Brides on a Budget!!

I hope you can do it. Our budget started at $10k, I'm up to $21k. 😭

I have a max of $5000 budget, trying to do as much diy as I can... biggest cost saving is to cut guest list unfortunately. But some cute stuff I've found so far...

Probably using something of this nature for center pieces, not doing florals to save money as well.

View Quoted Comment Uh oh 😅 it’s so far so good for us right now! Just trying rlly hard to keep it that way!

My wedding budget is $5k and were well under it with most of our wedding already planned. We are having a micro wedding/elopement with 16 guests. We found a B&B that has an elopement package which is a 3 hour event (basically ceremony, time for pictures and a cocktail hour) then we are going to dinner afterwards. Every vendor we have talked to has customized their package for us since it is such a small affair. Don’t take pricing at face value! We got a photographer I never thought we could afford because we talked to her and explained we didn’t need “getting ready” shots or dinner coverage. We got a custom price that was well below what we budgeted for and allowed us to spend a little more elsewhere! Figure out what means the most to you and focus the budget there.

My budget is $5k. My guest list is 12 people, so we will be having a backyard wedding (well just the ceremony) since it’s a micro wedding and then after we are going to a restaurant to celebrate. My fiancé and I aren’t much party people and we just want something super simple.

Costs can be reduced 50% by having a brunch reception rather than dinner (less alcohol consumption as well) or else on any day but Saturday. Also, using florals through Costco or Fiftyflowers.com rather than a florist will save a lot of money.

My wedding will be October 1st 2022 and I am roughly having 50 guests and will be a backyard ceremony and reception at my fiancé parents property. Following the post to see some inspirations and DIY savings 🥰

We're only having about 60 or so guests and we were also able to use our church for free. Which also meant we can bring in our own vendors and buy our own alcohol which saved a lot of money. We'll probably be around 7,000 total.

Its totally doable, as long as you have a flexible vision of what you want the day to look like! Off-months and off-days are a good money saver. Keeping your guest list small. A buffet vs a sit-down dinner. I DIY'd my bouquet, table decorations, boutonnieres. I also only bought keg beer and wine to keep the alcohol costs down.

My original budget was 10k but i went up to 15-16k.

some of my cost cutting measures was lowering the scale of centerpieces. mason jars are cheap, sand is cheap, candles are cheap haha so that's what i did.

i also borrowed a bunch of stuff from friends so i wouldn't need to buy things.

Right here! We were aiming to be under 5k but I think we'll be more like 7k.


30ish guests, brunch wedding at a restaurant.

I'm shooting for 15k for 200 guests O_O right now it's looking like 16-17k which is still not bad...i wanted the 50 person backyard wedding but FILs has a giant Mexican family. 200 guests is actually pretty small for them.

My biggest savings will probably be linens - I found some for $6/each!! and I plan to sell as many as possible afterwards to make some of that back

We also aren't doing a cake and instead doing cookies and donuts.

My centerpieces are just different sized bottles and wildflowers. I have everybody collecting bottles for me

There's a lot of DYI's you can provide by yourself ! Starting with save the dates and invitations made in Canva and maybe even sent by mail. Then programs, seating plans, menus, etc - also Canva.

Having a photographer only at the ceremony and doing photos with your friends before.

Doing your own centrepieces without flowers that cost a lot.. Candles, lanterns...?

Having a playlist instead of a DJ.

Making favors by yourself (soap, candle, seeds, tea...).

Our wedding total was a little over $7k! There are pics on my profile. We had 80 guests.

Amazon is your best friend. We’ve gotten fancy disposable plate and silverware. It was a lot cheaper than renting and it’s easy clean up.


My mom is ordering bulk flowers from sams club to do bouquets.
Having a Friday wedding saved some money for us.
Seriously check Amazon. They even have tuxedos for men for like $80. It would have cost us $150 a person to RENT. I think we will resale the groomsmen tuxedos when we are done. The reviews are great but they haven’t came in yet. We bought table cloths and backdrops on Amazon too.

It’s totally doable! I wish we were closer I’d LOVE to meet more people like us! A lot of things that drives couples over budget are the details. Invitation budget? Yes! Included price of stamps?? Do’oh!! See? And don’t forget if your going to tip to include that in your budgets!! Wishing you the very best! Remember! You CAN stay in budget and you WILL have a beautiful wedding!!

Our budget is 10k and we made it!! The Cricut saved my wedding literally because I’m personalizing gifts, making all of my own wedding signs, created lanterns for decor, spray painted faux pumpkins and put glitter and flowers in them, created all of our invitations and stationery…. We also asked around about people who have certain talents (photography, hair,etc) and have saved so much money on those. You can do it trust me it feels so stressful and not possible but it is

The size of your guest list will dictate the size of your budget from my experience. We wanted to keep it at 10k but we are STRUGGLING to keep the guest list at 125. Some things I'm doing to cut costs:
- no paper invites, online website invites only
- one venue for both ceremony and reception- cash bar- inexpensive honeymoon (Mexico resort)- no groom's cake- no linens or tablescapes; simple vases borrowed from florist- groom wearing suit he already owns
Our priority for even having a wedding is to have a really good time with friends and family. So we are splurging on a band and food.

