11 Wedding Money Saving Tips
When you first start planning a wedding, big expenses generally come to mind, but there are a lot of little ones that add up fast. Our wedding was not small, so when it came to the budget we tried to save money in the following areas.
1. Cocktail Hour. Since we wanted to spend more money on a good dinner buffet, instead of having a cocktail hour right after the ceremony, we opened the bar earlier and provided olives and nuts at the tables. This means savings on both hors d’oeuvres and waiters.
2. Music. A DJ is generally cheaper than a band. In our specific case a DJ made more sense because it was really important to have someone that could provide us with the variety of music we wanted in Spanish and English.
3. Flowers. Flowers can get pretty expensive, consider expenses like this one when setting your wedding date. To lower the cost we incorporated a lot of mirrors, water vases, and candles with the flower decorations.
4. Programs. Programs are cute to have, but will likely end up in the floor of the ceremony, we decided to completely skip on this one.
5. Sitting and Escort Cards. This one we did ourselves. We bought nice paper and using an excel spreadsheet we printed and assembled them at home.
6. Wedding Invites. When picking your invites, consider that the shape, size, and seal of the invite affect the postage required. We were clueless about this one and we had lots of invites to mail.
7. Wedding RSVP. Instead of including pre-postage envelopes that add to the price and weight of the invite, we opted to create a Gmail account specifically for RSVPs.
8. Pre-Wedding Events Invites. We were very lucky to have several showers and parties. We did mail invites for two of the seven pre-wedding events. The other five were more intimate so we used evites fromhttp://www.punchbowl.com instead.
9. Favors. It is a known fact that guests tend to forget their wedding favors and the bride and groom are left with tons of them. Instead we included mints on the escort cards and the neon glasses for the carnival also served that purpose.
10. Toast. Most people don’t like champagne, so they will either take a sip for the toast and not finish it or won’t touch it at all. [I know…I can’t believe it either!] To avoid wasting money we did not serve champagne and everyone cheered with their own drink.
11. Wedding Day Coordinator. If you are organized and you have someone to help you, in my case my mom, then save money by hiring a wedding day coordinator instead of a wedding planner. It is cheaper, she will provide guidance, and most importantly will be the contact person for questions and stress on the wedding day.
