21 Comments on “Planning a wedding on a VERY small budget?”
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Vegas? If not just shop the dollar stores, do the centerpieces and favors yourself. Start shopping for caterers now. Congrats & good luck!!
Posted on January 15, 2010 at 4:38 pm.
Bake the cake yourself or have a personal friend or family member that is good at baking do it.
Make your own flower arrangements. All you need is a bouquet of flowers for your own arrangement and then put some nice arrangements around.
Make your own food or have family/friends help, or have food catered by your favorite restaurant. Just keep it small and simple.
Have the wedding and reception in a family members house or outside somewhere that you dont have to pay for a rental.
Buy a nice dress off the rack somewhere. Watch for sales.
Hope this helps with some ideas. My husband and I actually got married at city hall and just had a really nice dinner in a private room for the family at a waterfront restaurant. Total spent on the marriage and dinner was only a little over $1,000.
Posted on January 18, 2010 at 1:55 pm.
You can have a very nice wedding if you keep the guest list small…. if you want to have a big wedding it’s a lot cheaper to have a brunch or lunch. Also, I’ve found that non-hotels are cheaper in general for reception sites (i.e. country clubs). Of course, it also depends on what you mean by a “very small budget”
Posted on January 21, 2010 at 7:27 pm.
Okay, first of all CONGRATS. Second, GO REGISTER AT THEKNOT.COM!! Its a lifesaver. They have everything you could think of, and even a budget plan! You type in your specifics and it gives you a budget for each individual portion (dress, favors, etc.). Next, you have over a year, so do things yourself. For example, the decorations, party favors and flowers. It saves a bundle. Also look into doing your own invitations, this can save hundreds. Good luck!
Posted on January 25, 2010 at 2:40 am.
i just got married last saturday and we had a real tight budget also. i made all my own decorations using stuff i got at dollar stores and walmart. dirt cheap and real easy if you know how to use a glue gun. our wedding was luau themed so we used lots of shells and sand. other ways to cut costs are to get a preworn or discounted dress using the internet- ebay, etc. also ask around, you would be surprised what talents the people you know have. our friends and relatives really helped out with the food, entertainment, reception location, and cake. most agreed to help instead of buying a gift. we paid for everything so every dime we could save helped out. i wish you much luck….congrats!!!
Posted on January 28, 2010 at 12:20 am.
go to the justice of the peace with 2 witnesses get married and throw a big cookout for a reception.
Posted on January 29, 2010 at 1:21 pm.
First of all, Congratulations!
Second, start doing a lot of research on how to save money on weddings.
Here are a few ideas of the top of my head:
Keep your guest list small
Print your own invitations
Make your own flowers
Have your wedding and reception in one location
Have family and friends cater your reception
Good luck. Enjoy planning your wedding, time will fly by.
Posted on January 30, 2010 at 7:20 pm.
My niece rented her wedding dress and got a beautiful dress for a very reasonable price. Or check out a second hand shop for your wedding dress. You could also have the reception at a family members or friends house. Rent a large tent in case of bad weather and rent tables and chairs. I think that would be much cheaper than renting a hall. Ask family members to help cook the meal or go to a local store and order meat and vegetable trays and go to a restaurant supply store and get the table covers, dishes, eating utensils, glasses, cups, etc.
Posted on February 3, 2010 at 7:07 am.
The more things you can do yourself, the better. first off, go to your local bookstore and see if there’s a good book either in the crafts section or the wedding planning section to see if you can find a book that tells you how to do things like tie bouquets, make centerpieces, etc.
Also, if you know any recent brides, ask them for local vendors that don’t cost an arm and a leg. You never know. I got an aisle runner simply given to me by a recent bride!
If you can self-cater, that can save a bundle, too. A mid-afternoon reception can be simply cake and punch, perhaps with a few appetizers, and that’s about the least expensive reception possible. If you hold your wedding at a time when you need to serve a meal, pick hearty, simple foods. Chances are, they’ll cost less to serve.
One way to save money is to forego favors, printed napkins, personalized matchbooks…things like that. Your guests might not even notice them if they’re there, and certainly won’t miss them if they aren’t.
Do your research, take your time, and remember there are a few things worth paying for, while others aren’t.
Posted on February 6, 2010 at 3:21 pm.
Have the guys wear suits instead of tuxes, or don’t have any bridal party. Also, I got married the day after my college graduation and they let us take the flowers from the ceremony to use at the wedding. Maybe you could find something like that and offer to pay half price for them. Do finger foods at the reception instead of a meal. Get a family member (uncle, cousin, etc.) to video tape it rather than hiring a videographer. Find a nice little family restaurant to have your rehearsal dinner, or have a BBQ at someone’s house. Good luck!
Posted on February 9, 2010 at 11:03 pm.
DIY the decorations and the invites, cater the reception by doing a potluck and having everybody make the dish they are best at. Serve beer and wine instead of a full bar.
I’m a super small budget bride too so I’m full of ideas. You just need to specify what part of the wedding you want help with or you can email me and I’ll be happy to help.
Posted on February 12, 2010 at 6:37 pm.
