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4 May 2022
If you’re thinking about getting married in Arizona with a budget, I’m here to share my wedding story. Of course, this wedding story was specific to me, and the prices are likely different, but this was how I got my perfect wedding and wedding reception for under $10,000 in April of 2019.
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I put elopement in quotations because historically, to get eloped meant “to run away secretly to get married usually without parental consent.” In our case, this wasn’t true — our small ceremony included my immediate family, my fiance’s immediate family, and the family whom my husband and I consider family (for some context, their daughter is our goddaughter).
So less of an elopement, but still a small gathering for a wedding ceremony. We decided we wanted to get married in Sedona, one of the most beautiful places in the world and one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited. So we used Sedona Destination Weddings (SDW) and started our journey by scouting out possible destinations for our wedding ceremony.
First Step: Picking our Wedding package
Through SDW, we picked the “Serene Sedona” + Bouquet and boutonniere, costing about $650 total. This included:
We hired our wedding photographer, Scott English, for about $2,000. This was one of the more expensive bites out of our budget, but it was worth it! He included engagement photos and did an excellent job capturing our day.
Second Step: Scouting the ceremony spots
We opted to pay $150 to SDWs to hire a scout to take us to each zone where a ceremony could occur. We toured about 6 locations and picked a beautiful area called “Lovers Knoll” (how perfect) with a beautiful view of Cathedral Rock. Of course, you can scout them out yourself, but touring the locations with a seasoned scout was worth it to get a natural feel for which location best suited us without the threat of getting lost or going to the wrong place. One thing to note: it’s not possible to rope off or designate an area for the ceremony so no passers-by could interfere because it is a national park. This worried me greatly but didn’t end up being an issue.
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I was privileged to have generous parents who wanted to gift me with my wedding dress with a budget of under 2K. I found the perfect dress at Schaffers in Scottsdale, AZ, and my fiance found his suit at Men’s Warehouse for less than $500.
We needed places for our families and us to stay before and after the ceremony, so we rented two Air BnBs for about $1000 total. We also booked a fancy hotel stay for two nights at L’Auberge de Sedona for about $1000 (another splurge, but it was worth it).
The Ceremony/Day of the Ceremony
With the ceremony at 5 in the evening (this gave us the best window of time for good lighting), we were able to take our time to get dressed and get ready. My fiance and I stayed in our separate Air BnB homes with our families, and we opted to do the tradition where he won’t see me till I’m walking down the “aisle.” The aisle, in this case, meant walking on the red rock up to the place the ceremony was set up.
After getting ready, we all drove to Lovers Knoll, parked as close as possible, and we were off! As I approached the start of the walk towards to ceremony spot, there was a bouquet in some water ready for me to carry, and the musician we hired through SDW was already singing our song (Perfect by Ed Sheeran). The ceremony was beautiful — the officiant set up by SDW was a lovely woman who perfectly tapped into my spiritual/hippie soul.
Afterward, we took pictures with our families followed by pictures of just us two in the fading light. It all felt genuinely magical.
Ceremony Dinner
Our after ceremony dinner was generously gifted to us by my fiance’s parents at Dahl & Di Luca Ristorante, and it was divine. The chef, Lisa Dahl, was nice enough to wish us congratulations in person and gifted us with a signed cookbook that we cherish. To this day, that is the best bruschetta I have ever eaten.
After dinner, we swept off to our hotel for some much-needed rest, followed by a day of beautiful mountain biking on the Sedona trails.
The Reception
A week after our ceremony, we hosted a reception for our extended friends and family to celebrate our wedding. We booked a private balcony at Casablanca Rooftop Lounge for 100+ people with food and an open bar for 4k! Unfortunately, this is a venue I can’t recommend anymore because they are out of business. However, the night of celebration was amazing! I wore my wedding dress, we had our “first dance” to our song, and afterward, we spent a night out in Old Town Scottsdale.
Everyone is different, but this unusual way of committing to one another and celebrating with our loved ones was perfect for me and my now-husband. And I mean, perfect. It was an intimate and inclusive celebration, and we would do nothing differently.
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