💍 How we planned a glamorous Montana wedding on a budget
“The best wedding I’ve ever been to.”
Weddings are out of control. The stressed-out brides, the overpriced everything, the will-you-be-my-bridesmaid gifts… What is happening?
I’m sort of allergic to the concept—I’ve attended many a boring religious wedding in my life and find the monied, modern wedding industry to be garish and, quite frankly, ugly. I probably would have been content not to have a wedding, but my husband, god bless him, loves weddings. Invite the man to your wedding!
But even as an avowed wedding hater, mine was one of the most fun nights of my life?
We planned it for maximum fun, but I underestimated how special it would be to have our families and friends together in our favorite place. Now, I believe that’s the reason for a wedding.
I don’t have a single regret, and more than one person said it was the most fun wedding they’d ever attended.
Here’s how we did it.
Our approach
We tried to think of our wedding as a party rather than a wedding. This helped us determine what we wanted it to feel like rather than ticking off traditional boxes.
We wanted it to feel like a late night at a steakhouse with all our best friends or like a boozey, glamorous family reunion (if there is such a thing?).
This also helped us stick to our budget. For example, we paid $325 for three large buckets of (locally grown, yay!) table flowers, rather than spending thousands on (imported, boo!) wedding floral packages.
We also didn’t do anything we didn’t want to. I didn’t want bridesmaids and groomsmen or to walk down an aisle. We had gotten legally Zoom-married during the pandemic and didn’t need to worry about an officiant. Neither of us cared about bouquets, custom cocktails, or wedding guest books. And to keep it further down-to-earth, I had a one-day bachelorette party in NYC, and Skylar had his in Montana a few days before the wedding.
The budget
We paid for our wedding ourselves. We set a budget of $30,000 and split the cost evenly. My parents contributed a few thousand dollars (thank you, Mom and Dad!) and paid for our “rehearsal dinner” (a lunch with our two families; we didn’t have anything to rehearse). Skylar’s mom paid for our flowers and cake supplies.
We financed everything with cash savings, though I made most purchases on a new Delta Amex and used those miles for our tickets to Montana. I also put the open bar bill on my Amex, which was a nice boon for miles.
I’m happy we didn’t pay more than we did. Although 30k is still an insane amount of money, wedding venues alone cost that in the U.S.
Neither of our families is the type to meddle in wedding planning, but since we paid for it, we had the freedom to plan a party how we wanted.
The planning
Even though I’m writing this, my husband Skylar did 75% of the wedding planning and coordination. I found the photographer and flower farm, but he did all the other legwork—finding and coordinating the venue, decorations, DJ, wedding band, caterer, table seating, and Zola admin. That’s my number one recommendation; if you’re heterosexual and having a wedding, have him do the planning!!! If a man can’t plan a wedding, don’t marry him.
We didn’t hire a wedding planner—it didn’t occur to us. We are skilled at pulling off productions because of our jobs and knew we would do much of the heavy lifting anyway. Of course, friends and family volunteered to help with table settings, the photobooth, and dessert making, which was invaluable. We also had an on-site venue coordinator present for a few hours during the event.
We used Google Sheets to track our budget and created a run-of-show in a Google Doc. Skylar used Zola to manage RSVPs and plan table seating.
Total cost: $0
The location
I grew up in Idaho, and Skylar grew up in Montana. We met at college in Portland, Oregon, and have lived in NYC for the last decade. We never seriously considered having the wedding in New York, as we wanted our families to travel to it easily, and we knew costs would spiral out of control in the NY area. We also wanted to share Montana’s one-of-a-kind beauty and culture with our friends who hadn’t been there.
We had initially put a soft hold on a hot springs resort for our venue, but we ended up backing out, as we realized it didn’t feel like us (too wedding-like). In a burst of inspiration, I suggested we try to rent out our favorite dive bar in Missoula, and we both got hooked on the idea. The bar location didn’t work out, but we kept it in Missoula (more on our venue in next week’s letter!).
Missoula was a good choice for a “destination” Montana wedding, as guests could fly in and stay in town without a rental car. Our venue was downtown and walkable from hotels and Airbnbs, and some of our friends turned the wedding weekend into bigger trips—Glacier National Park is a few hours away.
We also just love Missoula—its scrappy college town energy makes it one of the most fun cities in the West.
The art direction
We are both trained as graphic designers and art directors, so making aesthetic decisions was fun (and free!). Since we could design the invites, wedding site, and materials, we only had to pay for printing and hosting costs.
Luckily, we have overlapping tastes. Mine is more feminine and glamorous, and Skylar’s is more modern and minimal. Still, I think we balanced our tastes in a contextually appropriate way for our Montana wedding.
I started with a mood board, and we both added to it. Our keywords were steakhouse, metallics (silver, but some gold), Kelly green, fashion party, and highkey flash.
The art direction was like…. what if Studio 54 was a dive bar in Montana?
The save-the-dates
We designed the save-the-dates together using a photobooth strip from our engagement day. Cute!
The fonts were Helvetica and Times New Roman. Casa Magazines’ branding heavily inspired us.
We used Zola to print the invites and addressed envelopes. The printing quality was so-so, but it wasn’t a formal invitation, so who cares.
Total cost: $180
($108 for printing, $72 for postage)
The wedding site
Next, Skylar designed the website.
Two goals for our wedding were to A) have fun B) give our friends and family a chance to be involved.
That’s how we ended up with a rotating 3D cake and a working phone hotline.
Skylar used a Cargo template with “a bunch of sloppy code.” He produced the wedding topper animation using Blender. He designed our characters using Ready Player Me, an avatar generator for video games, and Mixamo to create the poses. The fonts are Authentic Sans and Garamond Light.
Skylar did, indeed, create a phone hotline. The hotline was built using Twilio and a Google phone number. The hotline gave callers the wedding and dress code info and even let guests RSVP and leave voice notes.
Our wedding dress code was “Western cocktail,” a phrase we coined. One of my favorite parts of our wedding site was the dress code mood board!
The pages we had on our website:
Homepage with the primary information
Schedule of events (welcome drinks, the wedding party itself, and farewell drinks)
Travel and accommodation information (where to fly in, Uber/rental car info, and recommended hotels)
Local recommendations (shopping, restaurants, bars)
A mood board for the dress code
FAQs
When should I RSVP by?
When should I book my travel plans?
Can I bring a plus one?
Is there parking for the wedding celebration?
Do I need to rent a car?
Which airport should I fly into?
What should I wear?
Do you have a registry?
Total cost: $60
The invitations
I designed the invites in Illustrator using Skylar’s wedding site design as a reference.
I looked into letterpress but screamed when I saw the quotes!
We went with Moo for the printing and were happy with the quality. We made a two-sided postcard on Luxe paper with a color seam in Forest Green.
We also designed these little cards of a Frank O’Hara poem, also printed by Moo. I’ve loved seeing this card up on our friends’ fridges. The back may have had a typo, but that’s fine…
Total cost: $465
($400 printing, $65 postage)
Next week on Saltine, part 2 of the wedding series—every juicy detail on the venue, photography, placemats, DJ, country band (!!!), and food.
yooo this timing / quality of content. BLESSED as we have our final two (k maybe 3!) venues targeted for wedding.
Wow your website is really cool!