Planning a wedding can be stressful. For Autumn Nesbitt and Noah Elrod, their youth plays a large part in that stress. After getting engaged in November, the young couple has encountered obstacles in planning their big day.

Autumn Nesbitt wishes she could have the perfect day.

But she and her fiancé, who have been together for three and a half years, can’t afford much of the extravagance associated with a typical dream wedding.

When Noah, who graduated from NIU in 2008, and Autumn, a senior elementary education major, started planning their October wedding, the bride and groom-to-be were worried about being young.

“We didn’t want to be taken for fools,” Autumn said, referring to the couple’s experiences visiting reception halls. “[At one point], I told him ‘I think we need to wait — we’re going to go into debt because of our wedding.’ It’s hard. You look at the bridal magazines and they’re all for older women, not for younger college students or the poor bride. With the economy right now, we just hope that we can make it.”

To avoid being taken advantage of when visiting reception halls, Autumn and Noah did their homework before scouting a certain spot. But they had to be realistic.

“We just started crossing things off because we secretly knew we couldn’t afford them,” Autumn, who has student loans to pay off, said. “I felt embarrassed to even be sitting there, at expensive places. Just for bows on chairs, it costs money,” Autumn said. “[But,] if we looked at places in our budget … it wouldn’t be somewhere you’d want to bring your guests.”

Noah is also currently paying off Autumn’s engagement ring.

“While she’s worrying about paying for the wedding, I’m still saving for the ring,” Noah said.

Autumn said she thought the recent bridal expo at the Holmes Student Center would have been geared more toward college brides and their budgets, but it too offered pricey vendors.

Laura Blentlinger, owner of wedding planning company Sentimental Dreams, said prices for wedding-related services remain steady at the higher end, despite the economic downturn. She sees a greater number of adult couples that are out of college and generally have more money to spend on a wedding.

“The way they market weddings is, it’s once in a lifetime,” Blentlinger said. “People will splurge; it’s their day.”

For Autumn, this isn’t the case.

“You don’t really get your ideal, dream-style wedding,” Autumn said. “It definitely makes you feel young.”

Autumn and Noah decided on a Sunday wedding, partly because it’s cheaper than a Saturday wedding. They’ve also come up with other ways to save money.

A friend will play the violin during their cocktail hour, and they’re opting for an iPod playlist at the reception. Autumn’s dad will grow flowers and pumpkins for their fall wedding.

“We planned on making our own invitations; we’re thrifty,” Autumn said.

Though they’re short on money, they still want to make the wedding their own.

“We don’t want it to be super crazy or clichéd,” Autumn said. “We keep trying to think of ways to make it more ‘us.'”

Both Autumn’s and Noah’s families are contributing money to the wedding, and the couple hopes to make $2,000 this summer.

For now, the couple has their fingers crossed and hopes that they’ve saved what they need to save come October, Noah said.

It’s important to them to pay for much of the event themselves.

“When we’re dancing on the floor to our first song, we’ll know we contributed to a lot of stuff,” Autumn said to Noah.

Despite the money woes, the couple is looking forward to their wedding and being married.

“We’re ready to start our life together now,” Autumn said. “It’s worth it to go through all the hardship and be poor.”

Autumn turned to Noah with a smile and said, “I want to be the person I am now and marry the person that you are now. We’re going to have an awesome wedding.”