10 Tips to Cut Your Wedding Cost
Weddings can be SO expensive! Nowadays, there are so many outside pressures to making your wedding super extravagant, original and mind-blowing. It's all about the Instagram-able moments, perfect wedding pictures and a night that your guests will be talking about long after your wedding day. I've got good news, you don't have to break the bank to make that happen!
I understand that everyone's situation is different. Some may have an unlimited budget for their wedding, and others may have to be minimalistic. Whatever situation you are in, it's okay! Your wedding day is one of the most amazing days of your life, and once it's over it's not going to matter whether you had a chandelier ceiling, a wall of roses, the most expensive food options, or even if you served a meal at all! All that matters is that you have decided to make a covenant between you, your husband and God, and that you get to spend the rest of your lives together serving the Lord and walking in His will.
Another important thing is that you plan this wedding for YOU! Weddings are all about personality, so choose what fits you and your Fiancé best. If your favorite food is pizza, by all means serve pizza. If your favorite dessert is chocolate chip cookies, find a way to incorporate them into your day either as your "cake" or as a thank you gift. Your guests will love the personalization and ultimately you will enjoy your day more because it is filled with the things and people that you love.
Now to the saving money part. There are so many ways that you can save money during the wedding planning process, so there is no one size fits all in this area. I just wanted to share the few areas I found most helpful to cut costs, and we ended up cutting the cost in HALF!!!
In the wedding industry, everything seems to be an extra $500. You want someone else to address your invitations? $500. You want an archway at your ceremony? $500. You want a second shooter? $500. You can literally $500 yourself to death! It's important to find the things that you can’t live without and then cut the rest.Â
Skip the save the date. In my opinion, this is so unnecessary! I know that some people use this to show their favorite engagement pictures, but lets be honest - you're going to put them on Instagram anyway. Post your wedding date on social media and those that are closest to you will know the date anyway. It saves hundreds of dollars.
Don't use a wedding coordinator. I promise you can plan this thing with help of family and friends! A full time wedding coordinator is going to cost you AT LEAST $3,000 and can range up to $10,000 depending the services. It is also difficult to get your thoughts and ideas out verbally to the point where your coordinator understands your vision and can make that happen. We got a friend to be our day-of-coordinator to run the ceremony/rehearsal (who had interned as a wedding coordinator!) and also had another family friend of ours be in charge of making sure everything was set up properly and the decorations turned out the way we wanted. A day of coordinator is worth it because you should be able to enjoy the day and not have to worry about everything happening around you. Before you rush and get a full time coordinator to help you plan your day, try to make some of the initial big decisions yourself and you'll be surprised of what you're capable of. I used an to help keep everything organized and to take notes when I met with each vendor. It was super helpful and kept all my thoughts and ideas in one place!
Get a fake cake. If you want a statement cake, make it a faux. Bakeries can usually make a fake cake (make sure you ask!) and make it look exactly how you want. They put a little square of real cake in the back for you and your husband to "cut." Then you have sheet cake in the back to serve from a mom and pop shop, Costco or someone who bakes out of their home.  My opinion of weddings is that the cake, and the taste of the cake, is a MUST! Some fancy bakeries charge up to 6.00 a slice for average, and sometimes below average, cake. Get good tasting cake, or as I say, make it worth the calories!
Shop pricing for rentals.  One of the most expensive categories for weddings is the rentals - utensils, plates, glassware, linens, etc. A tip to cut this cost is to find a venue that supplies tables and chairs, an a caterer that supplies the utensils and plates. I found a lady who ran a rental company out of her home. She had linens, chargers, plates, utensils, etc.  She even had centerpieces and things to stage with. She is based out of Edmond, Oklahoma and the drive to pick up and drop off was worth it! She even purchased the linens that I wanted to use for the reception, so that I could rent them from her. Now she owns them and can rent those out in the future. It was a win-win!
Rent your dress. Or if you can’t find one to rent, find the perfect dress and shop it on-line or at a hole in the wall boutique. You only wear this dress once and then it gets put in storage. Be realistic when you are shopping! When you go to a large Bridal Boutique, the assistants are there to make it an "emotional buy." DON'T FALL FOR IT. Stick to your budget.Every appointment I went to they told me my budget was too unrealistic, but once I found the dress I wanted I shopped the heck out of it until I got the price I wanted to pay. There are places that will negotiate. ASK! They sometimes can throw in alterations, which will save you around $400 or more.  Something I also found out in the process was that they can order 2 different lengths for dresses. I ordered the dress in 5 and 6 and didn’t have to pay to alter it. Yes, you have to consider the shoes you are going to wear, but I figured I could find shoes to make it work. One last thing, SHOP THE VAIL. The same vail in a bridal store will be more expensive than a department store who also carries wedding lines (Nordstrom, Neimans), and sometimes you can find them on a pre-owned site.
