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"Should someone tell this bride her priorities are WAY out of whack? Writes Save the Date reader Heather: I was recently asked to be bridesmaid for a woman with whom I am friendly with, but not very close. I am the only bridesmaid in town so a lot of responsibilities fall on my shoulders. This woman is looking to have a very low budget wedding&amp;amp;#8212;VERY low budget. However, we recently went dress shopping and she is seriously considering dresses that are a third or half of her budget, while she is also dead set on having a cash bar because she can&amp;#x27;t afford otherwise. Do I even dare to mention this very odd distribution of budget or keep my mouth shut, smile and nod because its not my wedding? Here are my thoughts: I think someone needs to give her a reality check&amp;amp;#8212;but it&amp;#x27;s not going to be a fun job. Maybe the next time you&amp;#x27;re together you could say, &amp;quot;Okay, so let&amp;#x27;s try adding up all the numbers so we can make sure you&amp;#x27;re not going to overspend.&amp;quot; If you plug in her budget into this budget tool, it will give you a reasonable breakdown of costs. So, for example, if her budget is $3,000, the tool allocates $159 for the wedding dress and alterations. She can adjust the numbers to add more to her dress budget&amp;amp;#8212;so she could take the $240 the tool reserved for a photographer and put that toward her gown and have a friend take her pics&amp;amp;#8212;but unless she&amp;#x27;s going to spend $0 on her food and venue, a $1,500 dress just isn&amp;#x27;t going to happen. To make sure you&amp;#x27;re not a total Debbie Downer, find out what styles of wedding dress she&amp;#x27;s looking for and help her find cheaper alternatives. The Broke Ass Bride does an awesome series called Can&amp;#x27;t Afford It/Get Over It where she finds lower-priced alternatives for some fab designer dresses. So for a bride who was dying for this $5,000 Reem Acra dress: She found a bunch of look-alike dresses&amp;amp;#8212;including this gorgeous number for less than 1/10 of the cost: Deep-V Beaded Prom Gown by Aidan Mattox from eDressMe, $495. There are two reasons your friends really needs to get her budget on track: 1) Her wedding&amp;#x27;s not going to be fun for her guests if they&amp;#x27;re standing around hungry and buying drinks for themselves. A cash bar isn&amp;#x27;t the end of the world (in fact, I think it&amp;#x27;s pretty common in some parts) but the general rule is that the bride and groom spend about half their budget on food and drink. If she&amp;#x27;s spending half her budget on her dress, there&amp;#x27;s going to be very little left for food or entertainment. And, while I&amp;#x27;m sure her guests love her, no one wants to stand around and watch her look gorgeous on an empty stomach. 2) Planning a wedding with no budget is going to be incredibly stressful for her. If she blows half of her budget on her dress, she&amp;#x27;ll have barely anything left. And she&amp;#x27;ll need that &amp;quot;barely anything&amp;quot; to cover invitations, her venue, food, flowers, entertainment, pictures, her wedding ring, her groom&amp;#x27;s ring, her groom&amp;#x27;s attire, and so on. And while scoring a bargain can be fun, it&amp;#x27;s pretty un-fun when you have to get cheapie everything because of budget constraints. I know it&amp;#x27;ll be an uncomfortable conversation, but I think the sooner she gets her budget on track, the easier wedding planning will be for her&amp;amp;#8212;and you! Ladies, what do you think? Should Heather speak up? Or is the bride&amp;#x27;s budget none of her business? Have a wedding-y dilemma of your own? E-mail me! More reader&amp;amp;#8217;s dilemmas, solved! * If You Were in a Friend&amp;amp;#8217;s Wedding Party, Do You Have to Ask Her to Be in Yours? * What if Your In-Laws Refused to Acknowledge Your Engagement? * Can You Be Happily Married&amp;amp;#8212;But Still in Love With Your Ex? Photo: Thinkstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/weddings/blogs/save-the-date/2012/05/my-bride-friend-is-losing-it-d>