What advice do you have for a frugal wedding? We’re getting married in 2010. Since we are both in our early twenties and don’t have a lot to spend we were hoping to keep our wedding as small as possible.
1. Avoid guest list bloat.
For some people, it can feel very tempting to invite hundreds of people to the ceremony. However, with each addition to your guest list, you’re adding a person that’s of lesser importance to you compared to the people you’ve already invited. To a degree, this was a trap we fell into with our own wedding - our guest list grew and grew to the point where we invited people that we didn’t know well simply out of a sense of obligation. Instead of just adding more and more people, consider inviting fewer people and making the event more intimate. Try cutting your list in half and see if you’re happy with it.
2. Ask for wedding help instead of wedding gifts.
You are lucky if several of your friends and family had musical talent, so they were able to provide musical accompaniment for your ceremony. If you also have a close friend who is an extremely skilled amateur photographer and he/she is willing to serve as photographer for your ceremony as your wedding gift.
3. Have the ceremony at home, or outdoors.
You may find that the cost of renting a building for your ceremony and reception is expensive. Instead, consider using your own home (or the home of a parent) for your ceremony, or perhaps a public park with a beautiful view. In each case, you can also have your reception outdoors, often eliminating the cost of renting a place as well as creating a memorable ceremony.
4. Do the catering yourself, or hire a family-owned restaurant.
It would drastically reduced the food costs for the ceremony if you do the catering yourself.. If this isn’t your forte, look around your community for a family-owned restaurant and ask the owners directly to cater your wedding. Family-owned restaurants are always the first place to check - they will almost always go the extra mile to make your wedding special and will also charge a reasonable rate.
5. Go minimal with the flowers.
Instead of having huge piles of flowers everywhere (something that will only really last for an afternoon), instead simply go with a single rose for each bridesmaid and a very small bouquet for the bride. If you know someone with a rose bush, you can actually easily make your own bouquets the day before the ceremony by cutting the roses yourself and trimming away the thorns.
6. Make your own invitations.
With a quality home printer and some time, you can make very classy invitations on your own.
7. Patiently shop for any decoration needs.
Wedding decoration suppliers all have sales somewhat regularly throughout the year - and they all sell supplies that can be helpful with your wedding. Know what you’re looking for as far in advance as possible and let the sales come to you.
8. Make a simple honeymoon, not an ostentatious one.
A huge, over-the-top honeymoon might sound fun, but it’s far, far cheaper (and often more enjoyable) to have a much more laid-back honeymoon. Instead of planning a big trip, just hop in the car and spend a week or two together just driving around and enjoying being married. The fewer plans, the better - and the cheaper.
9. Involve your closest friends and family in the preparation.
As you’re developing plans, you should get your closest friends and family involved with the details. Quite often, they’ll have surprisingly good ideas that can save you money and effort - perhaps they’ll know someone that can cut you a deal on a certain part, or maybe they’ll just volunteer to help out with that piece. Good friends and family are always there to help, so you might as well use it.
10 Plan, plan, plan.
List everything you can think of and walk through these items step by step. The earlier you get started - and the more things you think about early on - the less “last minute stress” you’ll have and the more time you’ll have to find sales and discounts and other good ideas.
Good luck!
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