Weddings are such special occasions! But they are also incredibly expensive. I am sure some of you frugal people have great stories of how you found ways to save money, yet still have a memorable day. Please share your ideas!
The very first thing to do is for the two persons who are getting married to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk about the wedding. All too often, the bride and groom are just bystanders while the rest of the family make plans. Once the bride- and groom-to-be has come to an agreement about how much they want to spend, then they will have to hold a meeting with their families. Separately. Many families have split up because of arguments arising from wedding arrangements. The couple to be married must be very, very firm about being in charge. After all it's their wedding. If any rich member of their family wants to take over the planning of the wedding by offering to sponsor it, the couple should gracefully decline and ask for the money to be put into a fund for the future children instead.
When I married for the second time, I got my flowers done at the local Technical College. The final year floristry students make up the flowers to your specifications, for a fraction of the price, and the whole order is overseen by the tutors, so you get a great job. The only problem is, you need to order well in advance, as they only take on a limited number of weddings each week. Also, you'll probably have to collect the flowers yourself the day before the wedding, but they will give you all the information you need to keep them fresh. Rather than hiring special wedding cars, buy a couple of reels of floristry ribbon, and ask a good friend to act as chauffeur for the bridal party. Dress the car up with ribbon, put a flower arrangement in the back window, and arrive in style without paying out a fortune.
Good ideas! I agree that setting priorities right at the start is a good idea. I think it is a good idea to know what things you are willing to splurge for and what things just aren't as important. That can help a couple decide where to cut costs. I love the technical college idea for the flowers, that's something I wouldn't have though of!
I am getting married in a few weeks and some items you may overlook when planning which can be expensive (that we didn't really think of either) are flowers which were covered above, the invitations for the wedding and rehearsal dinner, the DJ, photographer. The invitations can get pretty costly depending how many people you invite. The one thing we didn't even think about at the time was stamps. You essentially need 2 per invitation since you are supposed to stamp the return envelop for the person responding. So try to find a nice bargain on these or you might be able to make them yourself if you already have supplies laying around. Sometimes knowing a friend or family member that is a good photographer can do wonders in saving money. I think our photographer is like a thousand dollars or so just for a 5 hour slot. If you don't find the right one for you, you can end up paying for packages you don't want, and sometimes they won't give you all the pictures they take since they are now copyrighted and owned by them. So to save money here I would ask around in your family/friends who take photography seriously as a hobby. Lastly the DJ. Same as above with looking to friends of family if you by chance would know any one with the equipment. Sometimes the venue will supply you with you of course but that may not always be the case. Edit: Lastly, if you haven't purchased a dress yet my words of advice would be don't try on dresses you know are outside your budget/price range. Just ask my fiance haha, she tried on one that was roughly 1500 above what she wanted to pay, fell in love with it and just "had to buy it"
If at all possible get friends and family to help cater the event. I would also go more for an apetizer style buffet rather than a sit down dinner. Brunches are also cheaper. Do as much of the decorating youself if you are creative. I have been married several times. I would elope if I ever had to do it again. lol Then just throw a big party when you get back for all your friends and family. Its a lot less expensive and stressful.
Thanks for the good ideas! My daughter is planning a morning wedding, with brunch foods for the reception. And when we realized the cost of mailing a letter would go up before time to mail the invitations, I went out and bought pretty "forever" stamps at the lower price before the increase. Shaggz235, best wishes to you and your fiance!
My wedding was absolutely beautiful and only cost me $2,000, dress and all. I mean, to us it was a lot of money because we emptied our entire bank account to say "I do." (My husband was having a hard time finding a job etc.) For our ceremony, we held it at a botanical garden which was absolutely FREE as well as beautiful. The pastor was a family friend (Someone you know could get ordained for free on themonestary.org). Our photographer was FREE also because he was trying to expand his portfolio. Try doing a search on craigslist for photographers who are trying expand their portfolio to include weddings, often they will link to their site so that you can check out their work. We also had one of my husband's friends take pictures discretely, not having people pose for pictures and they outcome was amazing. People were natural in the pictures, laughing and real and not so posed. We sewed all the table runners and the ring bearer pillow with fabric we bought at walmart and held our reception in my parent's back yard. The food was made by my parents, my brother, and sister and the cake was made by my mom. The cake was 3 white tiers and had roses going down one side and it tasted wonderful. Everything, from lights to the tent rental was bought or rented off of craigslist. The favors for the 120 guests were heart shaped chocolate dipped shortbread cookies that my mom baked and sealed in plastic baggies with one of those food sealers. I hope my ideas could help.
