Hi all!
I wanted to share some helpful tips to save a few dollars on your BIG day! I’m VERY frugal -my husband likes to razz me about this. So with that being said I wanted to make sure that when we got married we didn’t break the bank in trying to make our day as special as possible.
You do have to do some good research and google stalking of everything, but it does pay off in the end.
For our ceremony I wanted to find a place that was naturally beautiful, that way we saved on the cost of decorations. The venue also had to fit the amount of people we had invited. If you search for gardens or people willing to rent out their orchards you’d be amazed at what you can get for a great deal!
Photographers are always tricky and very individual. I wanted to make sure we got at least 3 great shots of our day (I got a heck of a lot more than that), but I did go searching. You can go to your local college photography course and ask about any photographers interested in building a portfolio by capturing your wedding. So long as you like their previous photos and can work out a great deal it can save you thousands of dollars.
For your venue - search, search, search! Everyone told me hotel ballrooms-I wanted to search for halls. Check out your local legion, lions club, elks hall, or any club with elders. Most of those places do the cooking, booze, and rent out the venue all together. Per plate they charged $16.00 most other places were anywhere from $36.00-80.00 per plate. I will tell you the food was AMAZING! There were 3 nice older ladies who cooked the most delicious food, served us, and cleaned up. We saved probably close to $8,000.00 going this route and it was SO worth it.
For your flowers, I’ll say it again- search, search, search! You can find some amazing florists just starting out or who are just “picky” about who they make bouquets for and if you’re an easy going bride you can get a good deal.
Most importantly your dresses! Don’t rule out sales and off the rack, same goes for the suits for the men (even suit rentals are a great option). I was able to save $400.00 on my dress just by purchasing off the rack. My bridesmaid dresses came from a online store on sale for $50.00 each.
For the rest of your centre pieces, decorations, and cake it's best to search good old Pinterest! I made my centre pieces from stuff I could get from my garden and local farms. We found the dollar store had what we needed to create our small party favour boxes and filled them with popcorn! I also made my own cake and froze it until the day before at which time I also decorated it. YouTube was extremely helpful for this task and saved me around $200.00.
My biggest splurge was probably our “candy table” and it was a hit! Most of the candy and popcorn I purchased at Costco or a wholesale store. I think that was as affordable as I could get, but man was it worth it. Everyone stayed close to the candy, the bar, and the dance floor.
Lastly don’t forget to check out sites like eBay and Etsy for little things like your veil, cake topper, wine glasses, etc. Those sites saved me a ton of money!
We had a few friends and family members who got hitched around the same time as us and their wedding costs ran anywhere from $20,000 - $50,000. In total we spent roughly around $7,000.00. It’s amazing what you can save when you put in the legwork.:-)
All photos were taken by Janine Rayburn https://m.facebook.com/stanhopeimages/
XO - K