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We all want to have a fabulous wedding that we'll remember. But most of us need to stick to a budget. For some, it's $500. For others, it's $30,000. Very few have an unlimited budget.

But have you really thought about why you need all of the fancy things that go along with a wedding? Do you have to serve your guests a sit-down dinner when maybe an appetizer hour would be less expensive? And will a Vera Wang gown make you more married than one from a local seamstress, lovingly sown?

What if you took a few things off of the wedding and honeymoon list and instead opted to save for a house, or for retirement? It may be less romantic, less princess-y fairy tale and more down-to-earth. Or even downright boring. But isn't your future as important as your wedding day?

One father is giving his daughter exactly that type of advice. He claims that a $30,000 wedding is really a $4 million wedding when you get down to it. Admittedly, the investment return rate he quotes is higher than many people will be able to achieve. But he is definitely correct about the power of compound interest.

So while you're planning your budget, don't forget to think about the future. Wouldn't you love to retire early and get to spend even more time with your sweetie?

Image: firemedic58 (attribution license under Creative Commons)

A favor that will add a splash of color to your tables, these brightly-colored tulips are not flowers, but soaps. At about $19.00/box of nine, they're probably a little steep to give in their package to a hundred guests. You might consider giving an entire box to each of your bridesmaids, but if you'd like to use them as favors, you certainly can. You just have to ... think outside the box. Ahem.

Place an artful scatter of rose petals or colored confetti on your guest's white plates, then place a single tulip blossom in the center. Accompany the tulip with a tag or card expressing your thanks for their support and attendance, and you will have created a lovely favor -- at a lot less than almost twenty dollars apiece!

Paper wedding invitations can cost hundreds of dollars (some can even cost thousands!). And, what's more, the cost doesn't end when the invitations are printed and assembled. The cost of stamps alone (to send and to apply to the RSVP card) can set you back a considerable amount of money. More and more people are turning to electronic invitations because of exorbitant paper invitation costs. Even though it's more financially feasible to send out an evite or e-mail, electronically inviting guests may seem to lack some originality and design for some brides and grooms. That is until now.

Pingg.com offers a new, more attractive way to invite guests without bothering with the high cost (and stress!) of paper invitations. At pingg.com you can design your own online invitation -- either by choosing a pre-designed theme (there are tons to choose from!), or by designing your own with any of nearly two million available images or with original art work you can design and upload yourself. The best part: most pingg.com invitations are completely free.

After you have designed a beautiful, theme-friendly invitation, you can choose RSVP options and then send it off through e-mail, SMS or even Facebook! Another fun feature on pingg.com is a customizable Web page for your special event, with guest list, registry and event detail options.

Finally, if you have your heart set on a snail-mail invitation, pingg.com does offer printed invitations at a reasonable cost.

Visit pingg.com and read the press release, which is full of information and helpful tips to use pingg.com without a single headache that one comes to expect with paper invitations.

We often have the idea that going green is more expensive than doing it the old way. It sure seems so, with organic foods tending to cost noticeably more than non-organic, and with the whole range of new "green" items on the market. Want to go green? Buy, buy, buy!

Going green, however, does not mean buying a heap of new stuff with "green" or "eco" in the label. If you think about that for a second, it's pretty clear that "buying stuff" and "going green" are mostly opposites. Going green doesn't require trips to the store and a huge outlay of money: it requires creativity.

Wednesday Wedding Wrap-up is a weekly roundup of highlights from the past week, covering wedding blogs and websites, reality TV, even particularly hot scoop right here at AisleDash. Think we missed something? Leave your favorite highlight in the comments!

Bridalwave gives us the scoop on the $10,000 proposal.

Polka Dot Bride has us drooling over the idea of customizing our own bubbly. Cheers to that!

We love the Capiz Party Garlands at Hostess with the Mostess. But who needs a party? We want to decorate our house with them!

Wedding Bee's Miss Toucan discusses her hesitation toward registering for big ticket items. If you don't register for them, you have no chance of getting them, but you don't want your guests to think you're greedy ... what do you think?

Brides spend hours planning the perfect wedding. We choose the ceremony venue, our dress, our brides maids and their dresses, our gift registries, reception hall, food, the cake, the photographer, and the details go on and on.

