{Real Wedding} Shannon + Ross’ Cape Cod Beach Sand-Between-Your-Toes Wed-Fest
Yo, home-dizzles! Ready for more wedding-liciousness to ogle until your eyeballs pop? Welll … Shannon and Ross had a sweet, purple-infused beach wedding in Brewster, Mass. When I first looked at their photos, I instantly recognized the gloriousness that is Cape Cod. I instantly got uber excited, since the Cape holds a super special place in my heart. I hope y’all enjoy this sweet, fun and DIY-explosion of a wedding! xoxo
Name: Shannon and Ross
Occupation: Orthodontic Assistant
Wedding location: Ocean Edge Resort in Brewster, Mass.
Wedding Date: July 03, 2011
Budget: $12,000 – $15,000
How would you describe your wedding: Our wedding with traditional with a bit of spice!! We had the wedding party as well as my dad and I, dance down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever.” We also decided to go with cupcakes instead of the traditional cake.
What was your favorite part of your wedding? One of my favorite parts of the wedding was getting a photo booth to use as part of our guest favors. All of our guests had soo much fun in the booth. We had it set up so two strips would print. The guest keeps one copy and the second copy was glued into a scrapbook and the guests signed next to their pictures. It will be a great book to look back on.
What did you splurge on? We splurged on our location. We really wanted a destination wedding, but knew that a lot of our family wouldn’t be able to attend and we didn’t want that. So we picked a location that was close enough to drive, but still had the destination wedding feel. Our wedding was a beach theme and we were able to have our ceremony right on the water.
What did you save on? We saved on so many different parts of the wedding. By spending the bulk of our money on the resort, we had to be creative with everything else. One of my favorite things I saved money on was my wedding dress. I had gone dress shopping and found so many gorgeous dresses, but couldn’t see myself spending $1,000 or more on something I’m going to only wear for a few hours. I went on eBay and found a lady that had some really cute designs and that makes dresses custom fit. I decided to take the risk, and was more than glad I did. Including shipping, I only spent $200.
We decided to go with artificial flowers for our centerpieces. I Googled pictures of what other people have done with a beach theme and then went to Michaels and got everything to do myself. We saved thousands!! I had met with a florist prior to get an estimate and was told it would cost around $2,000. Our biggest savings yet, was definitely our photographer, Amanda Borozinski. I met her at a bridal show at Hidden Hills in Rindge, N.H. A two-minute conversation and I knew right away she was going to be our photographer!! Her personality and style of photography was everything we wanted. I showed my husband her website and he agreed! We met her for our engagement pictures and her and I began to talk about my love for photography. She mentioned that she was looking for someone to help edit and that it would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about the field. I was more than excited. I started working for Amanda and we came to an agreement that I would work to pay her work instead of writing her a check. This was amazing!! I loved the job and didn’t even consider it work!!
Was there anything you would have done differently, in retrospect? We would have planned the dance down the aisle better for the ceremony instead of just winging it.
What was your biggest challenge in planning? Staying within our budget.
What lessons did you learn from planning or from the wedding itself? No matter how prepared you think you are … there’s always going to be one little thing that was missed. You can’t stress and you just have to roll with the punches!!
What were your top 5 favorite things about your wedding?
1.) The photo booth
2.) The party bus that brought us all back to the hotel
3.) The location
4.) The food
5.) Being able to spend the night with all of our friends and family!!!
Least favorite?
We did open bar for everyone one the guest list for the first hour and it wasn’t announced, so not many people knew.
What was the worst piece of wedding advice you received?
The worst piece of advice we received was to elope.
The best? The best advice we received was to not settle. You only get married once, enjoy it!!!
Any other bits of wisdom? Search the Internet for everything. There are discounts and coupons on just about everything made!! Why pay full price if you don’t have too?
Budget breakdown?
