One tip: Totally go check out the bakeries at your local grocery stores. We have one here that is really, really good. For - get this - $150 - I got 100 white cupcakes with whipped cream frosting and fresh berries dropped on top, and a chocolate 1/2 sheet grooms cake with his college mascot on top (that's $1.29 per cupcake, and $20 for the cake). If you can recruit a friend to pick it up before the wedding, it's works out well.

We also saved a ton of money by getting a caterer that would work with us when it came to saving money. Instead of paying for a bartender AND booze with them (with that 300% markup), we only paid for the bartender, and bought the beer and wine ourselves, for a huge, huge savings.

It's completely doable. Ours - three weeks ago - was for $10,000. I had 18 months to plan, so I did a lot of searching and scouring. Luckily, I'm the Queen of All Things Google, and found some amazing deals, too.

My dress was $159. Our rings and the photography were some of the priciest things, but well worth it. Our catering worked out to $10 per head, and we had $125 guests. The bridemaids picked out the same David's Bridal dress, but it's totally a wear again to church or a nice party kind of dress.

Our venue turned out to be the least pricey thing. We went searching, and a chef friend turned me on to the fact that our local farmers market had a pretty good sized room you could rent, complete with a kitchen. The chairs and tables were included in the rental, which was - get this - $600 for the whole day.

I bought our table cloths for about the same price renting would've cost, and now I can put them up on eBay with a starting bid of half the cost, and see what happens. Even if I only get half my expense, that's more than I would've recouped if I had rented. The favors - I think - were my personal stroke of genius. Instead of sending everyone home with one each, considering a lot of our folks were families and couples, I did a favor bag for each family. It made a lot of sense, since our favors were packets of wildflower seeds and a mix CD of music from our wedding. I made special favor bags for the 10 kids attending, that had a wedding coloring book and crayons and a photo scavenger hunt list and disposable camera.

The things we had that not everyone will have that kept our expenses down? One of my bridesmaids asked to do the bouquets as a wedding gift. My mother in law is a master gardener, and offered to do the potted flowered plants for the tables (which also doubled as gifts for the people who came to help set up before the wedding). I bought plain white table cloths, and made table runners for bursts of color on each table.

It's totally doable to have a $10,000 wedding, but you have to be willing to do some looking around, and some research.