Money-saving ideas for a wedding?

Question

Any tips on saving money when preparing for a wedding? Anything would be great-- food, clothing, decor, whatever. Gimme anything ya got!

Answer 1

You can get the wedding clothing all brand new on ebay for much cheaper, for food get a family member to put it on and same for photography. Get your family to decorate wherever you plan on having it and then have a small wedding and hire a function hall afterwards, if you just pay for the hall and get friends and family to help with everything else you save loads!

Answer 2

Make your own center pieces, i went to the craft store and bought a bunch of glass bowls....bought some floating candles and pebbles, and hade those lit up on the tables....
I know this sounds cheap but see how the brides maids etc feel about paying for their own dresses etc...
If you are artisitc, make your own invitations

http://www.superweddings.com/decor/centerpieces4.html

Find out when you can decorate. Find out if the facility has decorations to rent to save you money.

Try an off season wedding, everything will likely be cheaper

http://www.canadianliving.com/canadianliving/client/en/Family/DetailNews.asp?idnews=231408
This website is great, it has a lot of ideas for saving money


Tips:
Limit the number of bridesmaids.
Put disposable cameras around at the reception for guests to use. It cost less than a photographer and you can expect to get some great candid pictures!
Consider decorating with balloons instead of using just flowers.
Buy white Christmas tree lights after Christmas for decor. You can cut the cost by 80% over those offered in wedding catalogs.
The bride and groom should agree on what is important and budget accordingly, allowing for extra unexpected expenses to arise.

Answer 3

Well, it really depends on any themes and style of the wedding you are planning. I got married 2 years ago and did pretty much everything myself and our wedding was actually really great!

First of all, ebay is a GREAT place for accessories...I got my tiara, veil and various decorations, etc. on e-bay for low prices...and a lot of it was brand new. You can also find items that have usually only been used once!

We also did our own flowers using instructions I found on www.theknot.com. I made the arrangements (and family members helped me make my own topiariesand bouquets- they were amazing). We bought bulk flowers from "Sams Club" and got them for 1/3 the price...

We did the same thing for food...My mother and I found arrangements, table ideas, food and recipe ideas from tons of places and whittled them down to our favorites and items we could purchase cheaply and make large amounts of. We ended up having a really nice gourmet sort of buffet rather than actual served meals...It was soooo great! (I also got an idea from someone else to keep a picnic basket with samples of all the food for the 'getaway' car later on...you probably won't have time to eat and this basket saved our stomachs!)

The best advice I can give if you do decide to do a lot of things yourself is to BRAINSTORM, COLLECT IDEAS, and KEEP ORGANIZED! I got TONS of ideas off of various sites (the on-line community at the knot has bios with TONS of other brides' ideas and photos) and from magazines and organized all of them in a giant accordian folder- one tab for each section of the wedding (reception ideas, flowers, food, apparel, ceremony, etc.)

I have TONS more advice and ideas (I have even considered writing a book about having low-budget weddings that don't look low-budget since I spent 8 months of my life doing this)...e-mail me if you would like pictures of things I have been talking about or other ideas I used...or if you need more advice or money saving wedding ideas! (my e-mail is [e-mail])

Hope that helps!!

P.S.- Our entire wedding (including honeymoon) ended up being less than $7,000 with (5 bridesmaids and groomsmen each, almost 200 guests and everything included)!!!

Answer 4

Diane Warner's book, 'How to have a big wedding on a small budget'; retails for $15. See if you can get a copy at the library, half.com or a halfprice bookstore.

If you can get over the stigma, the larger chain grocery stores have wonderful cakes & decorators,as does Walmart.

Simple elegance is always best.

Answer 5

as far as favors, etc. Check into oriental trading, at orientaltrading.com. If you have a Michaels/Ben Franklin craft store in your area, they have very affordable things to make decorations/centerpieces. Consider having your flowers done with ones that are in "season" at the time of your wedding, they will be much more affordable as well.

Answer 6

here is what we did for our wedding

1) get married in a small chapel or church and limit the guests to keep costs down...or if you belong to a church then you usually just have to give a donation
2) make the food yourselves. my mom did all the food for my wedding and it was sooo good because there was a little bit of everything and someone for everyone
3) we had a grocery store make the cake for $25 and it was big enough for like 100 people
4) we went all out for my flowers and my maid of honours then for decoration we just bought a bunch of roses and carnations and made little table pieces ourselves and it saves us like $500
5)plain wedding bands are nice and cheap and we got a deal on then for buyign them both from the same store
6)decorations are cheap at dollar stores and you cant even tell where you got them. we got ballons, streamers, table clothes, silver napkins and plates and wedding bells from the local dollar store all for under $100
7)we had the reception at my parents house so we didnt have to pay for a hall
8)we made cd's of all the music we would want played so once in awhile someone would pop in a new cd so we didnt have to pay for a dj
9)we had friends take tons of pictures for us so we didnt have to get a photographer and my wedding photos look just as nice as my friends who paid hundreds for theirs
10)I got my dresws for the discount racks at the bridal shops because the style was being discontinued, but it still look like all the others dresses being sold at full price. it was regular $1500 and I got it pressed and cleaned as well for $499
11) we got my husband a suit for a local suit shop for like $200 so its something he could wear again
12)bought my maid of honours dress at a department store for $80 and got a gift card from it too for $30

good luck and I hope this helped some

Answer 7

Get the price for things with out using the word Wedding you will see a price difference.

Answer 8

If you are having the reception at a church you or your family (or husband to be) attends, have a covered dish. Everyone feels special because they get to add their own special dish and it saves a ton of money from using a caterer. That is what my mother-in-law suggested and it was great. Plus the food was to die for because it was all homemade.

Good luck! : )

Answer 9

Wedding Dress- It's up to you whether you want to risk it or not (I plan on taking the risk) but you might want to look at kanacca.com
Centerpieces- do them yourself; avoid using a lot of flowers because those end up to be a lot of money- get an idea for them and look for stuff when it goes on clearance!
-the biggest thing is to watch the clearance areas at stores- I got my ring bearer pillow and flower girl basket and stuff at wal-mart for very cheap due to being on clearance

Answer 10

insted of hiring a photographer, buy some one-time-us cameras and let the guests take the pics. that way you have lots and from all different angles and points of view. and it is cheaper.