Today is my sort-of 13th Wedding Anniversary! Sort of because I was married 2/29/00 and for 3 out of every 4 years there is NO 2/29! What a lucky husband I have. So I thought what better day than to share some budget friendly ideas for having a beautiful wedding without a huge bill. I’ve seen/helped my sisters plan and execute their weddings and got married in a courthouse myself!
A frugal wedding doesn’t have to be cheap. The DIY weddings I have attended have all been beautiful, FUN and unforgettable. Remember that the important part of the wedding is that YOU ARE MARRYING THE ONE YOU LOVE. Not the flowers, not the music, not the dress.
- Save where you can to splurge where it’s important: Some parts of a wedding are more long term than others. The cut flowers on the table? Maybe a few days. The wedding pictures- generations. Try to save money on those limited time items and splurge where it really matters.
- Location, Location, Location: Weight all of your options before choosing a location. Will you have to provide your own tables and chairs? Are they included in the rental price? Is there a friend or family member (or yourself) with a beautiful yard that could host the wedding? Local churches often have reception halls that are much cheaper than other facilities. My sister got married in a local park’s hall. It was beautiful, included a beautiful view from the windows and even had a full kitchen!
- Keep the Food Fare simple: Buffets are often cheaper and just as delicious as a sit down, served dinner. At my sister’s wedding she had a pasta buffet. There were several varieties of pasta, several pasta sauce selections and a few meat choices. Putting the pasta first allowed the diners to fill their plates with pasta and just top it with meat instead of vice versa. A sit down dinner may end up being more expensive because wait staff will need to be hired. My sister lucked out and her brother in law is a fabulous cook. He and a friend pulled off the entire dinner without a hitch and there was none left by the end of dinner and no one was hungry. If you are going with a caterer be sure to get a price for each, they may actually charge more for the food because self-served buffets often have people eating more food.
- Make your own invitations: With a good printer and easily found online templates and inexpensive invitation kits (found online or at stores like Target and ACMoore) making your own elegant invitations can be easy! All of my sisters printed their own invitations on these kits and saved a LOT of money for something people will look at once or twice and toss in trash. Avoid over sized or oddly shaped invitations. They can cost a lot more to mail!
- DIY flowers: My sister had an outdoor wedding. A few re-purposed shepherds hooks and some borrowed Mason jars and inexpensive flowers from the grocery store: beautiful flowers lining the aisle! Going to a florist can cost alot more than buying the flowers yourself and enlisting the help of a friend with a good eye.
- Enlist Friends & Family with talents:Have a friend with good graphic arts skills? See if they will help you with the invitations. A friend who is a great cake decorator? Ask them to take on the cake. Offer to pay for supplies & their time and many will offer the cake as your wedding gift! Have a friend who waitresses? Ask them if they have friends wanting to make some money on the side and work your wedding. I’m not advocating taking advantage of any friends or family, but rather asking for help and being sure to offer to pay for their time or reciprocate in the future!
- Forgo the favors: Think of the weddings you have attended…how many of those little bags of mints ended up in the trash? If you are going to give favors think handmade- maybe heart shaped cookies that they can eat on the way home or another inexpensive but fancy looking goody.
- Borrow it: You know the old saying, “Something Old, Something New, something borrowed, something blue”. Instead of buying fifteen vases, borrow them. Ask all of your family to borrow vases with the same theme (i.e. clear or tall or whatever). It doesn’t all have to be “matchy-matchy”. A little texture adds to the experience.
- Be your Own DJ: With ipods and other music players- you may find purchasing a speaker system will be far more economical (and you can use it in your home later!) than hiring someone. Plus you can control many of these with remote controls. Enlist a friend to be in charge of starting the music and you could see some great savings.
- DIY Decorations: Create your own table runners from fabric and a little sewing. Create your own centerpieces. One of my sisters found the prettiest jars at the Dollar Tree and filled them with water and glitter and a single flower. SO beautiful and cost less than $3 each!
- Re-purpose: Think of items you can use for your wedding that you can use in your new home after the wedding. Table clothes, center pieces, and more can be purchased, used in the wedding and then re-purposed later in your new home.
What frugal wedding tips do you have? Share them with us!
A veteran of producing inexpensive weddings, there are a few things I would add to this:
1) Don’t ASSUME that a country club or hotel setting is more expensive. My nephews wedding in the golf clubhouse of my sister’s gated community cost more, with seated dinner, passed hors d’oeuvres during cocktail hour and open bar, ultimately cost less than my son’s wedding, which was held at our Moose Lodge with a friend of the bride’s family as the caterer. And my nephew’s wedding was undoubtedly the less stressful, more beautiful affair. Likewise, don’t assume that DIY flowers will be cheaper than the florist, and don’t put a poorly made DIY bouquet in a photo with a $1,000 dress. It will be the “it’s too bad” thing about your wedding forever.
2) Unless you’re pressed for time and would have to pay rush charges, buying invitations is almost always cheaper, and it’s definitely less time-consuming. Inkjet ink is expensive, you don’t want to use refills on a project like this, and you’ll probably need to buy extra invitations to practice until you get it right. The exception would be if you only need 25-40 invitations or if you get a great sale. That said, I used the printer to address my invitations. It was time consuming, but it saved me the cost of a calligrapher and my handwriting is atrocious. (This was a remarriage, I didn’t have a bunch of bridesmaids to call on to help.)
3) Whatever you do, don’t ask a non-professional friend to be your photographer. I did it both times, and I regretted it both times. For my son’s wedding, I hired a friend who was a professional just starting out, and she was great AND saved me money. Check a local college for a photography student or ask the person who runs your local Target studio whether they have their own equipment on the side. Some don’t, but some are just doing the Target gig to pay the bills while they get started.
4) Finally, don’t overestimate the time you have to DIY, and don’t buy into the hype of the wedding industry and the TV shows. I have yet to see a butterfly release go well.
Duh, I goofed up the first paragraph. My nephew’s wedding cost LESS than my son’s.
To save money on my invitations I took advantage of Groupon ALWAYS having deals on vistaprint.com I bought the $17 for $70 worth and had to pay shipping. The invitations and RSVP cards come with free envelopes so I ended up not paying much and I’m not crafty so it was MUCH better than making them myself. It fit me better!
I wore my sister’s wedding gown, altered to fit me, and had a beautiful hat instead of veil. No onenotices iit’s the same dress in photos. If you’re a member of a church you probably have access to a free location. Have your reception their too. Most likely no alcohol allowed but life is fun without it! I got my flowers at Michaels. No, they weren’t real, but were gorgeous and I used a coupon. Congratulations to anyone getting married!