Affording your wedding

Both of our parents generously offered to help out, which we did not expect but are very grateful for! We will be paying for about half of our wedding after their help. When we knew we were going to get engaged we opened a joint savings account and at the time we each contributed whatever "extra" money we had to jump start the savings process. Since then we each contribute a portion every month as well as anything extra goes into there (i.e. birthday money, tax refunds, stimulus checks, etc.). This has helped us tremendously and we reached our goal even faster than we anticipated, without having any financial strain in our day to day lives. We just maybe eat out less or do activities at home, but we still treat ourselves once in a while. And we do not touch that money except for wedding expenses. I definitely recommend some sort of savings or investment account with a high interest rate. Once you have plenty in there, you really notice the growth each month. I also am using an excel spreadsheet to track how much I spend on exactly what aspect of the wedding. This helps me keep in budget.

My fiance and I sat down when we first started planning and determined how much money we could each set aside per paycheck to put towards our wedding. We then multiplied that by the number of paychecks between then and our wedding date, and that was our budget. We also have tried to only focus on things that we really want, and either scrap the rest or find a cheaper option.

Some things you can do to help lower the cost of your wedding:

1. Decrease your guest list. Only invite those who you genuinely cannot imagine your day without. Food and beverage costs per person add up quick, and cutting back on your guest list will help save you some money.

2. Search for vendors in local Facebook wedding groups. List your budget, what you're looking for, and your wedding date, and vendors who are available that date should reply with their info. You can often find vendors for cheaper than those who are listed on Wedding Wire or The Knot. Also check local colleges for photography and/or film students who can either photograph or film your wedding. This is often lower cost.

3. Consider moving your wedding date back to give yourselves more time to save.

4. Cut out things like ceremony programs, dinner menus, unnecessary signs, wedding favors, etc. They all add up and can save you some cash.

5. Search secondhand dress shops or websites such as Poshmark or Stillwhite for dresses. Often, these dresses are sometimes new with tags (the buyer might have changed their mind, or cancelled their wedding, or any other reason), and are cheaper than a brand new dress.

Girl, the struggle is real!! I made a spreadsheet to keep us on track with our savings, and it has been a huge help! We looked at our bills and finances, and decided what we could save each month to put toward the wedding, then multiplied that by the number of months we had to save, and that was the budget. Then we decided what the most important aspects of our wedding were and focused on those. The not so important stuff we either eliminated or made sure to keep the costs very low.

1. I cut out a videographer (which is usually around $3,000), and am doing 6 hour photographer coverage only (I don't care about bridal party getting ready pics).

2. You could provide the music yourself with a Spotify playlist instead of DJ.

3. I am having my sister's friend do the flowers and providing her the table decor which I mostly found on fb marketplace (comes out to be $1,000 instead of $3,000+ I was quoted).

4.Find an affordable wedding dress that won't need much alterations

5. Small guest count - under 100 guests.

6. The venue is also crucial -- if you can get off-peak season date (usually november - march/april) you will get a cheaper rate, and its cheaper if you have ceremony/reception in the same venue. Could also be cheaper if you have a weekday or early afternoon ceremony. I looked at probably every venue in my area and found the most bang for your buck to be with places that are "all-inclusive" with a flat fee for all day rental including chairs, tables, staff, a parking lot, etc.

7. Consider doing a 'private ceremony' where only your immediate family attends, then a reception elsewhere opened up to the rest of your friends and family. You could do that at a brewery or cool restaurant

My dad is paying for ours. We may contribute a couple thousand

Soon as we got engaged, we opened a joint savings acct strictly for wedding savings. Our families have been generous enough to cover 1/3 of the wedding. We will cover the rest. Your guest list will cost you the most especially if you decide to have an open bar.

We contribute to our savings each on a monthly basis, and put anything extra in it also. Also having a credit card with no interest may help...then you can use any monetary gifts to pay it off.

We used our stimulus to stimulate the wedding industry lol we have 8 kids so with taxes and the stimulus checks we are able to afford a decent wedding

I was lucky to have come across a side gig that came right on time for my wedding. basically my old job needed someone for part time work for half a year and that covered my half of the wedding. so for half a year i was working like 50 hours total per week but it wasn't so bad since it was just a short period of time. didn't touch my own personal savings at least. my husband was also able to get more overtime for a short period of time at work so that covered his portion.

We handled this by having a very small wedding (courthouse ceremony; immediate family only; affordable restaurant lunch reception). We only included the elements that were really important to both of us, and jettisoned the rest. We paid for it ourselves (there are SO MANY benefits to this!) and it was really important to us not to go into debt.

We are using a mix of paychecks and credit cards for the deposits. We spread out commiting to vendors over a 3-4 month period so we weren't having to put down so much money at once. I calculated all the remaining balances that will come due the month before the wedding, and determined how much money to save each month. It will be doable, but if we come up short, our plan b is to use credit cards. We will end up at $18k at the end. We're inviting 165 guests and hired a band, dance hall, caterer (BBQ which is expensive in this part of TX), florist, photographer were the big costs.

