When sharing my wedding details with others, I've been asked this same question multiple times. "How in the world are you keeping to your budget?" The answer didn't come easy to me at first but after thinking about it, I have a lot to say!
I'm the kind of person that does a lot of research before I buy something that is expensive and weddings are EXPENSIVE. I also don't think I need a $20,000 wedding. As long as I'm married to Jordan by the end of the day, I will be a happy bride! But to help any way I can, I came up with a few tips.
1. Choose an off day for the wedding!
What I mean by this is don't think that you HAVE to get married on a Saturday. If you have your hearts set on a wedding venue, like we did, choose an off day. It's a lot cheaper. For a Saturday, our venue is $4,500. A Friday is $1,000 cheaper, Sunday is $800 cheaper and Monday through Thursday is $3,200 cheaper. We saved $3,200 just by having it on an off day. This worked our great for us. Our wedding is in the summer and most of our guests are driving from out of state so they are using it as a mini vacation. So a Monday wedding really doesn't matter to most of them. Thank goodness!
2. Design and Create your own Save the Dates and Invites or choose a Printable Save the Date/Invitation design from amazing sellers on Etsy!
Searching for Save the Dates and Invitations online didn't go well for me. Every design I liked cost around $2-$3 for one invitation! That's crazy! So really, after just purchasing 200 invitations to mail to guests, I would be spending between $400-$600 on pieces of paper that would be thrown away in a few short months. No thank you! So to save some money, I designed our Save the Date on Word (only cost $60 to get printed!). I know that sounds ridiculous but I don't think they turned out half bad.
If you don't want to design them yourself, look into Etsy for Printable ones. This is how it works. Search "Printable Save the Dates" or "Printable Wedding Invitations" into an Etsy search bar. Once you find the one you want, you purchase it or personally work with the Etsy shop owner to get exactly what you are looking for. Most of the Save the Dates I saw were around $30 and the Invitations around $40-$50. From there, they design it, send you a PDF file of it and you print it. It will save you SO much money in the end. Besides, the only people keeping these are parents, grandparents and the Bride and Groom. The rest of your guests will have them on their fridge for a few short months and then throw them away.
3. Borrow anything and everything!
My cousin got married last September and still has her centerpieces. They were BEAUTIFUL and just happen to be my colors as well so when she asked if I would like to use them of course I said YES! I may purchase peach flowers from Hobby Lobby for half off to add a more personal touch. Either way, that alone just saved me hundreds of dollars!
4. Make what you can!
From programs to decorations, recruit your bridal party and family members to help you make them. Make a day out of it. Not only will it be fun but it will be a nice memory to look back on.
5. Bargain shop every chance you get!
To be honest, I don't think I have bought anything full price for this wedding yet. We have gone to many flea markets, antique stores and garage sales to find what we can use for this wedding. Also, Hobby Lobby has 50% off sales ALL the time. Take advantage of those! If what you want isn't half off, give it two weeks and look again.
For example, this summer we found these fun hanging lanterns that happened to be solar but the lights were broken in them. They sold in stores for $60 each (we know because the tag was still on them) but we got 7 for $35. Next we made them work by buying what we needed to be able to place a light bulb in them. After a full day of doing this, we hung them up just to see what they looked like and they were AMAZING! We were so happy with them and only spent $60 after buying them and buying the stuff we needed to make them work. (Ignore the fact that we literally rigged them up to see them quick! Haha!)
6. Buy what you will use again!
The lanterns come into play here again. We will definitely use these lanterns in our future backyard. Also, I bought a few pillows for 75% off that I can use again as well. I guess what I'm trying to say is stick to buying stuff that you can use again. Not only will it save you money but you won't have to deal with trying to get rid of them or selling them once the big day is over.
7. Don't buy a HUGE cake!
Jordan and I decided that a good way to save money would be with the deserts. Our wedding cake ended up costing us $72 and will feed us, our wedding party and our parents and grandparents. We will serve different flavors of cupcakes (that we will make ourselves or pay a friend to make) and cheesecake bites for our guests. These cheesecake bites are DELICIOUS and you can buy them at Sam's Club. It comes in a pack of 60 for $15.00. How awesome is that?
8. No need to serve a 3 course meal!
First of all, the picky guests won't eat half of the food on it so make it easy on yourself and make it cheap. Have a buffet! Jordan and I decided on BBQ. First of all, our wedding is slightly more casual so BBQ is perfect for that. Second of all, it's my favorite thing ever and one of Jordan's as well. Also, this is the South! You have to have BBQ. I had us budgeted at spending $2000 for dinner but by having a buffet of casual food, we are saving a good $500-$800 there! Yippee! On top of that, your guests will thank you for letting them get to choose what goes on their plate and who doesn't love some good Southern BBQ?
9. Ignore designer labels!
Your bank account and your bridesmaids will thank you (if they are buying their own dresses). I wanted floral dresses so bad but couldn't find any floral that I liked. FINALLY, I found the PERFECT dresses. Let me say that again.... PERFECT dresses! They were originally $175 but I got them for $50! Yes! You read that right. When I informed my bridesmaids, they were ecstatic. Yay me!
10. Try to use what you already have!
Picture frames are a great example for this! I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a picture frame that I loved and wanted to use to display an engagement picture by our guest book (Yes - it was 50% off!) but I realized after I did that, that I should just use what I already have. I have many, many picture frames and instead of going out and buying more, I'm going to use the ones I already have. They work with our decor and colors so there is no reason not to! Plus, I have a feeling that even if I went out and looked some more, I would buy stuff similar to what I already own. No need for that.
Magic #11. ENJOY EVERY MINUTE!
This isn't a budget tip but I think it's something VERY important that every Bride needs to hear. Enjoy wedding planning and being engaged! Besides the money questions, I've also been asked by A LOT of people how stressed I've been and my answer every time is, "Not at all!" Every one of them seems so surprised by that. There is absolutely no need to stress about something so exciting. If you are stressed, STOP! I'm the Bride that simply doesn't care about anything other than marrying that man of mine. If it rains, who cares! If my cake falls, who cares! My favorite part about not caring is that anything that goes wrong will make for great stories in the future! So a few tips to help are as followed:
- Make life easy on your bridesmaids and your bridesmaids will make life easy on you.
I chose 6 of the best people to stand by my side on my wedding day and have helped me with anything and everything. However, I also told myself that I am not going to care about little things. I trust them 100% and know that they will do whatever they can to help me with this wedding. So, avoid nagging or being bridezilla. Make this experience enjoyable for them as well. This also goes for the groomsmen!
- Make life easy for your Groom and your Groom will make life easy for you.
Seriously! Jordan has it made. I have taken care of everything and because of that, he jumps up any time I want to go to an antique shop or flea market. Thank the Lord for giving me a laid back man because I will admit that I have some control issues! Ignore those and make it enjoyable all around.
- Don't stress about the little things.
Rain? Worry about it closer to the date. Cake falling? Really? What would you be able to do even if that did happen? Laugh things off. There is no need to worry about the smallest things that probably won't happen.
- Be a little selfish.
This is your time. Not theirs. Do what you want, where you want, when you want, etc. but this doesn't mean to boss your wedding helpers around. Like I said before, you'll be the one looking back and regretting not doing something you wanted to do or even doing something you didn't want to do. It's nice to have advice but too many birds chirping at once is hard to handle. Be open to advice but in the end, make your own decisions. My motto for this wedding is be polite, stay calm, but do what you want! :)
I hope this helps!
Hopefully as we get closer and closer to the wedding date I will have more tips and tricks up my sleeve.
.jpg)
