Don’t go with an _amateur_ friend or relative for a wedding service you care about a lot, but if you have one or more who are actually _professionals_ in the relevant field, it’s worth asking them if they’d be willing to do it for you as a favor, or at least offer mates’ rates.

For ours, we had to pay for the caterer and the DJ, but with three professional photographers and two video producers on the guest list, recording the wedding visuals wasn’t a matter of spending money but soothing the egoes of the ones we didn’t ask to do it for free.

As a musician and a DJ (I rarely do weddings - mostly clubs and bars), finding one for my wedding was easy - I bribed one of my more talented friends to come in and rock the party. However, my cousins just hired the first guy they saw. They didn’t cheap out, but they didn’t find out what his schtick was. Before the night was through he brandished a Bobby Brown style handless mic and was trying to teach 100 drunk people the Macarena. Of which the 5 year olds in attendance complied, but the rest of us just rolled our eyes, finished our drinks and left.

As for movers… Before I moved in with my wife, I always moved myself. Hell, I wasn’t even one to shy away from moving my friends. But that got old fast, and when she insisted on spending $500 on moving our 600 sq ft apartment to our new house, I resisted at first. After the move, I swore I would a) Never move myself again and b) spring for the packing service too, next time. Moving sucks, this much is certain. But there is nothing like packing yourself, and then calling over some guys to handle the rest. Not only was nothing broken, but they moved us across town in 1/2 the time I could have done it myself - even if I had twice the people helping.

I agree on the wedding photos. My wife and I paid a good bit for ours, but they were professionally done and we are very happy with them. I also agree on the moving and business wardrobe ideas ~ in fact… I recently wrote about both. (shameless plug, I know)