Super affordable Wedding?

If you really want to save money then I suggest eloping with just your parents and grandparents present (definitely keep it under 10 guests). Live-streaming weddings has become incredibly popular because of Covid and there are super cheap ways to do that without hiring a professional (Facebook Live, EventLive, Zoom, etc)! Maybe you can invite your family to join you virtually during the elopement? Then you and your physical guests can take some pictures after the elopement and maybe have a nice lunch or dinner afterwards. Buying dinner for 10 or less people will be much much cheaper than paying for a catered meal for 100 people.

Figure out your budget first I guess and go from there? Next step is how reasonable it is to DIY. We are planning on 100-125 people attending *if it's safe* on a budget of $5k here, but venue is free, we have some other connections for free/heavily discounted stuff, and DIY'ing the fk out of everything including possibly food (have cooked for similar size events at this venue, so not unrealistic). A good $1-2k of budget is going towards live music though.

DIY is not always cheaper. You have to factor your time at minimum wage, cost of supplies, your sanity (and the number of attempts). Often it ends up being cheaper to just hire the vendor or shopping on Etsy for the crafts already made.

Never DIY the food for safety/liability reasons. It's why so many venues require licensed caterers. It's the one thing guests remember if the food was good or bad.

I definitely recommend a public park or garden. They are usually pretty cheap to rent. If you want to have dinner with your family members I would recommend a potluck style dinner. You can ask people to bring a dish to share.

A day of coordinator is a must regardless of guest count or budget because they make sure the day runs smoothly behind the scenes so everyone else can han have fun.

As I've said, I've catered food at this specific venue (as well as others) for similar size crowds before. That won't be a problem apart from whatever is practical with covid (honestly unsure if it's gonna have to be like picnic boxes or something). I cook infrequently enough (with the right certs/insurance etc) that I enjoy it. Fully plan to take the week off before to do it. I've also done flowers for events before too. This time working with a decent amount of dried materials so can get that out of the way. Managed to score a boatload for free recently off fb marketplace from another bride.

I enjoy DIY and getting a bargain and really don't have to do a whole lot the week of other than the cooking and any fresh florals (and keeping my chops in shape to play a little). Which is good, because we don't plan to spend, nor have, tons of money.

We are in a similar situation. Our budget is 7k. As we are planning people are gifting us things we didn't expect (my dress, honeymoon accomodation, wedding cake, ...). So we might even stay under budget. We are splurging on a few things that are important to us. But our venue (church plus church's backyard) are free.

It is definitely possible to have a beautiful wedding for under 10k but it depends on your vision, your circumstances and how much you can realisticly DIY and if you have help. And as many people said DIY isn't necessary cheaper. It really depends. Discuss what is really important to you. Don't let other people tell you what you need. Do research and then come up with a realistic budget.

I would also recommend joining a local wedding group on facebook and learn from other brides in your area about affordable venues, good deals, ... .

And I think it is great that you want to lower your dept as you are planning your life together instead of accumulating more. I think in the long run that will be way more beneficial than a huge and expensive wedding. Keep reminding yourself as you are making tough decisions.

My wedding budget was $1,500. The wedding itself came in under that. This is what we did to cut costs:

-Immediate family and friends only. We had a total of 30 we budgeted for. Parents, siblings, grandparents, super close friends.

-Bouquets and bouts were my only DIY project and I got the flowers from Michaels during a sale.

-I negotiated with my church to use the space for free for the ceremony as long as I didn't decorate.

-Our back up was a local park where they have a "wedding garden." It was free, first come first served. Many park spaces if you schedule your wedding at the right time you won't need to actually reserve.

-We did no décor at all. We let the spaces speak for themselves.

-We did a restaurant reception this helped with the "no décor" aspect because the restaurant was not a blank space. Doing this also helped with no rentals, it was all inclusive. The restaurant provided single long stemmed roses as centerpieces which worked really nicely.

-We used an iPhone and speaker for background music/ first dance.

-No alcohol

-Scheduled during a "non meal" time but we had brunch type food (hot sandwiches, quiche, salad, fruit)

-We didn't have traditional wedding cakes. We had an apple tart, a strawberry cream torte, and a chocolate torte. All of that was less than the cost of one wedding cake.

-We hired someone who was building her portfolio for wedding photos and only hired her for about an hour and a half of shooting time for ceremony and formals.

Make some calls to places that you wouldn't typically think of as a wedding venue. A lot of times if you explain your specific situation and what your budget is there are absolutely places that will work with you.

So my wedding date is on a Thursday and I'm finding that venues and venders offer weekday rates that are so much cheaper then Fridays and weekend rates. so if you plan you wedding for the middle of the week you can save a lot of money

I concur with the food price. We are having 50-60 people and for our cocktail hour, reception, and dessert, we have spent like 2,500 just in food!

I agree! My fiance and I contribute about 1k each month for the wedding. It truly has helped keep us on track, and to pay down invoices a lot faster!

Hello I am a fellow April 2022 bride you can look at parks and restaurants to host your wedding

Hey Brittany, can you tell me where you found the elopement package? It sounds great!