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Outdoor weddings provide a wonderful opportunity to keep wedding costs down.
By prioritizing what is most important couples can minimize their expenses and have a country elegant wedding without breaking the bank.   These are tips we’ve come up with in our experiences with weddings.  We hope it will help to keep your cost from breaking the bank and still make your special day all you want it to be:

Set a Budget: You need to start with a budget. Know how much you have to spend.
Do some research by investigating what the average wedding venue costs, dresses, flowers,photographers,invitations and food.  This will give you an idea of what the costs are in your area.  Then talk openly and freely to each other and reach a mutual agreement as to how much you can afford to spend. Know who will be paying for what expenses.

Set your Priorities:  You need to think about what is most important to you on your wedding day.  Is it the venue, the food, the photographer or that special dress you have been dreaming about since you were a little girl?  Look  at what is most important to you and then eliminate other items.  One of the good things about outdoor weddings is if you choose the right venue you should not have to spend a lot on decorating or flowers.  The natural beauty is already there.  Look  for a venue that is one stop shopping and provides everything on site as that is usually less expensive and they do not ding you with additional costs or outside rentals.
One mistake that a lot of people make is thinking that having an outdoor wedding in Aunt Sally’s back yard or a park will save them money.  Not true, by the time you rent chairs,tables, linens, catering plus consider the stress and work involved for you and your friends/family the savings is often just not worth it.
Do the math carefully but make sure you factor in your time and energy in the equation- besides is that the way you want to be spending your wedding day doing setting up tables and chairs!?
Photographers come in all price ranges and packages.  Make sure that your photographer provides you with a digital CD that provides all images from wedding for your use. This allows you to have pictures made at a lot less cost.
Forget the party favors, most of them end up in the trash and no one will miss them.  Make your own programs, there are all types of websites available today to help you make programs.
An outdoor wedding provides the perfect setting for you to make your own centerpieces. Buy flowers from the local Farmer’s Market or order on line and place in vases.  Their natural beauty blends with the outdoor surroundings.  Buy special order hanging baskets for the wedding arch that you can take home and hang up after the wedding. Think creatively.
If you are really trying to save money look at having your wedding on a Friday or Sunday as most venues will cut their costs 20% on these days.

Look at Guest List:  The number one way to save all the way around is to keep your guest list at a reasonable number.  Fewer people equals less cost all the way around, less food, alcohol, venue cost, etc.  Keeping your guest list to around 100-125 people can save you money on food cost alone.  People often feel pressured to invite people that are merely friends at work or long lost relatives. Remember that this is your wedding and you need to invite those people you want to share it with and that have some special bond.  People often forget that when they are invited to a wedding it is costing the Bride/Groom money for them to come. You are paying for them to come so look closely at the guest list for people you know you want to be there and that want to be there as well.  It is alright to tell people that you are having a small wedding and have a tight budget.  In this economy everyone understands that.

Be organized and pay attention to details:  Once you have your venue, your catering menu is determined, your dresses picked out and photographer arranged everything else is simply details.    Keep the details to a minimum, do not complicate things, the less details the less that can go wrong.  Make sure you look closely at all your contracts and understand what you are getting, read the fine print, know what services you have bought and when they will be delivered. Try to have everything ready to go 30 days ahead of time, go over your list, check back with all your vendors.

The number one things to remember is this is your special day and the only thing that matters at the end of the day is that you are now husband and wife!

The Red-tail hawks are back at Red-Tail Canyon Farm.  We’ve seen them soaring overhead flashing their red tails this week in their mating rituals.  These aerial displays are meant to advertise their readiness for breeding.  Red-Tail hawks are monogamous and remain with the same mate pairing for life.  We welcome back our resident hawks every spring about this time.  The male and female participate in building the nest together which is a platform constructed of twigs and sticks and lined with bark and greenery.  It is usually located in a tree 100-120 ft. from the ground but some nests are built into the cliffs themselves.  Since we’ve moved here in 1974 we have never been able to locate our hawks nest, which we know lies somewhere at the top of the canyon wall   We suspect that our pair comes back to the same nest each year and just freshens it up a bit before moving back in.  The female will lay one to five bluish eggs with dark marks and will incubate them for 28 – 35 days.  After the hatching is over we usually see two young ones overhead squawking as they learn to fly around the end of May.  We’re looking forward to welcoming our new family members this year.

This winter I put together a cookbook for my daughter in-law that included recipes passed down through the generations of our family and that I’ve created from ours in the kitchen here on the farm. It made me realize how food really brings people together and gives them a tangible piece of history to hold on to. I wanted to share one of these recipes with our guests as it has always been a favorite of ours, especially my son who always asks for these when he comes home to visit.

Potato Pancakes (Latkes)
Yields 8

2 – 3 Potatoes grated
1 carrot grated
1 onion grated
1/4 cup of flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of pepper
oil

Combine all ingredients except oil. Heat enough oil to cover the base of a skillet over medium-high heat. When it is good and hot, drop Latkes, flattened in by large spoonfuls. Cook quickly until both sides are browned, flipping once. Drain skillet and serve with sour cream or apple sauce.

May is only a few months away and that means wedding season is just over the horizon. February and March mark our “project” months on the Farm. Each year we try to put together a list of improvements to go along with our regular spring cleaning items.

Over the last few springs we’ve added a pond by the lodge, erected two new log arches and groomed numerous new flower beds. I love to see the spring flowers appear in the beds as everything turns green. I’ve begun to look through the flower catalogs to pick out color schemes and layouts for this year’s flowers.

The flower beds and pots have become a staple of our venue as they provide natural beauty for weddings and help to cut back on the need for a lot of extra decorations. We’re looking forward to the snow melting and a beautiful spring!

Darla and Cash, our two Malamute/Shepperd pups, are now 11 months old and full of trouble.  Had a visitor the other day and he left his shoes on the doorstep when he came into the ranch house. When he opened the door to leave his shoes were gone! Cash had confiscated them and buried them in the snow at the top of the field. Luckily Darla led us to them. Visitors beware! Keep your shoes on!

The rain has been pounding on the roof. Heard a loud crash during the night. When I went out to feed the horses in the morning a large Ponderosa Pine tree that died last year had fallen and taken out the fence in Luc & Duc’s corral. Luckily it didn’t hurt anything but the fence! When we get the sawmill running this spring it will make great siding for the barn.