More Ideas for Saving on a Wedding

In my post titled True-Life Stories of Saving on a Wedding, several commenters left their suggestions on how to save on a wedding. I want to share a couple of them with you today -- here's the first one:

One way I saved on flowers is when after the florist showed me the bouquets of I don't know how many flowers literally shoved into the bouquets, I asked her what it would look like if she used LESS flowers (mine were roses). I thought it looked better since you could actually see them as opposed to have tons of them squished together (which apparently is standard in Australia where I got married). And it was HALF the cost because she used half the flowers.

I also had a cocktail style reception with heavy hors d’oeuvre rotating on trays with waiters. The same with the cake once it was cut. It not only cut down on the cost of food, but nobody had to sit next to someone they didn't or wait in line for food.

Yep, sometimes less is more, as this reader found out with the roses.

Here's comment #2:

I had my wedding in 2001 for $2,000. I tribute most of the savings to asking advice from my pastor. He does 4-5 weddings per summer, so he knows who is the best and who is the least expensive.

1. I found someone to make and decorate the cake who does it out of her house.

2. I made my own veil (it's a family tradition and really easy).

3. I got a HUGE discount on my wedding dress, which was brand-new.

4. I went to a country club for the reception, which was served family-style. It was half the price of doing the food ourselves.

5. I went to the best florist in town, but did daisies as my theme flower. Daisies are really inexpensive.

6. I had a cousin do the wedding pictures because usually I've noticed that wedding pictures don't turn out when they're done by a professional. The pictures were perfect.

7. I had a DJ, but nowadays I would have just compiled an MP3 player to last for a few hours.

8. Candles were my centerpieces.

9. Went to Claire’s for my jewelry.

10. This is the honeymoon, but we went to Canada instead of a pricey resort. It was summer, and we figured we'd rather be comfy than in sweltering heat. We rented a cabin for peanuts.

My wife and I went to the mountains for our honeymoon as well. It was a GREAT time (and pretty inexpensive.)

Any other stories out there of how you saved on your wedding?

Comments

[MB]

Thanks for sharing my tips in your post! I have lots more tips...maybe I will post about them. ;)

[beloml]

6. I had a cousin do the wedding pictures because usually I've noticed that wedding pictures don't turn out when they're done by a professional. The pictures were perfect.

Ummm . . . what?

[Dan]

Agree with Beloml about the photographer. Planning a wedding now myself, the photographer is the one place I don't feel comfortable scrimping. That's the only thing you spend money on that is going to last.

I have seen, and we are considering, is tossing a handful of those disposal cameras on each of the reception tables. Ask guests to take pictures with these cameras throughout the evening and leave them behind for the bride and groom to develop. Not sure if I would substitute this for a photographer, but it's an inexpensive supplement.

[af]

I am in the wedding planning process right now! I will be getting married a year from today!!!

Ways I am cutting Cost:

My cousin happens to be the best photographer in the area, and has agreed to shoot my wedding for free! and since I already know how to edit the pictures I will be doing that myself.

The Groom's mother is good friends with the best DJ in the area, and as a favor to her he has agreed to do the wedding for half the cost.

Using the time I have available we will become members of the church we plan to marry in before the wedding date so no fee (Bonus: we found a church we love and will continue going there long after the wedding!)

Groom's Aunt has a catering business and will cater for $6 a person

We are using a Fire hall for the reception -- not the ritziest place in the world, but it's big enough and cheap

I will be making the invitations myself

We will buy are own alcohol and pay a bartender (friend) to serve the drinks

Groom's Aunt used to work for a florist so we will be ordering flower's wholesale

I am also way overestimating the cost! I have a plan in place to save almost twice the amount it's going to cost! That way we will def come out ahead.

Number one advice: Shop around, Most of the caterers we met with wanted $20-$37 a plate, I almost fainted when I found the one that said she would only charge $6.

[af]

To Dan:

I have worked for two different wedding photographers for the past five years and can tell you with absolute certainty that the pictures that people by from the professional are the ones from early in the day/evening (getting ready, ceremony, portraits, first dance and maybe the cake cutting). After all that is done the photographer my capture a couple of good candids, but this is not what people usually put in their album or on their wall.

The cameras on the table can be used to save money, by cutting the time you pay the professional, but still capturing those silly, later in the evening moments.

Also check out myphotofest.com. Those digital cameras would take much higher quality photos than the disposable film cameras, and you could view the pictures before printing (to see which ones are worth saving).

[wsbsteven]

We had our reception during the day instead of at night. We were able to get the room, food, and open bar for much less (around the price of a meal at your typical sit down restaurant).

[Bargain babe]

I bought my dress on eBay for $90, used the same trick with the florist (fewer flowers, more greens), my sister made mini-soaps for the guests as a gift to us, and a friend played the accordion during the ceremony. It was lovely!

[Walden]

I comparision shopped a lot of vendors to get the best price out there, and was flexible with what I wanted - for exampe I told the florist what my budget was and that I wanted varying shades of pink - I wasn't stuck on having all roses or lilies or anything expensive and the flowers turned out beautifully AND unique, I still get compliments all the time!

