​The day before my wedding, my aunt (with good intentions) decided to help get my veil ready for me by ironing out the wrinkles. Unfortunately, as we soon learned, ironing a veil can cause it to melt and become distorted.

Nixing that option, the next obvious choice is to steam your veil. Honestly, in some instances this might work just fine, depending on the fabric of your veil. Normally though, when I tried this with veils in my shop, I ended up steaming the wall behind the veil and the steamer had little to no effect on the veil itself.

By far the easiest method I have found sounds a little crazy—maybe a bit too easy? Here’s the deal.

For the typical college student or thrifty woman, spending $15 on a meal at a nice restaurant or $100 for a really good hair cut & color is considered splurging. Then all of a sudden, when you start planning a wedding, instead spending $15 or $100 here or there, you're spending hundreds and thousands of dollars all over the place. Rings, catering, decorations, accessories, honeymoon--it all adds up before you know it. But the good news is, Affordable Bridal Boutique already solved one of your major expenses! At our shop, instead of spending $1500 on a dress, you'll only spend about one third of that price.

Today, I also wanted to let you in on the secret for saving money on your wedding photography. If you Google "wedding photography Provo Utah" and click on the first 8 links that take you to local photography websites, you can see that in order to get a decent wedding package you'll have to spend two or three thousand dollars. 

The good news is, Utah Valley overflowing with talented individuals. So here's the trick: if it is not in your budget to spend thousands of dollars on a top-of-the-line photographer, you can find someone with natural talent who is starting out and needs to build their portfolio. Often they are willing to do your photos for a fraction of the cost of more well established photographers, and you will still end up with exceptional wedding photos to hang on your wall and post on Instagram. 

Where can you find a person like this? One good idea is to join local online yard sale groups on Facebook. I've seen several new photographers post amazing deals on photo shoots for couples, and the example photos they post are beautiful! And if you don't want to wait, you could even try posting on the group page that you are looking for an affordable photographer, and I'm sure that several will respond to your post.
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Another good idea is to go through your social media feeds to see who of your friends have started photography. You may be surprised to realize that you have some talented friends that could give you a good deal on your photos! My husband and I were lucky enough to find a guy my husband knew growing up who started a photography business on the side.* He did all of our engagements, bridals, temple, and reception photos for half the price of the most affordable photographers I was finding online. And I was amazed at how our good our photos turned out!

*Please note that my intention is to promote local small-business photographers as well as up and coming talent. Although we found someone we knew, we did not ask for or expect any sort of discount.