Money Savers

Cutting the guest list is the best way to keep costs down. Getting low budget food and drinks helps also- buffet BBQ or italian or mexican and maybe wine/beer only. Also can DIY decor and minimize real flowers as this can be a big expense. Good luck!!

Weekday weddings are often cheaper, or you can have a cake and punch reception at a non meal time.

No booze or beer and wine only cuts cost. Costco and Sams both sell wedding flowers, flowers in bulk, and wedding invitations. I got my STD postcards from Costco for about 64 cent each.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!

View Quoted Comment That’s smart thanks!

View Quoted Comment Awesome! I was thinking Mexican so that’s nice!

Here are some tips:

go for a small wedding,

do e-invites or Seal-and-send card,

DIY crafts,

don't go for a Saturday wedding,

student photographer,

go to a wholesale to buy seasonal flowers,

have a plan A and a plan B for outdoor weddings,

look for a venue that has alcohol insurance and that lets you bring your liqueur.

buy a small simple plain cake and decor it with edible flowers or edible gold leaf, and have an extra cake sheet to complete the # of servings.

Find some sponsors.

find the cost of the vendor and one that lets you have a payment plan.

semi-casual wedding is cheap and easier going.

pre-own gowns; there are tried on to semi-used gown.

there a lot of ideas out there to make your wedding in your budget, here is some shorth cut that you can follow. you can use all of them or some, but I hope this helps you.

Remember to have several ideas for your theme that fit your budget.

Pick an off-season date for your wedding. Also, depending on the day you choose, it could be less expensive to do a weekday wedding. At our venue, Friday and Sunday weddings were a lot less expensive than a Saturday wedding. For our wedding, the biggest costs were the venue and the photographer. Flowers are also expensive but my florist worked with my budget and told me which flowers were cost-effective. You can also try to DIY your flowers but you’ll need plenty of people to help you. We also cut the cost on other things like our decors and favors (we went to Hobby Lobby, Amazon and Etsy).

In Chicago there are some wedding resales where brides sell stuff and also look on Other sources for decor like garage sales, second hand etc

Amazon is your friend! My FH and I both cancelled our prime accounts and are using my mother's, in exchange for access to our Hulu account. (She has yet to use lmao) Prime Day is July 13th this year, yall!!


Dont go on amazon for table cloths and napkins tho! I forget the name of the site but a ton of people here say its miles cheaper than amazon and its all nice enough to keep after.
Dont do ceremony programs. Its stressful putting them together, and people dont know what to do with them after reading it the first time, not to mention its costly.
Book venue and photographer asap. Not a money thing, but the longer you wait, the more youll regret waiting.
Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and Jo Annes all give coupons that you can use once a day. Jo Anne's acceptes competitor coupons as well! Never tried it, its just in big letters at the bottom. On this note, check amazon for bulk items first. Greenery garlands, all kinds of lights, and other wedding things can be found on amazon in bulk for much cheaper. (Ex: garland at JA is 13.60/ each after coupons, but you can get 24 for about 14.00 on amazon.)
Keep an eye on goodwill, or goodwills near you with venues outside your budget. My town has a lot of weddings rolling through and it feels like theres always those dollar tree vases everyone uses. You can get those same vases for half of what dollar tree sells them for if you match their color of the day. Also with the areas venues being outside your budget, theres likely to be some decor you probably want. I see a ton of "pick a seat not a side" and guest book signs that would easily be $15 at Hobby Lobby.
DIY as much as you can. You can DIY anything if you put your mind to it. Between youtube, pinterest, and real life people you might trust, you got this. Plus getting FH involved can be fun, and helps him do his part of the planning. Maybe start on an arch for the ceremony?
Keep a budget for pop up mishaps. Maybe you forgot about a percentage fee or forgot to calculate tax. Maybe you were over the moon with your caterer and decide they deserve a bigger tip than originally planned. If everything goes perfect and this extra money isnt used, congrats on the extra spending money for the honeymoon.

