03.

My wedding day was the best day of my life. Most people thought we were insane to plan a wedding in only 4 months...AND to intend to pay for it all ourselves with a very tiny budget. However, my thriftiness did not fail me and the day was beautiful. I'm going to post a few pictures so you can see my "bridal look". And just because I think my husband is super hot. ;)

My Top 5 Tips for Planning a Wedding are:

1) Wedding Wednesday: From the time I got engaged, every Wednesday was designated to wedding planning. Whether is was addressing invitations, painting chalkboards, designing bouquets, I got a lot of stuff done for the wedding on Wednesdays, that way I didn't wait until the last month to do everything!

2) Don't spend a ton of money of you don't have to: My husband and I paid for about 98% of the wedding ourselves. I am a bargain hunter, so I always bought things when they were on sale. I also decided what was most important to spend money on and eliminated things that were not essential. For example, for my wedding favors, rather than shelling out $2 or more per guest for a favor, I signed up on shutterfly and received 100 4x6 prints for free. I printed up multiples of my most favorite of our engagement pictures, wrote a thank you note on the back, and we put them up on a jute cord with mini clothes pins in the entrance to the reception hall. When shopping for my dress, I found one that I loved in the store but it was $1000. I knew the style/silhouette I wanted, so I went to the internet. I was able to find the EXACT dress I tried on in the store on a site based in China for only $129 (with FREE SHIPPING!). The dress had to be altered a little, but other than that you could not even tell that it was not the $1000 dress from the boutique! www.aliexpress.com was where my dress and bridesmaids dresses were from! When I ordered our invitations I was able to get a deal on Groupon for 100 invitations for $40 on zazzle.com. I was able to pick from a few different designs then I was able to completely customize the design to our wedding! 

3) Do-It-Yourself  Projects(DIY): Thank Heaven for Pinterest! I gathered lots of DIY projects from pinterest for my wedding. I painted picture frames from the Dollar Tree with black paint to use as chalk boards (cost for 10 chalkboards was roughly $10!). I also had ZERO real flowers at my wedding. All flowers were purchased from Afloral.com. Boutonnieres and Bouquets were pre-made. We took them apart and put them back together using burlap and jute to give the rustic feel. 

4)  Get your groom involved in the planning: My husband really enjoyed having an input in the plans, but he enjoyed even more getting to build/design stuff. My husband is an engineer so when I had the crazy idea to build a backdrop for our wedding cake out of wooden pallets, he jumped to the task! It turned out so beautiful! He also really enjoyed helping me put up the pictures we used as favors! I also let him choose what him and his groomsmen wore. I gave my opinions and colors I wanted, but pretty much gave him free reign over the guys clothes. 

5)  Enjoy it! When we planned our wedding date for 4 months out, I thought it would never get here. I had a ton of fun planning though, so it went by so quickly! It can get stressful, but always remind yourself of what is to come at the end of the road and you'll realize it is all so worth it! 

**Photography by Dana Oliver Photography**

Dana Oliver Photography's Facebook Page

02.

I am going to post a quick blog that has links to all of my obsessions. I visit these sites multiple times daily. My husband gets frustrated when I tell him to expect a package when he gets home from work, because I have ordered something else. Then I try to justify buying it. I just can't help it! I will put a link to each site (The title will be the link, so click on it!) along with a description of what the site is and how you can save money with it!

1) Ebates

The slogan of Ebates is "Where it pays to shop!" and this is SO accurate. I am very much an online shopper since we don't live too close to stores that have what I want or like. Basically, you go to the ebates site (or you can use the iphone/android app), find the store you want to shop with and click on it, then shop! It's that easy. As long as you go to the site from Ebates, a percentage of your purchase will be given back to you as cashback! There are daily doubles where the cashback percentage is doubled, and ebates also has any available coupons listed on their site so that you not only get cash back, but you get a discount too! I will be receiving my second "BIG FAT CHECK" in May. This check is for over $45 just from shopping online from January to March! If you don't use this site, YOU HAVE TO! Be sure to click the Ebates link above to get started!