If you are having a small wedding, get family members/friends to contribute the food…..pot luck, hot and cold foods. Have the wedding and/or reception in someone’s yard. Use paper products on the tables, colorful balloons matching your color scheme on the tables look festive. Or a small round vase with a candle and colorful sand to hold it in place is nice, too. Have a friend play disc jockey. Someone will be glad to bring CDs and a player. I’m a Justice of the Peace and have done many yard weddings with everyone pitching in and these weddings have been wonderful because everyone had a part in the planning and everyone feels confortable. Good Luck….
Posted on February 13, 2010 at 9:16 pm.
shop for a dress now while places still have prom dresses on the rack. White will be included in that and the price will be around 100-200 as compared to 400 up.
Do an outside wedding where the wedding and reception can be at one place. In Portland doing it at one of there parks is under 500 as opposed to 2000 for most other places just for the site. Do sandwich trays or dessert only for the reception.
Posted on February 15, 2010 at 1:32 pm.
First of all…don’t go to bridal shops for your dress. The only one thats relatively cheap is David’s Bridal. the others are WAY too expensive. I ended up finding a very cute off-white dress at Sears for $50 and accessorized with a very cute sweater/wrap that I got online for like $10. We had a winter wonderland themed wedding Jan of 06. For decorations we borrowed friends and family members christmas trees and got a bunch of marked down white christmas lights from walmart and dollar tree. My sister in law is a great cook and catered the reception as a gift to us. My other sister in law has a cousin that is a wedding planner but she lives accross the country but she flew down and made our cake and my wedding parties bouquets as a gift. I only had 6 months to plan and do it all. We ended up doing the wedding and reception at my brother in laws church (free of charge) so we didn’t end up spending that much at all. The most expensive things were the clothes!
Posted on February 17, 2010 at 2:31 am.
Why not combine your wedding with a larger family function going on? Like a family reunion. everyone is already there and the place is decorated and rented. My sister just got married and it was the day after her son graduated. My dad only had to fly out once and the hall was for both occasions.
Posted on February 17, 2010 at 2:33 pm.
Contrary what society thinks today, a wedding is still a wedding no matter how fancy it is. Talk to your finance and figure out possible alternatives to expensive things like meals. Possibly you could have BBQ or Sandwich catering. People can have fun at a casual wedding as well as a formal wedding. If you can’t afford a DJ, rent/buy some nice big speakers and download some songs onto a laptop and plug them together. You don’t have to have fancy to have fun.
Posted on February 18, 2010 at 9:11 pm.
Back Yard wedding, pot luck food,
BYOB
Posted on February 21, 2010 at 5:37 pm.
Plan your wedding around a holiday as the sanctuary is usually already decorated. We had our right before Christmas and didn’t have to worry about flowers as our church decorates with poinsettias and greenery.
Have a low key reception. Just do light h’ordouvresm, punch, and cake. You can do alot of this yourself to save money.
Many grocery stores now have wedding cakes. You might think this is tacky, but I’ve seen some really expensive tacky cakes in my time and the grocery store cakes were nothing in comparison.
Make your on bouquets…cut wildflowers just loosely bunched are lovely!
Post on Freecycle and Craigslist to see if anyone has wedding supplies they want to sell or give away. Check and see if any friends are getting married close to your date.
If you want to do table centerpieces, just to a simple votive candle on a mirror or something. You could even use the votives again in your house.
Posted on February 22, 2010 at 1:52 am.
For our wedding we’re having our reception at the local community center, which is only charging us 200 for rental of the facility and we can do it yourself for food. Also if you belong to a church look into just having your reception at the church and if you have some sort of ladies auxillary they will usually serve the food for you if you give the group a small donation. Look on Ebay for wedding gowns, or other discounted wedding sites, just do a search for “discount wedding gowns”. For bridesmaids if you can go now and get clearanced Prom dresses that works great. I had a friend that got hers for 10 bucks each at Maurices off the clearance rack. If you want a dance, find a teenage cousin or family friend with an Ipod to do the music for you. If you have a relative with a good digital camera who likes to take pictures, hit them up for photography and/or videography. Do your own invitations, you can find prefolded/embossed paper even to print them on. You have lots of time, so you can take your time to find the best deals. Good luck to you!!!
Posted on February 22, 2010 at 7:30 am.
discount stores and bridal classifieds, have your family cater it and buy all bulk stuff
buy things on ebay or other auction sites
get your flowers from a grocer or chain store like walmart
Posted on February 24, 2010 at 5:19 am.
Have family and friends take photos and video. White prom dresses are out now and they can be inexpensive. David’s Bridal has beautiful dresses that average around $500. Costco or some other wholesale place can be your best friend. I know the one near me sells 2 dozen roses for $15. You can make your own bouquet/ centerpieces with a few flowers and maybe some candles. As far as the food, ask people you know who are good cooks. Or again check the wholesale places they sell prepared foods (frozen) in large quantities and some are quite yummy. For music you can set up an ipod on a docking station/ extra stereo speakers. You can probably borrow one from a friend if you don’t have it and any songs they don’t already own are only 99 cents. Much cheaper than a DJ. For the cake you can buy a small very nicely decorated cake from a bakery or rent a dummy cake and then use sheet cakes to serve to the guests. Good luck.
Posted on February 24, 2010 at 10:16 am.