Stuff thats worth money:
– Band. A good band makes a great evening!
– Photographer. You will want those pictures to be good in years to come and you need someone to arrange the good shots. Also it needs to be someone your good ladys happy with – the photographer needs to be able to tell the bride what to do. Good luck to a random mate with that one!
Stuff that you can do cheap:
– Cake. Everyone will eat it anyway!
– Video. No one wants to watch it apart from you and your good lady. Get a mate with a video camera. Job done.
– Buffet. See cake.
– Transport. We stayed at the venue the night before, was cheaper than limo hire on the day!
– Venue. One of the best weddings I have been too (apart from my own obviously!) was a rugby club!
I'd prioritise quite differently – I think the primary purpose of throwing a great big party to celebrate how lovely you are and how much you want to be together should be to make sure your guests have a good time. Organised photography is just something for yourself. Food, drink, entertainment, cake – that is something for your guests enjoyment, so worth spending money or time making sure it is nice.
Although having said that, it is easy for me to say this because we got the best of both worlds really, as we had a few really quite good amateur and professional photographers there under instructions to go wild with their cameras and give us copies of pictures (Dad is a photographer, several friends are very competent too). Didn't have any staged pictures because we don't like them, but we have tons of great pictures.
Joe
