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Our wedding day was absolutely beautiful. It was pretty much exactly what I dreamed of as a little girl. A red barn, a gorgeous white dress, my friends and family, and my wonderful husband. I loved the day. And even better to us, we did it on a budget. I wrote a full blog post on the things we did that saved us a lot of money. It has the full breakdown of how we saved THOUSANDS of dollars by choosing the things we did. When we started the wedding planning process, I posted our original budget with a breakdown. I knew posting it during the process would keep us accountable and on track for our wedding budget.
But in hindsight, it is easy to see where we could have saved a lot more if we would have made other choices. We could have had a cheaper wedding. I want to make sure that I say, I do not regret a single dollar spent or thing we did. The day was perfect and we stuck to our budget. These things are simply hindsight and sharing with other people planning a wedding for tips for a cheaper wedding.
Here are just a few things for an even cheaper wedding.
1) Being more flexible on the menu
I was dead set on having breakfast and there was nothing that could have changed my mind. It actually had a significant tie to the beginning of our relationship. When we first started dating, we were working at the restaurant. He was a cook and I was a waitress/bartender. The late nights lead to a lot of breakfast dates. We have still only been on 10 “dinner and a movie” dates because of our schedules. So there were some 1 AM IHOP dates or a lot of days of breakfast dates at 10 AM.
Because I was pretty dead set on having breakfast, I didn’t want to give that up. We could have gotten much cheaper catering if we wouldn’t have stuck to the breakfast menu. There are tons of really creative menus for much cheaper. Our food ended up being the biggest line item in our budget. But if you are looking for a business adventure, affordable breakfast catering has a serious gap that needs to be filled. Catering was the biggest line in our budget.
2) Have a solid meal count
We definitely ordered WAY too much food. I think there will always be people who have something come up last minute, but we had enough food for 20 extra people. There were people who made it to the ceremony, but not dinner. Or the dinner but not the ceremony. Having a reliable count of about how many people were actually staying for the meal would have saved us tremendously. We did get to take the leftovers home and we made 30 breakfast burritos for the freezer, so it wasn’t lost completely, but we will be eating breakfast burritos for a long time. I think there will always be numbers that will be off and last minute things that come up, but talking to your guests and seeing what their honest plans are can save you big on money.
3) When dress shopping, get a white bridesmaid/prom dress
I absolutely loved my dress, but I will be the first to admit that I went over budget quickly on my dress. When I was dress shopping, my main focus was flattering. I was 7 months postpartum when we went dress shopping and that definitely made it harder for me to pick a dress and feel great in it, but it absolutely turned out perfect! I didn’t really think of it until much later but it would have been easy to get a bridesmaid dress and order it in white. They are often much cheaper, still beautiful, and don’t usually need alterations. My wedding dress needed a lot of alterations and while it wasn’t that expensive, it could have been. Here are a ton of examples for gorgeous dresses under $100.
4) Don’t buy things unless you are absolutely sure you will use them.
There were a lot of things that sat in boxes or got left at home the day of because we didn’t need them. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least $50 of things that we paid for that we didn’t end up using at all. We bought some of it with the idea that we might need it. We got an entire set of photo props that never really ended up being used. They would have been adorable, but there was just too much going on. We could have had a cheaper wedding with less “extra things” We are doing a huge garage sale with any wedding items that weren’t used or were gently used. Hopefully, that will help get a little bit of that money back.
5) Check out thrift stores or second-hand kids shops for used formal clothes.
We really had a hard time finding clothes for Carter to wear. We ended up ordering a suspender set from Amazon and getting black pants from Wal-mart. Target had mini tuxes for $40. It would have been easy to just grab it from Target, but he will probably never wear it again, so its hard to justify that purchase just for the wedding. We bought his outfit the day before the wedding because I was so nervous that he would outgrow something if we got it too early.
We had two flower girls. One of them got their dress for $5 at a consignment shop and the other was $40 from amazon because it was too last minute to find a dress in her size. Not everything has to be cheap, but planning ahead a little bit can save money.
6) Alcohol can make or break a budget.
Alcohol is always a touchy topic when it comes to weddings. Some people choose not to have it at all. Some people choose open bar. We chose to cover our wedding parties drink all night and then two drinks per guests. This worked really well for us. We set a budget of $500 and we hit it right at the end of the night. I really don’t think we could have saved too much more here, but they gave us the option to only cover beer and wine. We did have “signature his and hers drinks.” The one way I could see saving more here is to only cover beer, wine, and signature drinks. Our venue’s average drink was $3 so it really wasn’t a big budget buster, but if you are looking for a cheaper wedding, alcohol is something to decide ahead of time.
7) How long do you really want to dance?
We booked our DJ from 4-11. By 6:30, I was tired and ready to end the night. We did end up cutting the DJ an hour early because the crowd had cleared and we were pretty done dancing. We definitely could have ended the night a little earlier. By the time we got out of there, it was 11 PM. Brandon and I spent the last 30 minutes of our wedding day sitting in the McDonalds drive-thru getting food because we were tired and hungry!
For a cheaper wedding, you could book the DJ for 3-4 hours for the traditional dances and fun stuff, and then do something else like yard games or just sitting around chatting with your guests.Our ceremony was at 3:30 to accommodate some family pictures before the meal. If we would have had a later ceremony time it would have been a little cheaper and fewer hours as well. You also don’t need to dance at all, you can choose to do anything after your ceremony that fits you as a couple. Make it what you want!
8) Ultimately, running away to get married would still be the cheapest option
We really talked about a destination wedding for quite a while. Our initial thought was to get a giant cabin in Colorado for everyone to stay in and split the costs of food for a few days. We would have done a small ceremony in the park and then just spent time with the ones we love most. I am glad that we got to celebrate with everyone, but speaking financially, it would have been the cheaper option.
Stop comparing your wedding to other weddings
The more time I spent on Pinterest, the more I thought of things we could do for the wedding. Ultimately, we didn’t need a lot of the things we did and could have simply used the venue decor. We didn’t need fancy drink signs or a unique guest book. The more simple you make it, the cheaper wedding you can have. But also remember that money isn’t the MOST important aspect of the day.
Enjoy your day. Have fun. Love on your new spouse. Enjoy the loved ones around you! Take fun pictures.
What thing could you have done for a cheaper wedding?