We also did a tapas-style reception, not to save money but b/c we thought it would be more fun, and it was! Bonus was that it was VERY reasonable ($22 pp).

Our reception venue was beer/wine only so that kept costs down. We hired a bartender who was recommended by our caterer who was crazy cheap (but great!) and bought our wine and beer through our wine club (30% discount) and Costco.

I bought the centerpiece vases on super sale and bought cheap candles to go inside, and found inexpensive lanterns online - we decorated the entire reception for about $250, then gave away centerpieces as gifts and kept the lanterns to reuse.

I think the key is to decide what's important to you and focus the majority of your budget there, do a little leg work to compare prices and it will all fall into place.

(note, - the one place I was really willing to spend $$$ was the photographer; I knew the photographs of the day would be really important to me the rest of my life. We ended up finding a great photog with incredible reasonable prices ($2500 for 6 hours, 2 camera coverage, prints and a 10x10 album) and I LOVE our pix. She was a dream to work with and is STILL (7 mos later) giving us discounts that she's offering now - for example she lowered the pricing on her packages a few months ago and gave us extra prints. I have recommended her to everyone under the sun, so it works both ways! Photographers don't have to be crazy expensive to be great!

[MB]

I would definitely not skimp on a photographer either! I actually interviewed several after tons of research to find the one that would take the kinds of photos I was looking for. We have two large wedding photos on our walls still and guests always comment on how fabulous they are. Of course it helps that we got married in Australia and had an unbelievable beach backdrop. ;)

[LotharBot]

I believe my wedding was about $4000 back in 2002. This was for about 200 guests, most of whom were friends of my in-laws (who paid for the whole thing.)

1) My father-in-law was a founder and pastor of the church where we married, so it was either free or very cheap for us to get married and hold our reception there on a Saturday morning.

2) My mother-in-law made my wife's dress, and IIRC she also made the bridesmaids dresses. I did end up paying for tuxedo rentals, which were perhaps a couple hundred bucks total.

3) My mom and my mother-in-law each sang one song, my father-in-law officiated, and a good friend of ours (who is a remarkable pianist) played the music for the ceremony and reception for only a token cost.

4) My mother-in-law grew the centerpieces in her garden, and had other ladies in her gardening club grow flowers for various other parts of the ceremony. We did end up paying a florist for the bouquets and corsages, but no other flowers.

5) We decorated using 1,001 origami cranes my wife and I made over the nearly 3 years we were engaged. Most were made on 2" paper, but some were much larger (wingspans in the 2-3 foot range) and hung on the walls as decorations. Some of them also doubled as party favors, as we wrote our names and wedding date on the wings with gold/silver gel pens.

6) My mother-in-law and her friends made the majority of the food (hors d'ouvres) for our 11 am reception, storing most of it in their huge freezer for a week or two beforehand. Another friend from the church, who was a professional baker, made the cake. There was no alcohol, seeing as the bride and all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen were underage and it was a morning-to-mid-afternoon wedding.

7) We paid the church youth group something like $500 to handle setup, tear-down, and changing the ceremony room to reception configuration. (We'd originally planned to have the reception outside, but temperatures were in the 102-106 range that week, which necessitated a last-minute change.) One of my good friends was a banquet coordinator at a nearby hotel, so he organized that for us.

8) We went with a photographer who gave us a good price ($500) that included an album, prints, and all of the negatives. We booked him a year in advance.

9) We made the invitations and programs ourselves, using a home printer, printed cardstock, vellum, and simple stickers from a local craft store. Our invitations cost about $30 to make and $50 in postage.

10) The guy who lived next to the church (right on the edge of town), who was very good friends with my in-laws, owned a famous breeding horse and a hundred-year-old open-topped amish buggy. I tell ya, a limo might be kinda stylin' but nothing compares to having a horse stand up on his hind legs and let out a loud whinny before driving you away.

Overall, the keys to our relatively inexpensive (yet very nice and very large) wedding were having a lot of time to do things ourselves, and having friends who could handle virtually everything we wanted.

[Mike Hunt]

We put my wifes bouquet in a vase that was the center of our table. Looked great and saved a bit of money on table flowers. Also for the photographer we got a few quotes and forced the wedding planner to negotiate down his rate- saved us $2000 US and he gave us the CD of photos vs paying per photo which is a total rip off.

-Mike

[Kyle]

I am a photographer and I do not recommend scrimping in that area AT ALL. Not just because I'm a photographer :)

I say this because when you pay someone $500 for a wedding this is a pretty good indication of the fact that said photographer doesn't make a living doing this professionally. A professional photog should have at LEAST 2 camera bodies, backup lenses and backup flashes. If someone is charging budget prices...well, let's just say you get what you pay for. I can't tell you the amount of horror stories I've heard of people who hire someone on the cheap and end up with no pics when the photogs camera craps out, or blurry pics because the photog doesn't know how to correctly use their equipment.

Here's a good post from a fellow photog about why photography is an investment, and why you should realize about the cost of photography: http://blog.darbig.com/2008/03/why-should-you-consider-wedding.html