Any advice for planning a wedding on the cheap.?

Answer 1

Watch for sales!!! It's a little bit more work to find good sales, but it is so worth it. For my wedding I used silk flowers...I got them when they were on sale at Michael's and other crafy places like that. And it was great because I could have all the flowers done up way ahead of time. I also got an arch on sale at Michael's. I made my invitations by hand...printed them up on cardstock and then just embellished them with a little bit of fancy paper...you have to get creative with it. :) That saved me a LOT! I did a couple of cakes from Costco. They taste delicious and they will decorate them with pretty much any color you want. Another thing is the Dollar store. I don't know if you have any where you live, but the ones out here where I live have things like bubbles, and paper garlands, and ring pillows. As for a dress, I got mine at a resale shop for $15, and my matron of honor found a dress at Ross for $14 (And the amazing thing was that it matched mine almost perfectly except for the color! You just have to look). And I just wore a pair of sparkly flip-flops from Target that my mom found. For the reception (we had an afternoon wedding) we just did meat and cheese trays and rolls and veggie and fruit platters (Costco again). Goodwill is a good place to find things like baskets and vases and such. The best thing to remember is to just have fun, and don't let anyone pressure you into doing something you don't want to...it's YOUR wedding! Congratulations and God bless!!

Answer 2

Recently HGTV (Home & Garden Television) had a special show devoted to putting on a wedding/reception for under 10,000 dollars. I put the link to the show's site below.

I am not a wedding expert by any means, but here are some ideas some friends of mine have done for their weddings:
1) Potluck reception. It may sound kind of corny, but why not have your family and friends help out by bringing food for the reception. You would have to be responsible for the location and making sure there are enough tables set up to hold all the food. Your guests will bring the food and then eat. It creates more of a family feel to the wedding reception.
2) Tea reception. This is the flip side to the potluck idea. Instead of having lots of food at the reception, have a tea party/reception. I had a friend (bride) that did this for her wedding. Make sure you have the wedding and the reception after normal lunch or dinner times, so your guests will have eaten already. For the reception, have your wedding cake, and then have different kinds of tea served along with coffee and water. Provide a few finger foods (cookies, or scones, etc) to go along with the tea/coffee. The idea is to keep it simple, simple, simple but yet elegant. People are coming to the wedding to see you get married, not to eat and leave on a full stomach. Brewing tea can be quite cheap. Tea bags are cheap and they can make a lot of tea. You can have ice tea and/or hot tea. The latter will provide the opportunity for herbal teas. Mmmm. Don't try and get porcelain teapots or teacups. Too expensive. Just use white styrofoam or something cheap and disposable. Make sure the cups can hold hot liquids. (I once made the mistake of pouring hot apple cider in a plastic cup and the cup began to warp and melt. Ooops!) Hot tea (with the option of ice tea) and served with scones or cookies will create a nice, formal feelings. It will also keep people from getting drunk and making fools of themselves, and the attention will be on the wedding couple.

By cutting costs, you can keep the major expenses on the dress, bridesmaid outfits, tuxes for the guys, and on the flowers.

For decorating the reception room, consider using balloons. They are cheap and once inflated and grouped together, they will create a lot of drama. Go with black and white balloons grouped together and tied to a bottle at every other reception table. If you try to put flowers on every table, then you are looking at a lot of money. If your wedding colors are something other than black and white, then go with those other colors.

Other advice: not every wedding has to have alcohol served. People are so narrow minded when they think that there always has to be a cash bar. (Small town folks are really bad about that.) Not all weddings have to have a DJ to play music for everyone to dance. I have been to some really great weddings that did not have a dance floor and did not have a bar. There are so many different ways to do a wedding that is tasteful and classy. You can have a simple and low-cost wedding that will be beautiful. Plus, the simpler it is, the less stressful it will be for the wedding couple and those organizing it.

Answer 3

99 dollar sale at david's bridal. I bought the most beautiful dress from there (they will try and talk you into buying other crap too but just go with the dress) .. i believe they are having it right now too. Use Ebay for accesories like the viel and tiara and such like that.
get married in someones backyard and keep the guest list under 75.
I never actually went through with my wedding so I dont know a lot of specifics hope this helps some..

Answer 4

shop around for the best price. Midweek weddings usually have less people. If you have people coming in from out of town, try finding a hotel that they all can stay at Some hotels if so many guests stay their will through in the honeymoon suite for free.

You could also try having a pot luck or where you all get together the day before and cook a big bunch of food for the reception.

Also, she if you can borrow from friends and family for decorations and revamp them with your colours to suit the wedding colors.

Answer 5

Have the reception during the day and try a dessert or appetizer reception instead of a full meal. Look for sales on dresses and bridesmaid dresses. Because most of the time you can't find the same bridesmaid dress on sale in multiple sizes try to do the color thing where each girl wears a different dress but in the same color. Do the flowers yourself, or have a friend do them, also try fake flowers, you can by them on sale way in advance and put them together yourself with ribbon around the base to hold everything together. Have fun!!

Answer 6

With my mom's wedding and my grandparent's 25th wedding vow renewal.. we did everything ourselves.

Just get creative!

We decorated flute glasses with small flowers and bought cheepy-plain white items and dressed them up with the theme colors.

Pretty much everything was decorated by us.. and it was less time consuming.. not a whole bunch of places to call to get boquets and catering and stuff.

We had Grandma's famous potato salad and my aunt made Muskacholi (sp?!) in two HUGE kids play bins! It was not catered (saved money)

Saving so much money. we were actually able to rent a hall and get a DJ.. otherwise it would have been PRETTY expensive...

Answer 7

Just shop around as you would for anything else. You don't have to do everything at the same time and get stressed out about it. I allowed myself only one thing per month to focus on - one month for flowers, one for catering and cake, and one for photographer, another for decorations. I didn't need a full month for each thing, so then I moved on to the next thing. I was able to keep very organized and didn't feel rushed for time to go check places out and to talk to people, it takes time to coordinate the schedules of everyone involved in the planning. My wedding cost only $3300 for 200 guests and we didn't skimp on anything.

Answer 8

Elope! Run away for a couple of days and then when you get back plan a big party and then it's still cheap but you don't lose any of the romance end of it! Good Luck, and God Bless!!! :)

Answer 9

Make it small and if you can, have it on a weekday. Believe it or not, if you can find someone who can make your dress rather than going to a bridal salon, that will cut the costs considerably. Even a professional dress maker comes in cheaper than most bridal salons because you have alterations to worry about as well.

Answer 10

Las Vegas. It can be a cheap or expensive as you want and you can hunnymoon right there. you can find cheap hotels on the strip that are accually very nice and food that is pretty resonable. Lots of sights to see and you can gamble as much or as little as you want.