Guest list!!! You would think it would only save money on extra plates of food but it's literally everything. You can find a more affordable venue with less people, less food/alcohol, place settings, cake, etc. I wish we had gone smaller so our wedding could be a little nicer.

Cut the bridesmaids to a minimum. We have 7 on each side and the gifts for them, rehearsal dinner, and accommodations are way more than if we had only done like 4 people.

DIY stuff that you feel comfortable doing. I decided to purchase my flowers from Fifty Flowers and arrange my bouquets and centerpieces myself. I'm spending just over $1000 for 8 bouquets, 14 boutonnieres, 4 corsages, 2 large arrangements for wine barrels, 30 ft garland for main table, cake flowers, flower girl petals, and 25 centerpieces. I was quoted for well over $3k for this at a florist.

Look for vendors that aren't advertising like crazy that they do weddings. For example, my baker primarily does the really cute iced cookies but on her website she also had a tab for cakes. I inquired about wedding cakes and she sent me some photos of cakes she's done before. It's not her specialty but she CAN do it and they're still pretty. To us, cake is cake. My venue also doesn't advertise weddings like crazy. I had to search high and low for an affordable place that would hold 250 people. Figure out where you want to get married and search #____wedding (with the city in the blank) on Instagram. Photographers usually use this tag and you might be able to find a venue that wasn't popping up on google.

If you're paying for your honeymoon, get a Chase Sapphire travel card and charge your deposits (and then pay off) to it. If you spend $4000 in the first three months (which is easy when you're paying for a wedding) you get 60,000 bonus points. This is covering our flights in full.

Lastly, be resourceful!! I was able to find a TON of the cylinder vases that usually go for $10/vase for $125 total. I probably have 80 vases or so. Look on Facebook marketplace for people selling wedding decor. It was probably used only one time and and in perfect condition. You'll save so much money this way.

Hope this was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions

We are having our ceremony at a local park and then the reception at a reception hall similar to that of Elks Lodge. This has helped us save a ton of money!

-Get married on a Wednesdays (Saturday, Friday, Sunday comes with a premium)

-keep the guest list brutally small. If you haven't spoken to them in 3 months. Also consider would you invite this person to a $100 dinner.

-Elope... If you look at the last Vegas wedding package, even for the nicest one... It's under 2 grand with most stuff included (minus dress and groom of course). However, there will be hurt feelings, lack of a giant stressful party etc
-Ask vendors how to make things cheaper (roses are cheap / garden roses are not)
-Get married in a free to low cost venue like a nice park, court house, etc.

Everyone is talking about wedding stuff, which is great, but you also need to focus on your personal expenses.


Are there too many monthly subscriptions that you don’t watch or need? If you barely watch Netflix, prime, Hulu, Disney+, HBO etc maybe you should cancel them to save money.
Bring lunch to work instead of eating out. If you can eat the food the office provides even better! I try to eat the food the office provides instead of getting some needed fresh air to save $. Avoid going out to eat at restaurants or getting take out as much as possible. This is where planning the week out works wonders, cause buying food from the grocery store is infinitely cheaper than going out to eat.
Get a second job, if able. I’m starting off the semester soon teaching part time at a university. This is on top of my full time job. Not going out to eat and meeting people also saves on gas.
I check my credit card and savings accounts daily so I can see where my money is going and it’s slowly engraving in my head not to buy something just cause I want it, but do I need it. Also, doesn’t matter if something was on sale. You didn’t “save 50%” by buying it, you actually spent X amount. If you get a raise it doesn’t mean you should increase your lifestyle. Keep what you were able to live with and make automatic payments on payday to move the extra amount to another savings account that you shouldn’t touch at all.
Look into high interest savings accounts cause Bank of America, chase, or any other typical bank will only give you back .003% interest or something so small like that. There are FDIC insured banks that give back 1.85% interest or more! At one point, before our government stepped in, one of the bank accounts I had was 3% which was amazing!
I’m trying to think of more but I need to get ready for work.