But do you ever stop to think about "what if?" What if you lose your ceremony venue or reception hall? Do you have a backup plan? You should. Brides in Fort Wayne, Indiana found out the hard way that reception halls can close with little notice. Fortunately for them, they'll get a refund. But with short notice, they will be hard-pressed to find a new hall.

So what do you do?

Aisledash chats with bride-to-be and video blogger Esther Brady ("faintstarlite"), who lost 70+ pounds in just under a year and chronicled her experience online. She's now the brand ambassador for Weight Watchers in the social networking world. She shares her thoughts on weight and keeping healthy on their MySpace page.

We wanted to know how the wedding planning was going...

Congratulations on your engagement! We just saw the video of you trying on gowns. What else has surprised you about the whole wedding-planning process?

Before wedding planning I had shrugged off complaints from other brides about inflated pricing structures. I have to admit that it really hit home when I started calling salons to see what it would cost for my bridal party to get their hair styled. If I said I was looking for up-dos I was usually quoted around $50 per person, but as soon as I said they were for a wedding, the price would skyrocket to $80! I ended up booking a fabulous salon for the lower price – I was pleasantly surprised that vendors usually responded when I stuck to my guns and my budget.

Your wedding is coming up very soon. What's the best advice you can give to those who are just starting to plan their weddings?

It's so important to keep wedding planning in perspective – it's really not about the cake, the dress, or even the pictures... it's about you and your partner joining together. The first thing any bride-to-be should consider is how many people are going to be invited and how much she can realistically afford. My fiancé and I had very frank discussions about the budget at the beginning of the process because we were committed to avoiding going into debt for our special day. In order to achieve that we had to make sure our parents were on the same page, especially regarding the guest list. After that was all settled it's just been a matter of keeping track of the expenditures and enjoying each step along the way – it's definitely a wild and fabulous ride!

What advice would you give to women who want to lose weight for their weddings?

It's said that "A diamond is forever," and while that slogan has been huge for jewelry retailers, most of them hope you'll adopt the unspoken follow-up into your jewelry philosophy. The full saying is, of course, "A diamond is forever -- until you can afford a bigger one."

Most major jewelry retailers offer trade-in programs where you can exchange your original purchase toward something bigger and better down the road -- provided that you're trading up to something at least twice the value. (This is the Zales policy, which is pretty standard throughout the industry.)

This sounds like a nice idea for the couple who doesn't have the money to buy what they want when they're first engaged, but we have to wonder -- doesn't an engagement ring (no matter the size of the rock) have huge sentimental value? Is this something one could really trade in? Grooms, how would you feel about your bride trading up for something "better" than what you first gave her? Tell us what you think!

Even though the average US wedding runs about $30,000, many brides are on a tight budget. You want to look good and have everything perfect down to the tiniest details. Your hair accessories and jewelry for instance. You want them to accent your outfit, look elegant, but be affordable. Once the words "wedding" or "bride" get attached to something, the price shoots up considerably.

What's a girl to do? Readers of the OC Register suggested going to GlamForLess.com. You will find all kinds of crystal and rhinestone jewelry at affordable prices. You can find everything from necklaces and earrings to tiaras, hair combs, bracelets, and headbands. If you want to add a little shine, a little bling to your day, these accessories will certainly help you.

So what's the one accessory you refuse to go without on your wedding day?

Earth Day is tomorrow, and it's the perfect reason to explore some earth-friendly alternatives in planning your wedding. One of the best ways to take the planet into consideration when planning your big day is through your invitations. When you use that much paper, you're bound to leave a footprint behind. But there are ways around such a pesky little problem. The writers at AisleDash have offered traditional invitation alternatives over the last few months, and today we'll offer a one-stop place for the creative ideas from past posts.