Reception Site: Ocean Edge Resort, $15,016.02
Ceremony Site: Beach, $750.00
Photographer: Amanda Borozinski, $0.00
Dress: eBay
Tux: Express, $300.00
Hair: $0.00
Officiant: JP Marie, Sherman $140.00
Flowers, centerpieces: Michaels, $300.00
Flowers Boutques: Colls Farm Stand, Jaffrey N.H., $206.00
Cake: Family friend, Donna Clark, $150.00
DJ: Jim Bean, $800.00
Invitations $30.00
Save the Dates: Save the Date Magnet $140.00
Paper/Ribbo:n $20.00
Postage: $110.00
Favors: Candy, $200.00
Gifts: $600.00
Misc.: $200.00
Cake Topper: Etsy
Party Bus: Access Express, $1,024.00
Photo Booth: Red Eye Phtototh, $871.25
Total $20,857.27
Bride Parents Helped $5,000.00
Our Total $15,857.27
The Broke-Ass Bride is always looking for rad-tastic Broke-Ass weddings to feature. Interested? You can submit via Two Bright Lights or by emailing us directly!
-Christen
How did you manage to only spend $30 on invites?
Thanks for posting this! I am planning a Cape Cod wedding too and this gives me some great Broke Ass vendors to explore (and a photobooth suggestion… I'd been having a hard time finding one!).
Ohhh! I love the Cape. Where are you planning on doing it?
I looooove your bouquet! Are they all hydrangeas or something else? Thanks!
I view your website all of the time. But, I wish some of the 'broke' brides featured would spend less than $10,000.00 (which is a lot closer to our budget). You are hardly a 'broke-ass-bride' if you can spend $20,000+ on the wedding. With that being said, I do love the photos and ideas!
I agree with Karen. I mean, I love this wedding. It's beautiful, and everyone looks so happy. Beach weddings are the best! I would like to see smaller budgets, however. I know "broke" is up to interpretation, but can we please have some smaller budget weddings featured soon? I come to this site to be inspired, but it's becoming difficult to relate anymore because everything "broke" is 5x my budget.
More variety, please.
We have budgets of all sizes in the works! I promise. And, check our archives. We have tons of all different budgets. Like this $6k wedding: <a href="http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2011/02/sourhtern-real-wedding-inspiration-bbq-handmade-diy-wedding/http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2011/02/sourhtern… />And this $8k wedding: <a href="http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2010/07/real-wedding-raechel-joel/http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2010/07/real-wedd… />And this $10k wedding: <a href="http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2010/10/real-wedding-ila-hiroki-a-culinary-courthouse-commitment/http://www.thebrokeassbride.com/2010/10/real-wedd… />And that's just the start
The links do not work. Can you assist?
Can you PLEASE share the name of the eBay seller who you purchased your dress through? It's beautiful and for custom work to cost around $200 is incredible!
I super duper love their cake topper!
Really like this! Those miniature for the wedding cake was just cute.
The advent of online shopping has created a whole world that is now available to even the tightest of budgets. At Occasions In Print, we offer the same quality, style and distinction that one can find in the finest stationery stores. Our ability to offer elegant invitations at such a great price is due to our low overhead business model. We pass the savings along to brides with discounts that offer invitations at half the price of stores. As a result, brides with a small budget can purchase high quality invitations that reflect their style and maintain their sensibility.
Yeah, the links don't work.
but I'm excited to see the weddings in the works! Thank you for thinking of every variation of "broke", sometimes I feel sub-broke, haha…
$6k wedding: http://bit.ly/g9nC0F
$8k wedding: http://bit.ly/aR8U2r
$10k wedding: http://bit.ly/9eV3f7
Great "Cheap Ass" Wedding Planning I'd say – Pretty amazing and some great tips on how to do wedding planning on the cheap. By the way I used to live on "the Cape" beautiful place but the waters cold even in the summer.
Beautiful photos and I really like the cake topper.
Hi There!! I made the invites on my compute, bought card stock paper at Staples and then had Staples print them. We added a ribbon along the side and glued a star fish to it. They were really pretty for little cost!!
They were all hydrangeas!! We used white and purple to match our wedding colors!! Very pretty and not super expensive!!
Hello!! I just looked back in my email. Her store was Yvonne Bridal, I believe. Her email is ebay@yvonne-bridal.com. Good Luck!! She was awesome and super easy to work with!! Plus, I LOVED my dress!! Can't beat the price!!
Uhm how is 15k total exactly "broke ass"? My fiance and I have no money, no financial help from my parents or his in-laws and we REFUSE to take out loans to pay for it. Explain to me how I plan a wedding on ZERO dollars, let alone 15k?!
Must be nice.
I liked the idea of this site, until I see a bunch of people with 10k or more in weddings.
Sorry, taking my interest else wheres…..