When frugality collides with a wedding's romance, the ground ends up littered not with rice, but with rose petals.

Many of the brides attending Sunday's Bridal Party at the Depot in Minneapolis may have entered with an eye toward simplicity, but there's something about planning your wedding day -- "My wedding day!" -- that works at the heartstrings as well as the purse strings. Consider the gown.

"They all come in wanting something plain, simple and elegant," said Stacy Mauch, who owns Jewel's Bridal Boutique in Delano, Minn.

"Then they start trying on dresses and walk out with something like that," pointing to a gown that fell in three sumptuous drapes from a sparkling bodice. It's not so much a matter of dollars -- "That hasn't ever been an issue," Mauch said -- as realizing that a wedding can feel like a fairy tale come true.

Still, these are times that call for level heads. According to the Wedding Report, a research firm in Tucson, Ariz., the average amount that American couples spent on weddings in 2009 dropped at least 10 percent, to just over $20,000, from the 2008 average of $21,814. (That was down from $27,490 in 2007.)

Tiffany Vescio of Minneapolis was walking among the vendors with her mother, Shirley Vescio. "We're trying to do everything within reason, but still having a fun time," said Vescio, whose wedding is set for June 5. The biggest challenge so far was finding the reception hall in the right place for the right price. "Location was important, so people didn't have to drive a long way from the church," she said.

The single biggest expense, far and away, will be the food for 350 reception guests, she said. Most of those decisions have been made, leaving her task for Sunday's expo to finish up "the detail stuff -- invitations, floral." She's been planning for a year, and needed every moment, she said. Vescio, who first divulged her colors and then, upon a caution from Mom, decided to keep it a surprise, said she's planning a pretty traditional wedding with a classic tiered cake and six bridesmaids. While not divulging what the total bill will be, she expected it to come in "at pretty much what we expected."

Attitudes vary widely when it comes to reception costs, said Jeneen Lind, decorating manager for Grandma's Bakery in White Bear Lake. "Some people will always go big, while others are capable of keeping their costs down," Lind said. Cupcakes, often arranged in towers, are a new and growing trend. The individual cakes enable couples to bypass the slicing fee charged by some facilities. "We still try to make it as grand as possible," Lind said, even if a tiered wedding cake isn't in the cards.

Flowers seem to be the item on which brides try to economize, partly because there is such variance in prices, said Gwen Meckle, who manages the Minneapolis branch of Paeonia Floral. "Cost is the No. 1 phone call I get," she said, adding that there really is no "average" expense.

Meckle said brides are becoming more imaginative. Some say they'll need altar flowers and bouquets, but will arrange their own reception centerpieces. Meckle's booth showed several ways of using inexpensive flowers such as chrysanthemums in ways that give more bang for the buck. She even threaded small orchids with some kalamata olives leftover from a wedding, making hanging tendrils within glass chimneys for a table decoration.

"The market has changed so much. It's very few and far between to get someone who doesn't care what it costs," she said, then added, "But they still all want to be blown away."

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185