So, if you're interested in doing your part, skip the regular wedding invitation and, instead, opt for one of the following:


• Tree-free invitations -- If you can't imagine doing away with a physical wedding invitation, choose a tree-free or recycled one instead. They are offered at a handful of online stores and they look just as beautiful as their original counterpart. (Some of our top picks: Invite Site, Seal & Send and Custom Paper.)
• E-mail your invite -- Through sites such as Evite, My Punch Bowl and BWedd you can design a beautiful and personalized e-mail to circulate among all your friends and family. In addition to saving a few trees, you'll also save an incredible amount of money (the average wedding invitations cost $327).
• Utilize your wedding Web site -- You want your friends and family to know all the details of -- not only your wedding day -- your proposal, pre-wedding parties and honeymoon, so set up a wedding Web site where you can add all the important information and pictures, too! Some top picks: ewedding.com, theknot.com and ourwedding.com. An added perk: all of your guests can RSVP directly on the site, to the actual wedding and to all other wedding events.

Not too long ago, we talked about wedding costs in Canada. Thanks to a survey from The Knot, we can report on average expenses in the US, too. They surveyed over 20,000 people and found some interesting trends.

So what does the average wedding cost? Try just under $27,900 - and that's not including the honeymoon. Add an extra $5,000 for the honeymoon - around $32,660. On average, around 45% (~$12,700)of the budget is spent on receptions. Next come the band at 15% (~$4,100) and the photographer at 9.5% (~$2,650). The average gown costs $1,317.

And costs are increasing, with couples spending 35% more on cakes, 17% more on reception venues, and 18% more on their band in 2007 versus 2006. But wedding sizes stayed about the same from 2006 to 2007, with the average guest list running at 153 people.

Some of us have spent less than 1/3 of the average wedding costs according to this survey. If you feel like sharing, what's your wedding budget look like? What are you spending the most on? Does this survey help you justify your budget or make you want to increase/lower it?

Photo: stock.xchng/kirildd

Bridesmaids dresses aren't cheap, and while you certainly don't want to ask your attendants to break the bank to buy their dresses (and you don't want to go broke buying dresses for them), we understand that you don't want to give up on the vision you have of your wedding day. Sometimes part of that vision is a bridesmaid's dress. An expensive bridesmaid's dress.

If you find a dress you like, you very well might be able to find it for a lower cost online. However, there are several things we ask that you keep in mind it you opt to order bridesmaids' gowns online:

Pink and brown is one of those timelessly feminine color combinations - so if you've chosen these colors for your wedding it makes sense to go all-out with girlish gifts when the time comes to spoil your bridesmaids.

Have some fun choosing pretty cosmetic cases covered in whimsical polka dots, or give them some unabashedly feminine stationery packaged in a pink suitcase.

Why? Because it's pretty...and fun!

We just love Etsy. The online mega-craft fair is a great place to look for all kinds of wedding supplies and accessories like invitations, cake toppers, decorations, and so much more.

If you're having trouble finding exactly what you want on Etsy, have no fear! The site's Alchemy feature is there for you. You simply post on the request board exactly what you're looking for, even the price you want, and vendors can make bids for your business. This way, you don't have to settle for something similar to what you want -- you get it exactly the way you've envisioned it all along.

If you do come across an Etsy store that you just love, it's also a good idea to contact the owner and ask if he or she does custom work. Maybe you feel like you're being too picky and specific, but you never know what these artists can do for you if you never ask!

Brown is one of those colors that you either love or hate. Champagne diamonds are a good reason to love the color. As colored diamonds gain popularity in engagement rings and wedding jewelry, more of these sparkling brown gems are hitting the market.

Brown diamonds are known by several aliases, most commonly "champagne" and "cognac". Their color can be anywhere from very lightly tinted brown to very rich, dark chocolate brown. Diamonds with more intense orange shades will fetch the highest prices in this group, but because brown is the most common naturally occurring diamond color, these stones sell for significantly less than their colorless counterparts. Expect to pay anywhere from $500-$5000 per carat, depending on the intensity of the color and quality of the stone. High clarity stones with intense natural color will command a higher price, but you should be able to find plenty of beautiful choices without exceeding the $5000/ct range.

If you want a rich brown gemstone, diamonds are about your only option on the market today. Other gems exist in brown, but they don't have the sparkle and shine that diamonds posses, and haven't seen anything like the demand for champagne diamonds. Whether you want a champagne diamond engagement rings or just some brown accents in your wedding jewelry, flip through the gallery above for some ideas.

To learn more about how to shop for diamonds, read the posts in the Personal Gemologist series.