Greetings from way up in Canada!
A few general tips for Alliance:
1) The more you can get into the headspace of the game and your character, the more fun you're going to have; costuming and armor can go a long way to help with that, and you can find some great deals on simple costuming at thrift stores if you don't have the skill to create your own from scratch. If you've got some spare cash, you might also commission a fellow LARPer to make you a few costuming pieces, or order something online.
2) Your first few weapons should probably be boffers (there are some simple instructions for making them in the rulebook) if you plan to make them yourself and haven't done so before, as their construction tends to be more forgiving of mistakes; people from your chapter can probably provide tips and assistance if you ask, and there's lots of stuff on weapon crafting here on the forums, too.
3) Metal armor is likely to be expensive to put together all at once for your first time, but like costuming you can find some suitable items at thrift stores to make into cheap leather armor; a decently thick leather jacket with some modifications to make it look period-appropriate can be worth several points of armor on its own, plus maybe a couple extra bonus for costuming. Unless you're dead-set on showing up to your first event decked out in plate mail and can afford to do so, in which case more power to you.
4) You're not expected to memorize all the rules right off the bat, so don't feel too bad if you flub a call or don't remember what a spell does your first few events. People in my chapter are pretty good about clarifying rules and such if someone's having trouble even mid-combat, but if that's not possible you can always clarify with a marshal at a convenient time.
5) If you chapter has them, I highly recommend attending a combat practice day or two at some point before your first event, or maybe asking a fellow PC to spar with you in-game. Combat can get pretty hectic and loud when almost everyone at the event is involved, and it can be overwhelming the first few times (especially if you're prone to sensory overload or have an auditory processing disorder); if you've got some practice with combat already it can really help to keep your brain in a manageable spot.
Healers are SUPER important in this LARP, as far as I'm concerned. While you probably won't be up against anything too tough your first event, you don't regenerate Body Points in-game without healing of some kind; if you end a Friday night with 3 Body, you have 3 Body come Saturday morning. Don't heal by bedtime Saturday and you're still at 3 Body (or less) when Sunday morning rolls around. Healing comes in three basic forms (Earth spells, potions, and alchemy) and in varying strengths, though, so finding someone capable of healing you might not be such a big deal. Paying for it, on the other hand, might be a bigger issue depending on who you talk to.
You resurrect if you die, yes, but you can only do so a limited number of times before your character is dead for good; 2 for free, then you have to start playing a game of chance to see if you can come back after that, and each death after the 3rd increases the odds you'll permanently die. You also resurrect with no gear (you have to leave your in-game items behind), so unless you have people on the mod/patrol with you who are kind enough to haul your stuff back you might end up starting your new life with nothing to your name and very few means of getting more.