So, in Part 1 of our Big Five, I covered our wedding attire and our venue. No, I’ll be moving on to the other important parts of our ceremony/reception. So, without further ado, next on our list is…

Photography
I have a confession to make: Dahlia Dude and I are photography snobs., maybe that’s the wrong way to put it, but we both have a great love for amazing photographs. And we both knew going into this that photography was something we were definitely not going to compromise on. We wanted to best that we could get, and that was that.

Another thing that we knew almost immediately was that we didn’t want the walls of our new home covered with the cookie-cutter posed photos. No offense whatsoever to those who love them, and I definitely believe that poses have their place in our wedding album, but Dahlia Dude and I both look our best in candid shots. So we knew that it was going to be a photo-journalistic photographer for us. I believe that, after reworking our budget, we’ll be able to get everything we want for our money, and I’m really excited to see the results!!

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Catering
Yup, food is on our top five. Dahlia Dude and I are MASSIVE foodies. We love to eat. Seriously, it’s one of our favorite past-times. For me, it’s genetic. Whenever my family gets together, there’s always a ton of food. So this was a no brainer for us. And since we’re having a destination wedding in Cape Town, we thought that it would be the perfect time to introduce his family to the fantastic foods that come out of South Africa.

Open Bar
My family enjoys their alcohol. And Dahlia Dude is a huge beer junkie. Oh, and my uncle’s a bartender in South Africa. So are we going to have an open bar? Heck yeah!  And I’m definitely not saying that you can’t have a good time without alcohol, because I know for a fact that you can. But it was just something that we really wanted, and we didn’t want to skimp on it. Since we’re having a destination wedding, our guests have to pay for plane tickets and hotel rooms, as well as food. The least that Dahlia Dude and I could do is provide them with at least one free meal, as well as free drinks.

So there are our Big Five. There are other things that are very important to us, but between a lot of DIYing and great deals, these five areas are where we’re investing the larger portions of our wedding budget. So what are your Big Five? Or Three? Maybe you have a Big Ten? Where did you want to spend your money?