Wedding Cost Woes

I feel ya. The single positive thing about getting engaged right before COVID was that we were able to lock in pre-pandemic pricing on a few things, especially our all-inclusive reception venue which covered A LOT! If you haven't already booked a venue, see if there are any all-inclusive venues that might cover different things like catering, bar, rentals, etc. and whether that would be cheaper than hiring individual vendors. Our venue was way more expensive than ones where we'd just get a blank space, but once we factored in everything it actually saved us a bunch of money in the end.

Another big help was hiring vendors that could cover multiple things, such as a company that did photography AND videography vs one company for photography and another for videography. That cut down on having to pay for multiple travel fees, taxes, etc., and gave us more peace of mind by being able to check multiple things off our list with a single vendor.

Wishing you all the luck!

Hey girlie

Yes things are expensive. I don't know what we would have done if it wasn't for our family helping or us deciding on a destination wedding. There was a few things we took into play to help us cut cost, hopefully this can help you:

1. Since food is one of the most expensive things, decide if you want to maybe have a backyard reception and have family members cook and bring the dish.

2. If You don't like the backyard reception idea, to help cut back on plates, lower the guest list.

3. To help lower the guest list we said, "How would we feel if that person had a wedding and we didn't get invited?" That helped us cut our guest list in half.

4. We only invited the people who been supporting us since day one! That made the guest list go down some more as well.

5. When it comes to hair, nails, make up, try finding a family member that can do it. I know that's what I'm doing.

You and I are different people so I love to save as much money as possible. I was even thinking about getting my wedding dress off of Shein (they are gorgeous and cheap). Its helping me save money by having my family do my hair and nails, and when you have a beach or garden wedding sometimes you don't need as many decorations. And we wanted a intimate wedding so it was nice having a small guest list. Again, its your wedding so do as you please but this is what helped us with pricing.

Other things you can do to lower the costs are:

-Pick your top three priorities (such as, photography, catering, DJ, flowers, dress, etc) and splurge on those, and then either eliminate the rest or find ways to do the rest for cheaper.

-Search in wedding resale Facebook groups for your area for pre-owned decor that will likely be cheaper than buying new.

-Check with a local college for photography and/or videographer students that can capture your wedding for cheaper.

-Host your wedding in a non-traditional wedding venue.

-Cut down on the amount of flowers you purchase.

-Buy a pre-owned dress (many of which are still new with tags).

-Compare pricing on multiple sites for everything that you're looking to buy. Check on Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Party City, and local stores to ensure that you're getting the best deal on any wedding decor items.

-Limit the size of your wedding party (fewer wedding party gifts to buy, less people to host at the rehearsal dinner, etc).