2) Ipsy

Every month, I look forward to receiving my Ipsy Glam Bag in the mail. I get entirely too excited to see the hot pink mailer in my mailbox! Ipsy is a subscription service that is $10 a month. The $10 gets you a super cut makeup bag and 4-5 high end deluxe beauty samples to try out. On your ipsy site, each month a glam room will be updated for you, telling you what products you are receiving. Once you receive them, you have the opportunity to review them and rack up points. Once you have 1000 points you can redeem them for a makeup/beauty item such as a full size bare minerals lipstick, a Nyx Makeup Palette, Benefit High Beam, etc. I am so in love with Ipsy for many reasons. #1 being, I get to receive 4-5 products I would typically not buy EVER due to how much they cost and I only have to pay $10 a month. I highly recommend ipsy if you are a cheapskate like me and don't want to spend a ton of money on makeup but would like to get a taste of the higher end stuff. Did I mention your $10 a month typically values over $25-$30 in products, PLUS ipsy posts coupons for savings in the products? Get to clicking that link and become my fellow ipster.

3) Zulily

I seriously get so excited every morning at 9 AM to see what all is being put up on Zulily. They have some STEALS on everything. I first became obsessed when they had TOMS for super cheap. I bought the ring bearers for my wedding both a pair of TOMS, as well as a pair for my sister. They were SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than I could've gotten them anywhere else. Then the following week, they had a pair of fringe boots I had to have. Now I wear those boots at least once a week. Next thing you know, they have $50 Kavu Rope bags for $28.99. Apparently the Zulily gods know the way to my wallet. If you want great deals on stuff for women, maternity stuff, kids, or home, You need to get signed up on here!

4) Influenster (No link, see below)

Influenster is a site where you do surveys, share to social media, and do brand challenges to become eligible to receive a VoxBox, aka, a box full of full-sized FREE products. I've gotten everything from a granola bar, to a hair brush,to Hershey Kisses, to Men's vaseline spray lotion for my husband, to a full size Bath and Body Works Fine Fragrance Mist. I just write reviews, answer questions, share to facebook, pinterest, twitter, instagram, etc. and BAM, free stuff. To the right of this blog, you will see the Influenster badge. You can click this badge to get to the site, or you can contact me via facebook, email, or the comments to get an invite to the site! It's so fun!

5) Hautelook

Hautelook is a high-end, high-fashion site. They don't typically have steals for my liking. However, every now and then you will get an email announcing some awesome upcoming shops. Here recently they have had Laura Geller Makeup and Stila Makeup for excellent prices. They have a shop for everyone on there! It's definitely worth looking into!

6)Derailed

This site is a Chaco-lover's dream. Most people with awesome fashion sense despise Chaco's. I however, love them and wear them ALL the time. I have even gotten my husband and sister hooked on them as well. This site has a great Chaco selection and they ALWAYS have a coupon. These are way cheaper than buying them at REI where they are no less than $85. I'm talking, $40 with a coupon. Come on, Why haven't you signed up yet?! They also have a lot of other brands of stuff like Tevas, Columbia, etc. Mostly camping/hiking/outdoorsy kind of stuff. You get $10 off for using the link above! GET TO IT! 

7)NoMoreRack

Last but certainly not least, NoMoreRack. I seriously love this site. They have absolutely everything you can think of for excellent deals. Seriously the stuff is so cheap. They have tablets, computers, tvs that aren't like, super cheap but they are still incredible deals. They even have Ray-bans for $80 occasionally. I don't know what else to really say about it other than if you click the link above, you can get $10 off your first purchase! 

This concludes my general list of sites that I'm hooked on. What are yours??

01.

I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there....I'm not a "beauty guru" by any means. I put it on myself daily and sometimes for my little sister when it's a special event. Therefore, I am not going to flat out say, "Hey girls, listen to all of my advice. I know what I am talking about." Because truth is, I probably don't. However, I do know what works for me.

That being said, unless I win the lottery you won't see me raving about Naked Palettes or anything like that unless they are in a clearance bin for $10. I am a cheap skate. Frugal. Thrifty. Stingy. Tight-wad. Whatever word you so choose to describe that I don't like to spend a lot of money.  My purpose of this beauty blog is to share how I get the makeup and beauty products that I have and how much I got them for. I highly doubt I will ever post youtube videos, because that's just not my style. The closest you'll get to my makeup looks will most likely be pictures of me and my husband (who is super hot, by the way).

I hope that you enjoy my ramblings and musings. I also hope that you save some money with my aid! Thanks for visiting!