Every engaged couple wants to create a luxurious ceremony full of top end wines, world-class food and divine details. Unfortunately, however, this vision of an impossibly chic wedding often turns out to be just that—impossible!

But if eagerly devouring wedding blogs has taught us anything, it’s that you can cut a few corners and still pull off the posh ceremony of your dreams. If you are looking to trim your reception costs, start by checking out some of these great resources for reviews of the best cheap wines on the market:

• With a chardonnay for $8 and a pinot noir for $7, Cheap Wine Finder might just be your new best friend! Visit the site to read reviews, see how pretty the labels are and more.
• Delish offers a charming slideshow of great wines under $15. You’ll feel like you’re being whisked around the globe, too, with wines from France, Italy, Australia, Spain, Argentina, Chile and beyond.
• For a little bit of sass with your shiraz, check out the series of reviews from SFoodie titled “Cheap Wines That Don’t Suck.”
• New York Magazine also has some fabulous suggestions for special occasion wines that won’t bust your budget.

Unfortunately, on the wedding scene you tend to come across stories of hapless bridesmaids being tortured by the whims of a raging bridezilla. We’ve heard of everything from bridesmaids being banned from the beach because tanlines are simply unacceptable, to the ladies signing a contract that explicitly states that they will not get pregnant before the wedding out of a fear that they will “ruin the aesthetic” of a ceremony.

But brides don’t have to be completely out of control in order to torture their friends—simple budget demands will do the trick. In this all-too-common story from Smart Spending, a bridesmaid laments over being asked to pay $275 for a dress she hates, on top of chipping in for a bachelorette party and four separate showers!

Do you think that’s fair? How much do you expect the bridesmaids at your wedding to spend? Have you ever had to deal with insane bridesmaid costs? How did you handle it? Do pricey bridesmaid expenses make you want to rant or rave?

This week, we’ve been talking a lot about destination weddings. We love the idea of jetting off to some distant shore to tie the knot in style, but with any discussion of a destination also comes the question of cost.

What would you expect your family and friends to dish out for your destination wedding? How would you try to keep the costs down? Do you think prohibitive prices are a detriment to wedding destinations, or is the fact that your wedding would end up small and exclusive a plus? Does the price of your dream destination make you want to rant or rave?