FH and I work full-time along with having other streams of income. So we’re paying for the wedding with that. We refuse to pay with credit card for tap into our savings. If that’s the case, then we don’t need to have a wedding not using

A month before my husband proposed I told him I thought it was time to start saving for the wedding. I already knew he had the ring we got it together 9 months prior and with Christmas coming I could sense a proposal. So we both combed through our expenses counting every little thing including Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, gym everything and once we got how much our monthly expenses were individually we did the math of what we would have left over from our checks each month after paying those expenses. We decided to put a percentage to our savings and the rest towards the wedding each month. I found some basic break down on vendor costs and inventory costs plus venue and we came to the goal number of 15,000 that would roughly be needed to save. So I took the amount my husband and I could save a month and kept multiplying it by a certain number of months until I came to 15,000 dollars would be saved by that time. We ended up with a 17 month long engagement and were able to adequately save for the wedding while also putting money away to our personal savings which we knew was super important during covid and it worked out for us because we did both lose work a few months prior to the wedding. This plan worked best for my husband and I since it was super important not to start our married lives in debt from loans and maxed out cards just for one day.

Also spreadsheets were the best and kept us on track every step of the way.

It's a 2nd wedding for us both, so we're paying for it all, cash. Our budget started out at $10k, but it's up to at least $23k now. we're just paying out of paychecks and not touching our savings and we've paid $9,176 so far. I would never charge a wedding and we're too old to ask family to contribute.

We are paying for everything ourselves. Even with being in a high cost of living area, we are very selective about vendors we go with. The first thing we did besides decide what we are comfortable paying, and how many people we want in attendance is to figure out 3-5 areas to focus on. For us, it’s the guest experience of great food, free drinks, great dj..and great photography for our memories. The things we don’t care about we are cutting out entirely which saves a ton of money.



Then thinking outside the box for vendors. We are specifically avoiding all inclusive venues as they hit you with unexpected astronomical minimums that not everyone can meet (and we are opposed to their catering process). One of the best weddings we attended as far as food had a local Americanized Chinese restaurant cater and everyone loved the food and it’s half the price of a wedding caterer. Many vendors require you when it’s a wedding to pay for extra services and we don’t want those so we are looking for vendors who don’t require them, and have had a great deal of luck. Venues are surprisingly easy to find between Eventective and the Parks department. We plan to serve alcohol but 90% of our guests don’t drink beer/wine so just liquor and mixers in addition to non alcoholic beverages is actually cheaper with no waste.

We decided not to spend more than what one paycheck of mine would cover. I started making a lot of phone calls to see what vendors would work with us to keep our costs down. Then cut out anything that wouldn't be conducive to our budget. Usually if everyone is dressed nice, the food is good, and the vibe is chill people will have a good time.

We budgeted, prioritized, and saved for everything. We decided to have a more intimate wedding she it would be within our budget too.

Guest list count is a huge factor because each costs money. Make a list of those people whom you absolutely cannot imagine the day without. They get an invite. Make a second list of anyone who is invited “out of obligation” to please others who are not getting married. They do not get invites. Don’t do anything out of obligation, period. If it doesn’t make you and fiancé happy, skip it. “Obligatory” invites are relatives you have no personal relationship with, coworkers, parents’ friends and coworkers who don’t care about you and probably don’t know your name, and each of them can easily be cut off the guest list. Many people feel that their unattached single guests will be bored, lonely and unable to enjoy themselves even if they know others in attendance. Those random strangers you invite don’t care about you, only the expensive free food. The singles know how to enjoy themselves without a Tinder date for the occasion and it is not a faux pas to not allow random strangers. Significant others are not plus ones but they are automatic invites and it’s not up to the couple doing the inviting to judge the validity of the relationship if the guest has decided they are part of an established couple, because the “no ring no bring” idea is very elitist and it’s a slap in the face for those who are expected to celebrate the bride and groom’s relationship while their own is considered not real.


Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to invite anyone you don’t have a relationship with. For example if you are close to extended Aunt and Uncle A but not with B or C then don’t feel obligated to invite B or C. If parents or another relative want to get together with all the relatives, then start a tradition of an annual family reunion picnic at another time where everyone pays their own way. There are 51 other weekends they can pick from for that event.

We went to a local community centre for our reception and hired a caterer (who was a roast company) and they were a lot cheaper than a restaurant. We got our friends and families to take photos with their phones and some cheap cameras on the tables. We got some wonderful photos just from that. We saved a lot of money too. We didn't pay any money for cars either. We just asked friends if we could use their cars and it didn't matter if they didn't match because most people don't see them anyway really. We also used our own music instead of hiring a dj which also saved money. My parents also put some money towards the wedding. I got my dress on a discount rack at a bridal store for $500 (down from $1700) and it was beautiful - I put it on another post . You can still can get beautiful dresses like that. My mum did a lot of sewing for us and we made our own invitations, menus and seating table chart. There are ways to put your money in to the more important things and the things that don't matter so much (like menus) to do in a cheaper way . Budgeting is also very important.

We started planning a year ago, which gives us two full years to pay for everything. We’ve started paying for the venue, photographer and videographer. Today we are one year out and plan to pay both off by the end of the year. We opened a savings account and contribute money every paycheck.