We did a few things to save money. First off, we made our own invitations. It took some time, but we sat in the middle of the living room with a bunch of family and friends and put our minds to it. Many people even asked us where we got them because they liked them so much. I got my makeup done by a Mary Kay consultant who was trying to expand. She did it for free in return for allowing her to take pictures for her portfolio. I got my dress off of the clearance rack at a local bridal shop! We went to Hobby Lobby to buy decorations/flowers for the reception. They looked wonderful and we even made money off of them in the end by selling them to somebody else that wanted to use them for her wedding! I would suggest using Facebook if at all possible. There are a lot of people who have things that they are probably willing to sell or give away or lend; and often times have talents you didn't know about such as photography, cake making, etc.
Court_Dhey and racechick79, thanks for the ideas...all of you have started the creative juices flowing. She found her dress on on a discontinued style rack at a local bridal shop for half price. She walked in with a specific budget and didn't allow herself to even look at dresses outside that budget. I think she was going to make her veil, but got too busy, and ordered one online instead. We have some friends who are going to help with the flowers, and we are getting the cake from a local restaurant that has our favorite cake instead of a fancy bakery. It will be delicious. So...things are starting to come together!
I suggest both the parties who are going to bind two persons in this beautiful relation should completely talk on the expanses of the said ceremony. I belong from pakistan and here the groom bride family have to buy all the necessary home appliances for their daughter and all that is done on the demand of groom family. This type of trend should be ended. The second bad thing is "Walima ", the food party at third day of marriage, this party consumed at least 75% of money of all the marriage. All people should properly pre plan the whole program before going to get started. Thanks are always appreciated.
My husband and I had our wedding at a garden hotel. The hotel package included a bridal car. But since we had the ceremony at their beautiful garden and the reception in their ballroom, we didn't need the car. We instead asked the hotel if we could exchange it for other freebies (like an overnight stay in the hotel). Also, since their garden already had a lot of interesting features (a pond, a bridge, lots of flowers and trees, lanterns all over the garden), we needed minimal decorations for the ceremony. There were also many inclusions in the package that we were able to negotiate with the hotel since our relatives and friends from out of town decided to book rooms with the hotel when they came over for our wedding. We had small cakes made that looked like our wedding cake. We placed them on platforms of styrofoam, decorated with beads and faux feathers, and we used those as centerpieces together with a mirror and candles. So our actual wedding cake was mostly made of styrofoam underneath fondant icing, except for the portion that we need to slice. And we saved on centerpieces. My friends and relatives loved the idea too! I heard one of them telling a coworker that that's what she should do. But before all of this, my husband and I sat down to discuss our budget and which of the items we were willing to cut costs on and which ones we really wanted to splurge on.
One thing is to not invite a lot of people because that means you will have to spend extra money on food. Make sure you keep it small: primary family members and close, close friends. When discussing the wedding to people, talk about how modest you want it to be and that you don't want people to make a big deal about it. I have in-laws that spent close to $20,000 on a wedding and an additional $10,000 for their new child's christening. Yeesh!
Mimi, I just today saw a video with the idea of using a styrofoam layer or tier on the wedding cake to cut down on the cost of that cake, and then having sheet cakes in the kitchen of the same flavor to slice and serve. The idea is that if the sheet cakes are sliced and served from the kitchen, people will just assume they are part of the fancy wedding cake, but the whole thing is less expensive. I don't know if I would do that, but it is certainly a creative idea!
A friend of mind asked me to make the invitations for her wedding. I said yes because i really love doing arts and crafts, we brainstormed together for the perfect invitation that will showcase the wedding theme. She only paid for the materials needed, which can easily be found on craft shops and malls. Why don't you try asking some of your friends to do the invitation for you, maybe you have creative friends who are willing to help. It will really save you a lot of money.
I used to be into rubber stamping, and I can think of lots of ways to make invitations that are creative and beautiful. Unfortunately, this wasn't the time for that because of other things going on in our lives. But she did find some pretty cards and printed the invitations herself. I think the key has been knowing which things were important enough to her to spend money on, and which things really didn't matter that much.
The best way to save for a wedding is to plan ahead. Get engaged today, get married 1 year and 6 months later. Not only it will be healthy for your savings, it will also be healthy for your relationship. Less hassle, less misunderstandings, less stress and more time to think.
Do as many things as you can on your own. By the invites and stuff from Michael s and DIY. You can usually find a cheap banquet hall at like VFW or a church in the area; since they are non-profit they won't charge much more than a few hundred bucks. I know my one friend lived in a nice apartment complex and it had a really nice clubhouse where they could have events. As for food and booze: find a local restaurant to cut you a deal and buy the dishes and stuff in bulk from a restaurant outlet. or even have someone you know cook; my mom and my father in law are awesome cooks so they made everything so we only had to buy groceries. same for booze; anyone can bartend and then buy the alcohol in cases. what kind of budget are you looking at and what do you need it to include?
