Hundreds of Tips and Tricks for Hitting Your Budget

This was the first book I read after getting married. I was referred another book but when I saw the title I thought this was so me. It was a good idea because the book was a quick read and very informative. I took notes the whole way thru.

I will keep reading, but this author has never been broke. If she has been, it does not come across that way. She suggests things I do all the time because I am poor. I am not doing them at all now to save money. She has never been on government assistance, lived in a place with strict liquor laws (so a lot of her ideas are illegal where I live, and I am a certified addiction counselor, so encouraging me to break laws is not going to go over well), been a college student with no money, or been disabled/had medical problems. She also clearly has a large, supportive family and group of friends that are well connected. How nice. Those of us who don't have those things also deserve a decent wedding too with our few loved ones there. We are just as hardworking and have less. Also, I'm sorry. I don't think WIC is a funny joke (her invented phrase, "the wedding industrial complex"). WIC is Women Infants Children, and it is a government assistance program. In case you're wondering--yes, I am great at parties :) . I actually have thrown fantastic ones and hoped this book would help me because I have never done a wedding. I will try to take what I like and leave the rest.

So a broke ass bride guide only features weddings 10k and up? It should have been labeled "weddings for the middle class" The few tips they do provide are widely available online for FREE. save yourself the money for this book and put it towards your wedding.

Loveeeeee this book!! I read the whole thing within the first week of getting it. It has so many great ideas even though it is just the tip of the iceburg with wedding planning it is something I keep coming back to for more ideas. Its so easy to go over your budget but read this book and it will make it a lot easier

While there were some great ideas in this book, I found myself skipping most of the items. The most inexpensive wedding in the book was $10,000, and everything was held at a church with friends and family doing a lot of the leg work. I was very discouraged to see most of the "Broke-ass budgets" were so high. $25,000 for a wedding is no where near "Broke-Ass!!" I must be really broke, because my wedding budget is half of that! And, I am making due just fine, thank you! I will take some of the advice, but if you are interested in buying this book you probably already know most of the suggestions that you can take away from it. My advice, online research, be patient, don't buy anything impulsively, use your friends when you can, and price shop, price shop, price shop!!

Let me start out by saying I was EXTREMELY excited to read this book after reading all of the positive reviews. However, if I could return this book-- I would. It was a total waste of money since I learned absolutely nothing new or valuable from this book. I had very high expectations for this book and was sorely disappointed. I wish I would've not spent the money on this book since now I'm even more broke! To put things in perspective, the author stated in her book something along the lines of: "By bartering my social media/marketing skills for some vendors, I was able to cut $20,000 off my wedding cost..." WAIT, WHAT? Cut $20,000? That means your wedding is NOT budget friendly if that only cut down a little bit of your total wedding cost.

If you have been on Pinterest or Weddingbee then you'll know everything that's in this book. There are no real money saving tips or tricks or insights. I'm sorry but this book is not helpful for any real broke-ass brides. Do yourself a favor and save your money and not buy this book.

This book offered me no new information, nothing I didn't already know from googling, Pinterest, Weddingbee, etc. They are all common sensical ideas that anyone who has internet access can easily read about. If you haven't been living under a rock for the past couple of years then you should already know mostly everything in this book.

The Broke-Ass Bride's Wedding Guide by Dana LaRue is a hilarious and incredibly helpful book that can help ease you into wedding planning mode!

I picked this up a few months after our engagement, but before we started really getting into the weeds of wedding planning. If you can, I highly recommend picking this up soon after getting engaged, before you let the stress of wedding planning kick in.

However, if you've already hit the wall of stress, you have to go get this book right away! Trust me. It really helped me! How? I'll explain in a minute.

Let's dive in!

Right from the introduction, the authors fun and upbeat tone drew me right in!

It is very hard to explain... but the book is also written in a way that made me feel comfortable, like this was the perfect wedding planning book for me. So many lines in the intro really jumped out at me and made me feel both a bit calmer about the whole wedding planning process, but also excited and fired up rather than stressed!

And I mean…the font is purple. So of course I loved that feature! :)

There were SO many passages and pages that I took many notes from. But of course, as this isn't a one-size-fits-all kind of book, so there were other sections that I just skimmed or occasionally totally skipped.

Other sections made me crack up!

