Any money saving ideas for a small wedding?

Question

We are having a garden wedding for 30, and our reception at a lovely reception centre. They do all the food and beverages and the ceremony will be held there also. This is costing half my budget. How can I cut costs everywhere else? I haven't got anything else yet and my budget is around $7000AUD.

Answer 1

hi there

check out www.weddingcentral.com.au this website can help you save money regarding your wedding.

hope this helps and good luck!!

Answer 2

Hi
where abouts is the wedding as this might help with answers.
When you go shopping even if it's in a normal store, BARGAIN them down, they don't expect it so they normally do put prices dowm.
I bargained every thing down.
Instead of flowers we are having these awesome grecian style centrepieces with red and green grapes hanging out of them. cheap.
we are using our own cake for dessert and the reception people will serve it with cream and strawberries to each guest (free of charge). This saved us $1000 as we are having 100 guests. I asked the cateres and they were fine with that. and that was at a fancy hotel too.
Make your own invites. saves $$$
Ask a family friend (older) to be the photographer.
We didn't hire cars. all us girls are pilling into a hire mini van done up with the ribbons etc, more fun that way.
The food and alcohol is the most expensive.
I looked on ebay.com a lot you can buy heaps in bulk.
email me if you want any other ideas.

Answer 3

Well, you could ask friends to make decorations for you. I would say the same about photos and DJ, however, when I got married I read some wedding planning books (such as "The Idiot's Guide To Planning A Wedding") which said that you should not have friends do things because they're not professionals, and if they mess up, you cannot have it done over and it may ruin your friendship.

Answer 4

If you do organise anything tell them it is for a party rather than a wedding. We found that as soon as you mentioned the word wedding, out came the white frills and the $$$$. We got married in our park, where we got engaged, and had a big catered bbq feast in our backyard, which we hired tables and chairs. We asked our friends if they knew where we could get great wine at a great price, and anything else we needed, and we received so much help.
At the end of the day we spent just over $6000 with 50 guests and had heaps of wine left over. It was what we wanted and everyone said they wished they had done what we had and what a great day they had.
Just remember it is your day, and everyone gets to share with you.

Answer 5

We asked everyone local to be a part of our wedding. They loved being part of the decorating and preparation. Find out your talent pool and ask people to use their talent to make your wedding memorable. I'll bet there's someone with DJ talent. Someone with a flower garden. Someone who bakes. Someone who could chauffeur. Invite them to help.

We did a wedding for a lot less than your budget. Her father said we could keep whatever was left from the budget. We were both in grad school, so that meant a lot to us.

Also, the dress doesn't have to be, I say this with respect, ridiculously expensive. It's a one-shot dress. And then you'll have to store is for twenty years only to have your daughter or daughter-in-law not wish to wear it. Get a plain basic dress, and add wisps of fabric, pearls, ribbons, flowers and you get away for a few hundred dollars. You'll have a dress that you can wear later, and no one will recognize it from the wedding. One of our talented people actually sewed my wife's dress for less than $100. The silk material came from China.

Answer 6

Suzie you can download all your own music onto a laptop and play it through some speakers. We did this and had a friends young son play DJ, he thought it was way cool and it was very inexpensive. You can also make your own cupcakes and put your monograms on the top as my wife did. If you go to a supplier of artifical flowers you can buy in bulk and make your own bouquets. Just some ideas that we did a little over 2 months ago. Good luck and happy marriage.

Answer 7

You were smart to choose a garden for your wedding. You don't have to worry about renting a limo or spending a ton of money on flowers to decorate your site. Try using balloons as decorations. They are cheap, easy enough for you to do yourself, and they can be configured in dramatic arrangements. Here are a couple of websites to help you get started: http://www.balloonbasics.com/BALLOON_DECORATING.html and http://www.balloons-galore.net/balloon_arch_info.cfm

Enlist the help of family and friends. If you or a friend sews, perhaps you can make your wedding gown.

If there is a flower market in your area, try purchasing flowers for bouquets that can be hand-tied with ribbons or "cuffed" with a pretty bracelet. Ironically, carnations are inexpensive and they last longer than delicate flowers like lillies and orchids.

If you have an inkjet printer, you can print your own invitations. In fact, your guest list is small enough that you can rubber stamp and handmake your invitations.

Contact a photography school in the area to see about hiring a photographer or videographer.

Instead of hiring a band or string quartet, consider burning a CD of your and your fiance's favorite songs. You can burn additional copies to give to each of your guests.

Keep it simple. Everything will appear very elegant.

Answer 8

You can do your invitations and programs yourself. We did, and they turned out really nice. I ordered really pretty paper and printed them on our printer here at home. I made the ink color to match one of the colors on the invitation, and it looked professional. We had 60 people at our wedding, so we sent out about 32 invitations. It only cost me around $100 for 50 invitations (with all the envelopes), 100 thank you cards, with envelopes (which I used for place cards, too) and the program paper. http://www.invitationpaper.com/index.html

Skip things that aren't very important so you can spend more on things that are. You can use silk flowers for everyone except your bouquet, that will save some money. Have your centerpieces be simple and basic, nothing too elaborate. Bowls with candles, or seashells, fall leaves, depending on the colors of your wedding. Fruit in a vase or bowl looks really cool. I hope these ideas help.

Answer 9

I had a really small budget for my wedding too. My wedding dress was actually a prom dress a lot less expensive and just as pretty. I made my bouquet, My husband made our cake. We did everything ourselves with help from friends and family. It turned out really nice, you would have never of known that we did it all. Even my dress looked like a wedding dress.

Answer 10

See if you can lay your hands on the book, 'How to have a big wedding on a small budget' by Diane Warner. It retails for $15; check your library, half.com or a half price bookstore.