Consignment dresses are controversial for people sometimes, but I bought mine on consignment for 400, originally priced 1800 and then was able to alter it to fit me perfectly/clean it so it looked new, and still saved 1000 dollars. I went to a consignment boutique, which I didn't know existed. I wouldn't buy a dress online or anything.

One of the biggest money savers is to cut your guest list to only a small number of people. Also, having a wedding earlier in the day is helpful because food options don’t have to be as heavy and plentiful as with dinner. Using more candles instead of floral arrangements is often less expensive.

Some of the things we have done that has saved us hundreds if not thousands of dollars

-Watch local dress shops for sales. I bought my $1600 gown from an off the rack store during a "Freaky Friday the 13th" sale for $300

-Buy things on clearance. I bought my shoes for walking down the aisle at Gordmans on clearance. I thought they were going to be $12 but turned out their clearance was 50% off so they were $6! I've also gotten a ton of decorations/supplies on clearance all over (Walmart/Target/Sam's/Hobby Lobby/Michael's).

-Find a venue with good inclusions. For $3000 our venue holds 600 people, we have the venue Tues-Sunday, they provide all the dishes (plates/cups) and do all the cleanup. They park cars, provide a popcorn bar and supplies, and even give out bowls of ice cream at cake time. They also include a TON of decoartions, and sweet/unsweet tea, water, lemonade, and coffee.

Congratulations and happy planning!

Keeping the guest list smaller helps a lot as there are quite a few bills that are effected by the guest list. Etsy and amazon have been my best friends!!! I got a digital download o CV my invitation off of etsy and did the printed on my printer for $19!! They turned out lovely! Fancy plasticware instead of glassware will cut the cost. Utilizing ant tables your venue has will keep renting costs down. Any friends you have who are willing to help out will help too! I have a friend doing my makeup and hair, so I'm saving on costs there. I also have a good family friend making the food, so saving a bunch of money there.

- Work out your priorities for the day. Is great music a must, or good photos? That way you can tailor your budget to what means the most to you two, and save money elsewhere.

- I am playing around at making invitations on my laptop. I'm thinking of just printing them as postcards, which saves both money and resources.

- Do you have friends/family/colleagues who can recommend vendors or venues?

- Does anyone have some decorations, linens, or similar that you could borrow for the day? I know someone who is using the cake topper that their parents had at their wedding. It seems small, but the little bits can soon add up.

- What would you be happy to do without? It's easy to get caught up in wedding fever and think you need favours, boutineers etc...but realising how little you really do need can take a lot of the pressure off, and change your view.

- Don't ask people for advice unless you genuinely want it, as some people can start to take over. I've seen many posts on these situations, so you may find it helps to keep things private.

- DIY is great if you can and want to do it, but don't overestimate your abilities or you will just add more stress.

We also have a small budget!
Keep guest list as small as possible remember you have to feed every guest! BYOB for guest, alcohol is expensive and if people want to drink that bad they’ll bring their own (of course they’ll drink if it’s free 😂). Buffet style food without servers unless it’s offered within budget of course! Cheap diy invitations (most will probably be thrown away anyhow). Fake/real touch/foam diy flowers still pricey not as much as real though. Have groomsmen/best man/MOH/bridesmaids buy their own attire (find out what budget their comfortable with). Wedding favors normally get left behind anyways so you could cut them out completely! Just having a bouquet for you and the throw away bouquet instead of every in the bridal party same for the guys your husband have his boutineer and the rest of the bridal party don’t. Also if your into rustic style not renting or buying a tux and just using a simple dress shirt/dress pants or jeans/tie/nice shoes helps with the grooms price. A small two tier cake 6”top&8”bottom for y’all with enough cupcakes to feed the rest of the guest is usually cheaper than a big wedding cake! Check all vendors in your area that fit your style, so you get the best deal. See if family and friends know of small business for carters/photographer and all those needs may save some.