With so many wedding expenses, it’s easy to forget about tipping your wedding vendors on the big day. While it isn’t necessary to tip all of your vendors, some will definitely appreciate — and expect — it. A wedding planner, if you’re using one, best man or family member typically handles doling out gratuities.

First, make sure to check your contracts. Oftentimes, gratuity may already be included for some services, such as your caterer’s wait staff or limousine driver. But if not, tipping is a nice gesture, especially for those vendors who exceed your expectations or do an outstanding job. At the bare minimum, thank you-notes are always appreciated.

Remember, every couple is different and some can tip more than others. Here’s a quick cheat sheet based on averages we calculated after talking to grooms, brides and vendors:

Ceremony Musicians – if you’ve hired an orchestra, band or vocalists for the ceremony, $15-$20 per musician is customary. (Note that you don’t need to tip the solo organist at the church.)

DJs or Bands – $20-$25 for musicians/individual band members; $25-$50 for DJs.

Officiant – while it isn’t necessary to tip your officiant, a separate donation to the religious institution is a standard gesture.

Wedding Planners, Photographers, Videographers – tipping isn’t necessary for vendors who own their own businesses. But for those who go above and beyond, we highly recommend a 10% tip. If your budget doesn’t allow for that, providing professional photographs displaying the vendor’s handiwork is a solid gesture.

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Grooms and brides: do your vendor contracts have tips built in? Have you and your fiance talked about vendor gratuity? Let us know in the comments section below.  Vendors: we’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic as well.

Did you hear about the couple that raised $3,800 for their wedding by collecting empty aluminum cans? Spokane, WA residents Peter Geyer and Andrea Parrish needed approximately 400,000 empty cans to meet their goal (which they met with a little help from donations by Alcoa and United Recycling Co.).

Peter Geyer and Amanda Parrish collected $3,800 worth of empty cans to help fund their wedding.

This got us to thinking. How many cans would it take to pay for an elaborate celebrity wedding? If you break down the value of each single can from the Spokane wedding, it comes in at just under a penny (.0095 cents to be exact). We checked ‘The 20 Most Expensive Celebrity Weddings’ and determined how many cans would have been needed to be saved to pay for the top weddings on the list.

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston – $1 Million Wedding – 105,263,158 cans

Madonna & Guy Ritchie –$1.5 Million Wedding – 157,894,736 cans

Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes – $2 Million Wedding – 210,526,315 cans

Paul McCartney & Heather Mills – $3 Million Wedding – 315,789,473 cans

Liza Minnelli & David Gest – $3.5 Million Wedding – 368,421,052 cans

Think that’s a lot cans? That’s nothing! The world’s most expensive wedding ever was held for Vanisha Mittal (daughter of European steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal) and her fiancé Amit Bhatia in 2004. The tab came to approximately $60 Million USD!

That equates to 6,315,789,473 cans! That’s right – over 6 billion cans.
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What creative methods are you using to raise money for the wedding? We want to hear from you in the comments below!

Fiverr.com: simplifying your wedding planning.... maybe.

By now, many of you have probably heard of Fiverr.com. It’ s the website where people post odd jobs and tasks that they’ll perform for $5. The concept got us to thinking, maybe Fiverr could be a new outlet for brides and grooms to discover wedding savings. We perused the site and came up with the following ten top wedding deals currently available.

Keep in mind, we’re using the term “deals” very loosely.

I Will Provide Tools to Plan a Carnival Themed Wedding

I Will Write Heartfelt Wedding Vows

I Will Give You 20 Great Ideas to Plan a Bachelor Party

I Will E-Mail you the Secret That Will Make Your Marriage Last

I Will Be Your Marriage Referee

I Will Give a Woman’s Opinion on the Engagement Ring You Bought

I Will Tell You If Your Wedding Plans are Classy

I Will Plan Your Wedding

I Will Help You Plan the Perfect Proposal

I Will Look at a Photo of a Newly Married Couple and Tell You Which Person Could Have Married Better

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Wow, I didn’t realize that the economy had gotten so bad that you could hire a wedding coordinator for $5. Our reader challenge is to actually hire one of the services above and then report back on the results. We expect hilarity…. and a lot of it!

By Guest Blogger OneWed.com

The champagne toast, a must have of every wedding, right? Um, why? How many times have you been handed a glass of champagne for the toast, taken a sip and then put it back down to go back to your drink of choice?

Unless you or your bride really likes champagne, why not skip it and let guests toast with whatever glass they’re holding in their hand? You’ll save time since the waiters won’t be trying to get everyone a glass in time, and you’ll save money. Money that can be spent on something you really like, such as a good glass of bourbon!

By Guest Blogger: OneWed.com

People planning weddings spend a lot of money, and that of course, attracts a lot of scammers!  Think about some of these basic tips for avoiding wedding day scams:

1. Avoid paying large fees up front. Often scammers will pose as legitimate businesses and disappear on your wedding day.

2. Talk to friends, family and trusted sources about what wedding vendors and wedding planners they used and their experiences.

3. Monitor your credit, get in the habit of getting credit reports.

4. You’ll be getting a lot of e-mails from new and unknown sources, consider anti-virus software.

5. Many people sign contracts with vendors without reading through them with a critical eye. Read everything and make sure you understand what you’re agreeing to before making it legal.

6. Pay with a credit card. Disputing a transaction is easier with a credit card than with a check. Just be careful not to let the credit card become a vehicle for spending more than you can afford.