate

Try to narrow the list of dresses and supplier down but if you can keep your options open. You need to have a plan B and be able to walk away from a negotiation if it going badly. If you can’t do this you need to be a good actor and be able to pretend to walk away. Being able to walk away and playing one supplier against the other is a key tactic. The supplier needs your money if they act like they don’t then they are either pretending or don’t need your money. If you meet the later you might wonder if you should go somewhere else. Do negotiate, don’t just accept the price on display. Make sure you are talking to the manager when negotiating price. If you can’t get the manager to begin with then press for what you can with the salesperson, get it in writing and then come back later and ask for the manager late. A good way to get started is to ask "how flexible are you on price?". This gives you a big clue. If they appear inflexible you need to appear as inflexible based on your budget. Point out that you have a budget which makes the price an issue. Ask for discounts for paying in advance. If they will be providing bridesmaids dresses ask for a discount on the whole package. Don’t disclose your real budget. If need be have pretend budget slightly lower than your real budget and let the supplier "win" by breaking your "pretend" budget. Don’t give in on this too easily, pick the right time. Another useful tactic is to leave with the offer in writing to consider it. Don’t forget your future husband has to agree to any breaking of the budget this is good excuse to leave. Leaving is very useful to allow you to think clearly and consider thing less emotionally. Leaving also gives you a chance to try negotiating with your plan B supplier. If you feel up to it have a plan C dress which you still love and practice the negotiating with this supplier first. Getting the dress you want is worth the effort, it will feel even better if you managed to negotiate a reasonable price. Just remember the more you save the more you can spend on other areas of your special day.

Technorati Tags: Wedding dress, Wedding Savings

Gift of a honeymoon

Listing yourself at a honeymoon gift registry could reduce or offset the cost of honeymoon entirely. It works similar to a wedding registry. Your guests could buy you an entire honeymoon, or buy parts of it for you like a dinner or sponsor a part of your flight, or simply contribute money towards your honeymoon. There are a lot of honeymoon registries are available online (try www.notanothertoaster.co.uk/ www.myhoneymoon.co.uk/).

Home exchange

On a honeymoon, you would rather be with locals rather than in tourists, then why not look for a home exchange. Home exchange works with you staying in some one else’s house and they stay at your house. It might sound a little risky; many home exchange clubs have facilitated thousands of home exchanges over the past 5 decades. There are many couples who would like to swap places with you. Home exchange clubs are work through memberships and they are pretty cheap at approximately £30-40 per year. Home exchange can save a lot in travel and lodging costs, while allowing you to know the local culture better and make new friends. (Try www.homebase-hols.com/)

Hospitality Clubs

Hospitality clubs work by getting you into private homes of people who would like to host you. Membership to these clubs is free and works on an exchange basis. Someone might host you today, in return for which you may have to host someone voluntarily in the future. This not only saves money, but also gives you a local window to information and secure stay. The largest hospitality club boasts of about 25,000 members in 150 countries. can hook you up with people who are willing to host you in their private homes; the largest such club has more than 23,000 members in 148 countries. Membership is usually free, although you’re asked to provide hospitality to others (on a voluntary basis) sometime in the future. In addition to saving you money, it’s a great way to meet locals who can give you an insider’s perspective on your honeymoon destination. Other places you can look for free or reduced-cost accommodations include hostels (they’re not just for the young and single anymore) and monasteries and convents, some of which open their doors to guests for little or no charge. (Try www.hospitalityclub.org/)

Camping

Camping can be a great way having a romantic honeymoon under the stars and right by fires, saving money at the same time. Camping is very inexpensive, maximum of £20 at most places, cheaper if you can cook. Take proper clothing, sleeping bags, waterproof tents and mattress pads etc to make it more comfortable. Many national parks provide cabins to stay and are very affordable. You could mix up a few camping nights with hotel nights to make the whole honeymoon romantic and affordable.

Off season travel

Choose destinations that are offering off season pricing and coincide with your honeymoon. For example, hill stations in winter and sea sides in summer offer off season discounts up to 50% off the normal price. Off season in hill station winters may not be appealing but sea sides in summers certainly is. Off season does not mean enduring bad weather, it means going to a place where the tourist rush is lesser in a given period of time, all the more appealing for honeymooners.

Budget travel

Check the travel brochures for promotional deals that offer heavy discounts on travel and lodging. A lot of them have websites on the internet and are worth watching out for. Sign up for free newsletters with the sites; they will keep you abreast of their latest offers.

Plan Yourself

The last but not the least important is to plan your honeymoon trip professionally including budgets, hotels, travel arrangements and dates. We don’t want to end up spending the night in the airport for lack of planning. Do we?

Technorati Tags: Honeymoon, Honeymoon ideas