A few of the things that really stood out for me and where I am in the wedding planning process included:
* Sending out a group email to the wedding party to introduce everyone and giving them a way to contact one another if needed.
* Budget-friendly bachelorette/bachelor party tips.
* The pros and cons of various music options for the day of.
* Tips to keep in mind before hiring any vendors.
* Tips to make the most of the big day.

My favorite passages:
Embracing you inner Broke-Ass means using creativity as currency to rock a bad-ass wedding without breaking the bank.

Remember, you are a team. Thus, teamwork is to be expected. And there is no i in “teamwork,” but there is an ass in “forced assistance."

Like many things in this world, it's not the size of your wedding party that matters, but the motion of the… ocean? Wait, no. If this wedding party's a-rockin', don't come a... Oh, hell, let's take this back a tick.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Unlike other books of this type where you read just the parts you need to know, I actually read through the whole thing, even stuff I knew we were not going to do.

I just really liked the friendly, open tone the book had, like you were just chatting it up with your bestie. Even with a more laid back and humorous tone it did have a lot of good information, it even had Pro and Con lists for some of the things so you could get a good idea of what you wanted to choose. I prefer reading how-to books that give you all the options and help you decide what is best, because it isn't like everyone is the same and is going to do things the same way. It even had a few 'Do Not's to hopefully help you avoid any disasters.

I would recommend this to anyone who is planning a wedding, it shouldn't be the only book you read, but it would be a strong start. Worth the money and the time. I just wish she had more books for me to read!

I purchased this after flipping through it at my local Barnes and Noble. The writing style is an absolute hoot and kept me turning the pages! I bought this for my youngest daughter, now 26 and newly engaged to a great future son-in-law. But they are trying to make everything happen on such a limited budget and I could see that it was causing friction. This book seemed like a perfect way to get her to have all of the right information in one place, not just for budget and deal tips, but for what really goes into making a wedding successful. I loved that there were so many examples of how different brides dealt with venues, day-of-coordinators, and of course most importantly for my daughter, the music! This book is more than just a guide to getting a deal. It's a real handbook to help prepare young ladies for everything that goes into their big day. My daughter loves it!

Between the bridal magazines and bridal TV shows, it's easy to fall into a mindset that you MUST do/buy certain things for your wedding. This book was the perfect thing to read early on while planning my wedding because it got me into the right frame of mind.

Basically, this book tells you that you don't HAVE to do anything- it relieves you of that pressure and reminds you that your wedding should be whatever you and your fiance want it to be, not what the bridal magazines say it should be.

There are some great tips in here for how to plan your wedding for whatever budget you have. And when my fiance and I have a question about something, we consult this book and the Broke-Ass Bride's website (which has a lot of great deals and ideas on there!) I recommend this book to all of my friends getting married who are anxious about the planning process.

This.book.is.amazing! After deciding on New Year's Eve to get married the following autumn I scouted the interweb for some books that wasn't going to tell me a about the thousand things I needed for my wedding just to make it a decent one. I wanted something a little more......human. What I didn't need was something that would have me in a stress rash after the first five pages.
When I found "broke ass bride" it did the exact opposite of that! It is a funny, handy , lovely and very useful! I read it cover to cover on the flight back from my holiday in Florida to Stockholm, Sweden. That's 9.5 hours of not even wanting to watch the in flight movies but making notes and reading this book! It might not be to everyone's liking, some might find the " other" books more handy, but for me and my vintage wedding-this was what I needed!
Hugs&kisses from me to all you brides out there!

This book really isn't much different than any other "wedding on a budget less than $20,000" or "how to save money on your wedding" guide than is already on the market. I did get a few ideas though but I get at least a few ideas from EVERY single book I have ever read on the subject. It's worth renting at your local library but that's it. I'm also not really into the trend "its your wedding so do it your way!" I was already planning on doing just that but if you need validation from strangers then there are a few bridal guides out there that repetitively tell you that it's your wedding, so do things how you want but that's about all they help you with.

This is the fourth wedding book I've purchased so far and by far the best. Hilarious, smart, organized, and by the end I literally had tears in my eyes thinking about how excited I am for the big day. This book made me feel reassured and was written with such great voice I felt like the author was a friend of mine just talking me through it all. A must buy.

This book doesn't disappoint fans of the Broke-Ass Bride and will be new found joy to those who haven't followed her blog! Very entertaining while still giving new ideas and great advice. A must have for those planning their weddings and for those who enjoy good writing.