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"Wedding guests understand that you may not be able to afford to serve them Beluga caviar, hire Samantha Ronson to DJ, or send each of them home with her own bottle of Cristal. But there are certain wedding budget savers your guests won&amp;#x27;t forgive. A cash bar only Guests realize an open bar with top-shelf liquor may not be in your budget. But, barring religious reasons, beer, wine, and soda at the very least should be on your tab. It&amp;#x27;s not that it&amp;#x27;s impossible to have a good time if guests have to take out their wallets each time they hit the bar; it&amp;#x27;s just that paying for their drinks shows them you&amp;#x27;re grateful they came to celebrate. A skimpy meal Like me, my parents are big eaters. So you can imagine their disappointment when they attended a wedding where sandwich squares were the only items on the menu--and the platters that held the squares cleared out quickly and were never refilled. My parents didn&amp;#x27;t even get to eat one white bread sandwich between them! And they were so hungry, they had to find a place to get dinner after the party. The lesson: Guests don&amp;#x27;t expect a five-course meal or even fancy food, but they want to be full enough not to go to a restaurant when your wedding ends. Bad music You don&amp;#x27;t need a live band to have an amazingly fun party. And you really can let your iPod be the wedding DJ. But letting your playlist of grunge, gangster rap, and Disney songs (don&amp;#x27;t make fun; my playlist is really like this!) run as is won&amp;#x27;t cut it. So invest in tunes your whole guest list will enjoy. It&amp;#x27;s also wise to hire someone (or ask a friend) to man the MP3 player to make sure it runs smoothly. Hold on, there&amp;#x27;s good news: The amount you spend on wedding stationery, flowers, and your and your bridesmaid dresses doesn&amp;#x27;t at all affect guests&amp;#x27; good time. So if your guests are most important to you (and they should be!), go ahead and cut back in these areas. Would you sacrifice style to make sure your friends and family have fun at your wedding? What other wedding elements do you think guests care about--and don&amp;#x27;t care about? Where are you saving and splurging? More About Wedding Budgets How to Negotiate With Wedding Vendors to Lower Costs Unemployed and Wedding Planning 8 Unexpected Wedding Costs More Ways to Get Glamour Visit Shopglamour.com for cute stuff starting at just $10! Enter the latest Glamour sweepstakes! Follow us on Twitter Add us to your iGoogle homepage Photo: Comstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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