Use a normal restaurant as your caterer. Caterers that are specific to the wedding industry will be TWICE the cost of a restaurant vendor, or maybe more.  The wedding industry is a huge market. In the DFW area they have 1200 weddings a weekend, so the mark-up is great for an emotional purchase. Don’t get swept up in the emotion of the wedding details. You can find what you want to fit your budget. We used Blue Mesa Grill. You would have never known that it was a normal restaurant that catered. I specifically wanted food stations at my wedding, rather than a buffet or sit down. Adam asked for tacos at the wedding so we had a Taco Bar with Pork, Chicken, Salmon and Beef. We also had a Chicken and Waffle station with lots of fun toppings, as well as a Macaroni Bar with toppings that they made out of a huge skillet. People raved about the food!!!! And it was half the cost of the exact same menu from a wedding caterers. Blue Mesa also supplied the linen napkins, the silverware, as well as the dishes. They supplied their own tables for set-up and linens for those tables. I had appetizers served during the room flip (the ceremony and reception were in the same room) where they provided their own servers who passed the hors devours and drinks. It was a huge cost saver!
Flowers - less is more. On Pinterest, you always see pictures of large, extravagant floral arrangements, ceilings filled with roses, and petals all over the floor. Your wedding does not have to have a ton of flowers to make it beautiful. You can get creative with how you decorate the venue and the tables, without having to have large floral arrangements that everyone uses. We used hot pink branches for center pieces in large, black trumpet vases. I spray painted the branches myself - they added height to the room and added punches of color. I also used a florist who did flowers as a side job, which saved me thousands of dollars! For my bridesmaids bouquets I did floral rings that were unique yet minimal, and they could take them home and hang on a door or somewhere fun in their homes. Lastly, the flowers you choose will also be a factor. If you choose a bouquet full of peonies it will end up being pricey because those specific flowers are expensive, but if you mix some peonies in with some less expensive flowers you can get the impact of what you were trying to create without the expense.
Don't spend a lot of money on invitations or programs. People will throw them away anyway (sickening, but the truth)! Get your theme across with color of envelopes, paper, the font, the wording, etc. but don’t go crazy on embossing or customization. It adds costs that aren’t necessary. I spent a lot of time designing the invite, but I wanted to be cost effective. For the RSVP card I used a postcard instead of an envelope with a mailer. I saved on the envelope as well as the stamp cost. Also, make sure you choose a size of card and weight that doesn’t add cost to the postage. I also know friends that had a close friend or family member address their invitations for them - this is a great cost saver if you have this resource! I didn't want to spend the time doing them myself, so I paid for that convenience. We made our programs ourselves and printed them out on thicker paper. It looked like we had them done (because they are usually simple anyways) and didn't have to spend extra money for a professional service.
Bridesmaids dresses. My situation was unique because I bought my bridesmaids dresses for them. I didn't want cost to be an issue for any of my girls! With that being said, I still price shopped everywhere and made sure I wasn't breaking the bank to get the look that I wanted. I originally thought I wanted black cocktail dresses, so I was constantly looking for inspiration and options at major retailers rather than a designer at a Bridal Boutique. I actually took one of my bridesmaids with me to try on some dresses to see what they would look like in person instead of shopping online. I personally find on-line shopping difficult because everyone's sizing is so different depending the brand, and I didn't want my bridesmaids to have to deal with the process of returns and finding the right size before they ran out. While shopping, I found out that I actually wanted my bridesmaids to wear jumpsuits. It was unique, trendy and something no one has done before (that I had seen anyway)! It was important to me that I found something I thought they could wear again after the wedding, because let's be honest - we don't want to be the girl in 27 Dresses. I ended up finding the jumpsuit at Dillard's and found them just in time before they went out of stock (whew!).
Photography. Everyone wants amazing wedding photos, as you should! It is a once in a lifetime event and you want it captured exactly the way you envision it. I looked for photographers right after Adam and I got engaged because I knew they usually get booked quickly. Adam called me one day and said "Hey Taylor I think I found our photographer." Obviously I was intrigued and asked him who. He said "this 20 year old that works at Kanakuk!" My first thought? HECK NO. But, I wanted to give him a chance to be a part of choosing some vendors and I checked out . Compared to the professionals I was researching (who charge a minimum of $4,000 for a basic package), Mark seemed to produce pretty similar and sometimes better images to the photographers I liked. Plus, his pricing was too good to resist! He had done a few weddings already and had more scheduled before ours, so I trusted that he would have enough experience by then. Boy did he exceed my expectations! Mark did our engagement photos, my bridals and our wedding day. Every single shoot turned out amazing. He made my vision come to life and did an awesome job making sure he captured all of our favorite moments of the day. Moral of the story is, you can sometimes get the same or better quality of pictures with photographers who are semi-new to the business! I love and highly recommend using him for your wedding (he travels ;) )!
Photo Opportunities. Lastly, I wanted a photo opportunity for my guests and had found a really cool photo booth with fun backdrops and customization.  It was going to cost $1000...just for my guests to have pictures from the night. This was way more than I was willing to pay, so I cut this and rented a huge frame that cost $100 instead and I got the same idea across. People loved it and it was a huge hit!
This is such an exciting season of life and once you start the planning process the budget can be one of the most stressful parts. Some things you just have to let go because not everything is going to work out in your favor! Things are going to go wrong and you can't get wound up by the budget because it will end up ruining your experience rather than enjoying the planning process.
I'd love to hear any great tips you have on how to save money during wedding planning below in the comments!
Thanks for reading :)