Any advice for a 5k-7k budget for a 60 or more guest count, backyard wedding and reception?

$5k budget here in Philly/NJ. We will go a little over but recoup it with resales hopefully. Invited 125 people, it's sounding like 100 will come.

You have to be RUTHLESS here and it's not for the faint-hearted. Our budget is 10% of the normal price here ($53k average statewide). You have to be cool with people telling you it can't be done. And you need to be a planner and heavy negotiator. I had to call in All The Favors.

Highly, highly suggest the fb group for weddings under $5k. They are helpful AND non-judgmental.

In general: fewer people is going to lower your price. Having a small crew was not something we were ok with so had to figure it out.

Also: figure out your priorities, that's where you can indulge slightly.

Venue: unfortunately we don't have access to anything free. Seems like a lot of other parts of the country have parks/halls you can rent for cheap, by us it's still fairly expensive and/or they didn't allow alcohol/limits of# people or closed due to Covid. My fiance insisted we have a place that worked in inclement weather so we have an indoor and outdoor option. Check your local rental prices before just going ahead with a backyard wedding- for us it was going to be more expensive to get all the rentals (porta potties/tables/chairs) than to get a cheap venue.

Music: Try getting students or a local band if you want live music. If you don't care about live music rent a set of speakers and make a playlist, this is a good place to save money. For us this was a big priority but I play music professionally so we got a deal with the band I'm in. Pay in cash for a higher discount.

Food: this is another area to really save in. Catering by us is $80-200/pp and that's before mandatory tax/tip another 25-30%. It seems like a lot of areas you can get cheaper takeout delivered like BBQ, Mexican, etc for $10-20 a person. Even the cheapest Mexican by us was going to be $25/person and it was a pretty basic menu that only included chips/salsa as an app. You can do better with DIY. I've cooked plenty of times for a group like this so hired day-of help and will be doing the cooking. With a lot of planning, it can be done, but is not for most people. A more reasonable option is DIY apps (get premade trays from local grocery and a person to set it out). Since venue + band took up half our budget we really had to save $$ here. You need help day of- it's worth it to hire some people for this so you don't have to sweat it (unless it's a really small event). Be wary of food trucks- they take a long time to serve people. For 100 people realistically you need at least 2-3 to make it work (I have played a lot of weddings where people were in line forever).

Booze: another area to save in. BYOB (or none, if your crowd doesn't spring that way). You could also do a reception earlier in the day, champagne toast/mimosas only or even none (breakfast party?). Also do just beer/wine only, saves on liquor.

We did homebrew wine/cider/mead and made great quality stuff, it's not super hard but it helped that we'd done the cider/mead before. Then buying cans of mix of cheap domestic and craft. We saved about half of normal alky price and got much higher quality overall.

Cake: I was NOT doing this on top of the food. Warehouse stores or grocery are good options. I was able to do a trade and got a top of the line cake/cupcakes for $300 (usually locally it's $600-1000 for 100), I indulged.

Clothing/hair: another good place to save money. Tons of stuff available used. I got my dress for $17 from thrift, hair/veil thing off etsy for $50. Online- Poshmark, Still White, Etsy, Amazon. Fiance bought a new shirt. I am doing a trade for hair- get a friend to do it or DIY yourself along with makeup.

Decor: hit up all the local free groups to start- FB, craigslist, freecycle. I bought remaining items (lights, misc decor) on prime day from Amazon from the warehouse part, which offered another 20% off or so (and they are already discounted). Bought linens locally from FB marketplace along with some other items. I think it's ok to invest a little here for items that can be resold easily. Other way to do it is dollar store if you just want to throw everything out. There are some fun DIYs but tbh people really don't remember too much about the decor at weddings, it's an area you can definitely be more simple in and still have a beautiful day (spend the money saved on venue/food/music)

Flowers: DIY. Up to you on real vs fake. Personally I think fake look bad most of the time, and TBH can be more expensive than real. Trader Joe's has a great selection and better prices than most online bulk flower shops. Sam's Club is decent too. You can also grow some of your own. Get cheap vases, people don't come home from a wedding raving about the flowers generally, another good area to save.

Photography: another area most people want to invest in, that's cool. For us not a huge priority but we decided to get someone for just a few hours than the 8-10 hrs avg here. That's one way to save. Another way we saved was by hiring someone new to the industry. Find these people in your local FB wedding groups.

Invites: people throw these out, mostly a waste of money. There are great online ones- we used With Joy and they were great/beautiful. If you really want, try getting them made on a more general place like Vistaprint/Shutterfly, or printing yourselves. Another option is just getting a few printed and doing the rest electronically. We had no room in our budget to spare here.

Favors: under $5k, super optional/not needed. Most favors people throw out or leave. Only do it if it's something like food you can have at the wedding/something pretty relevant like that (ours is smores, we have a firepit).

I'm just sayin, if you liked what you read, don't mind if you throw me a few bucks @acutrumpet for a drink At some point I'm going to do a very comprehensive writeup once all this is said and done.