The Broke-Ass Bride

Sponsor Intro: Buy Our Honeymoon

“This wedding is the most money I’ve ever spent on anything. Can we just ask our guests for cash?” You can hint, you can pray, but no you cannot ask.  But you can register for the entire cost of your honeymoon at Buy Our Honey Moon.

Buy Our Honeymoon allows you to create a completely customized registry of anything you can possibly imagine and set the price point you would like.

Our newest Sponsor!

While the ultimate guava and carrot peeler/slicer contraption may seem like a must have now, the place it is most likely going is the return aisle. Why not opt for the gift of experience with the new partner in your life? Your imagination is the limit when you register with Buy Our Honeymoon. Trust us, your loved ones would rather envision you enjoying their gift of parasailing, rather than sitting down to dinner with the silver owl candlesticks that your Auntie Booboo thought were just “soooo precious”.  On Buy Our Honeymoon, whatever your loved ones purchase for you is placed directly in your account as a big pile of cash that you can dedicate to how you most see fit in your new life. If you don’t blow it all on the honeymoon, than you can go on a shopping spree for those still needed items or make those new wedding credit card bills magically disappear.

Your guests got nothin' but love for ya'

Easy Peesy

“But,” you protest, “those honeymoon sites either take a chunk of our money for each purchase or they are covered with ads, and that’s not classy.” Ah… but not Buy our Honeymooon, young grasshopper.  Buy Our Honeymoon charges you a one time fee and thats it. No ads, no commissions. Just a cozy classy registry that you can customize with your pics and their provided templates. They even have multiple url names to choose from, so that you can pick the registry site name that best suits your style. International Guests? No problem, Buy Our Honeymoon converts currency and takes several major credit cards. They’ll give you tips as to how best set up your registry and everything.

You have enough to worry about when it comes to your wedding. Finding the perfect toaster oven shouldn’t be something you stress about. Just dream big, and stick those dreams in your Buy our Honeymoon registry. Then after the wedding you’ll have a lot of stress free fun to look forward to. Your loved ones will love helping your dreams come true.

Something Old, Made New! Our Vintage Registry.

We got the idea to register for vintage dishware after seeing the plates of our dreams on set at a television sitcom taping we attended. I was flat out drooling for them, and even Hunter gave them a hells yeah. We scampered over to check the stamp on the plates, ran home to google it, and mentally filed it away. After a long and painful search for something new (and more readily available) that we loved just as much, we finally decided to go our own way and register for the first dishes to steal our poppy lovin’ hearts.

Wild Poppies – Metlox: Aren’t they dreamsicle?!?

It was the perfect decision for us, and we love our dishes more and more every time we use them. In fact, we ended up buying vintage silverware to go along with it!

The benefits of vintage dishware are threefold:
1. more financially friendly – the set we picked out cost less than most sets we saw at Crate and Barrel or Macy’s.
2. more eco-friendly – reuse is always a better choice than buying new, any day!
3. more finger friendly – we excel at breaking dishes. Vintage dishware is often sturdier and more break-resistant, which means keeping our wedding dishes safe for years to come!

Whatever your taste, you can find vintage dishes to suit them, in many places both online and in shops. Check out these babies:

Manzanita by Brock

Johnson Bros – Chelsea Collection

Starburst by Franciscan

Gold Dahlia by Metlox

You can search for vintage dishware at sites like Metlox California (who were supremely helpful in our registry process), Replacements.com, etsy, and ebay among many others. You can also try flea markets and antique bazaars in your town, like the Rosebowl.

There are also some progressively fierce companies taking vintage dishware/china and turning it into something modern and delicious, like Esther Dirkx!

via Reform School – a favorite green boutique of mine

“But, Dana” you protest “how do I register for something so random and hard for guests to find/pay for?”

Woman, hie thee to Wishpot!   You can register for items you find anywhere, in brick and mortar stores or on the internet.  Its a convenient way to unleash yourself from single-store registries, and allowed us to explore our eclectic tastes in a personal and customizable way.  It worked great for us, even when we bought our flatware through auction.  We just manually listed it, posted the price, and someone “reimbursed” the gift to us. Or, contact a replacement company and ask if they’ll set up a registry for you. Many offer that service these days.

There are tons of ways to make your registry more personal, and more green.  But vintage dishware is my absolute favorite (she says, as she eats her cereal from a sunny poppyfilled bowl).

Did you register for any vintage items?

‘Cuz a Girl Gotsta Eat…

There are few things that make me feel more pampered then a nice meal out when I don’t have to worry about every penny going into it; and few gifts please me better than that of good food for free. Let’s be real – who doesn’t love eating out? But honestly, who wants to pay full price? Not this broke-ass!

When I lived in Chicago, my favorite ‘in the know” deal was that a local radio station’s website had a 1/2 off section where you could score restaurant gift certificates for, you guessed it, half price! They had some of the best grubs in Chi-town on there… we even went to the uber-romantic Signature Room on our 3rd anniversary for half-price dinner!

Now there are tons of resources for similar deals in dining and entertainment, all over the US – and I’m all over that like curry on tofu! Many local radio and TV affiliates have the same kind of resources – so poke around and see what you can find! Try googling “half-price deals + your city”. I also find great results when I google “your city: mediawebconnect.com” like these for Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

Another super-duper deal resource is Groupon.com – which lists a new amazing deal in each of 17 cities (and growing) every day! The trick is that enough people have to want the deal for it to become available, so bookmark this site and make sure you give props to the best deals! But it doesn’t take many to get something available, and the savings are fantastic.

Looking to get your drink on, but can’t bear full bar prices? Check out unthirsty.com and use their happy hour finder! While they missed a couple favorite local happy hours of choice, they had a lot of new suggestions I hadn’t heard about before.

I highly endorse self-pampering, whether you be in the thick of wedding planning and need a night-off of cooking without the hefty price tag, or you’re celebrating an anniversary on a tight budget, or just because Monday and you want to! But, remember, restaurant gift certificates make terrific thank you gifts to parents, in-laws, bridal party members, and all those ’special helpers’ that make your wedding day beautiful. This way, you can give a substantial gift that won’t rock your bank balance too hard, and the lucky recipients will be loving you long time.

Or get creative and book your rehearsal dinner or day-after brunch somewhere that participates in these deals – you might be able to score some great gift certificates to use toward the bill! Trust me, your in-laws will love you for it!

What are your favorite online resources for cheap eats or nights out on the town?

Making a list, checking it twice.

I can hardly believe it, after 17 months of engagement, dreaming, planning and scheming…. We are officially at 2 months to go!  

Oh, Mr. Postman!

What does this:
have in common with these:?

They’re the first gifts we received off our wedding registry!

Its really happening, and I can barely believe it! With my Chicago shower approaching next week, and our invitations going out at the same time, I have a feeling I’m going to look forward to Mr. Postman now more than ever!

What made you realize the wedding was just around the corner?

*images from Bed Bath & Beyond

Locals Only: Unique Los Angeles!