Wedding Planning Tricks & Treats! 👻🎃🍬🕷️🕸️

Tricks: We had strict budget for flowers, when I went to pay off our balance the florist realized she forgot to add my bouquet in the total! We had to rearrange another $400 to fit into the budget. I was less than thrilled by the oversight.

Treats: I found a free photo board on facebook marketplace that is in our wedding colors. We are going to put pictures of ourselves growing up in it. However I didn't take into account the size of it when we went to snag it. FH had to walk in a mile home because it wouldn't fit into our hatchback! haha

Things are soooo much more expensive than we originally thought! We knew NYC is an expensive place to get married but when I looked for vendors, my gown, etc. we couldn't find anything within our original budget. On top of that, our parents decided to add like 30 more people. Fortunately we're splitting the cost between ourselves and both families, so they were willing to deal with it, but we definitely had sticker shock at first. There were times when my mom said a certain price was "ridiculous" even though there was NOTHING cheaper.


Only thing so far that's costing less than planned are my gown alterations, and the tailor won't even do those yet so who knows.

View Quoted Comment Ugh I'd be less than thrilled too at having to add another $400 in the budget! Definitely frustrating, but at least you were able to make it work.


The photo board sounds like a really cool find! Also something that you can use again after the wedding, as an added bonus!

View Quoted Comment My fiance and I definitely had sticker shock too once we started getting price quotes and researching vendors! It's crazy how expensive weddings are. Awesome that your estimate for alterations is cheaper than planned, hopefully the price doesn't change (I'm guessing that it wouldn't change much, especially if you have a written estimate)!

Tricks: I had done extensive research for the cost of a wedding in Kansas or Oklahoma, but then we decided to change course and now we're getting married in Coronado, CA (oops). Everything I had read online said the beach permit was maybe $150, but then it ended up being over $1000 with liability insurance and the security deposit 😳 We were trying to keep our micro destination wedding around $15k, but it's turned into more of a small wedding (40 guests instead of 25) and is now closer to $20k............ Our dinner is a restaurant reception and we didn't even think to factor in food & beverage minimums (I'm not convinced that's a thing in Oklahoma), so when one restaurant asked for a $8k minimum, FH almost fainted.

Treats: my dress was $500 under budget and my DOC was also $500 under budget! And she'll install arch flowers if I decide to go with prearranged flowers from Fifty Flowers or Bouqs or something.

Tricks: Flowers are ridiculously expensive. We had a small wedding and didn't want a lot of florals. Just a bouquet and a few boutainaires and it was very hard to find anyone who could do just simple arrangements in our price range. Now that I know how to do them myself I'm mystified. We ended up with faux flowers and I'm not unhappy about it. I was a little surprised that our church charged a fee for use of the sanctuary for an hour. We were able to get it waived but still, it's not a "pretty" church so it's not a popular venue especially during non- service times. I was also a bit surprised that some restaurants attach a fee for their party rooms. I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I was. Ours waived the fee for us due to it being a Friday afternoon.

Treats: My dad found me a dress on Wish.com for $15. Ordered it without my knowledge or approval and it was exactly what I needed. It looked great, felt great, and I was even able to pass it onto another bride recently. We found a photographer building her portfolio for our pictures which was cheaper than expected.

Tricks: We had always wanted to do a cocktail hour with a half lobster add-on. This year, there was a shortage in the shellfish so it jumped from $21 pp to $33 pp. We went with it because it was part of our original vision with our raw bar. They even snipped the cartilage out of the claw, and refit the meat back in the shell so you can pop it into your mouth like candy. That was tremendous service. More tricks: veils.

Treats: DIY uplighting. I saved a lot by being mindful of my budget throughout planning, so I got to add this last minute at $35 per light. We also found a band based in NYC that had a roster of professionals and they put together a band based on your musical style preferences. Some NY bands are 18K, we got an 8-person band with a horn section for 5. Because of COVID, they were all in town working, rather than touring with headliners. They were great, and we had special lighting to highlight them rather than renting a lame stage.

View Quoted Comment Food and beverage minimums are crazy!! Every venue we toured had minimums too. AWESOME that you got both your dress and DOC for that much under budget!! Those are some great savings!

Tricks: what costs of wedding planning (venue, vendors, decor, dress, etc) did you experience that were higher than you anticipated or budgeted for? Did you modify your budget to allow for those costs, or find a cheaper option? Or did you skip it altogether?

- CAKE... i had no idea cake was going to cost that much! i found a much cheaper option for cake at least.

Treats: what aspects were you able to save money on, either through DIY or by finding a less expensive option? Or, what costs just ended up being less than you anticipated or budgeted for?

- photography and videography and my dress. my dress i anticipated $300 or so but i ended up spending less than $30 because i ended up getting an evening gown that looked like a wedding dress. for photo and video my friend did me a solid by doing it for me and all i needed was to pay her travel expenses which totaled less than $500

View Quoted Comment Flowers are crazy expensive!! I was so surprised as well. Awesome that you were able to get the fees waived for the church and restaurant!


WOW that's a great price for a wedding dress!! Great find by your dad!

View Quoted Comment That's quite a price hike for the lobster, but sounds like it was worth it! Awesome service by the caterers. Veils are definitely way more expensive than I anticipated, though I did learn that Etsy has some cheaper options, so I'll likely get my veil from there.


GREAT deal on the band!! Sounds like it was a really cool setup with the lighting. Do you have a pictures of what everything looked like with the lighting and the band?

View Quoted Comment I totally agree with you!! The price of wedding cake is crazy! Glad you were able to find a cheaper option! My fiance and I ended up deciding to do tiramisu as our dessert instead of cake (though we are buying a small cake to cut at our reception), it ended up being much cheaper than the quotes we got for cake.


Awesome find on the dress!! Evening gowns can be just as elegant as a wedding dress, but without the price tag. Very cool that your photos and video were done by your friend!

View Quoted Comment

I figured out quickly that if I was going to be a razor thin budget bride I would need to find vendors that would work with us. I had a back up plan if the church didn't work where we ended up celebrating our two year anniversary a few weeks ago. I noticed that you figure out real quick which vendors would work with you if you're just upfront and honest about what your needs are.

For me its looking close to $9000, if I'm going to be satisfied.

View Quoted Comment

I will say though.. that our wedding cake LOOKED nice but it didn't taste amazing haha so i wonder if that was the consequence of getting a cheaper bakery