Bring Your Wedding in Under Budget

Weddings are expensive. Today, it would be very easy for a young couple to spend more money on their wedding festivities than they would to put a down payment on their first house, and without question more on their wedding than on their first family sedan. So, how do you plan the perfect wedding without blowing your budget, as well as the budgets of close family members and friends? There are tricks to planning a wedding under budget, corners to cut, as it were, without sacrificing quality.

Friends and family
Employ friends and family to do things for your wedding that you would normally have to pay someone to do. Aunt Helen has been photographing activities and events for her church for the past thirty years, she may be willing to photograph, at the very least, your wedding ceremony. And Aunt Grace's favorite hobby is decorating cakes and even sells them for extra cash. Of course, you have to be understanding if they would rather observe your wedding festivities than participate in them, but it never hurts to ask.

Be crafty
This is another avenue where you can employ friends and family, if you aren't crafty on your own. A ream of decorative parchment paper will cost you in the neighborhood of $10 to $15, colored ink for an ink jet printer, $30. You can easily spend less than $100, most likely less than $50, to print your own wedding invitations, invitations that may cost anywhere from $200 to $500 or more depending on how many you want and where you get them from, to have them professionally printed. And doing it yourself means you can also use the computer printer to address your envelopes, something that will add to the cost of your professionally printed wedding invitations.

Make your own bouquets and floral arrangements. Fresh flowers in the wedding are definitely desirable to many brides but silk flowers offer one more avenue for wedding party keepsakes. And not only are they considerably less expensive but also offer a wider variety of choices, such as out-of-season or rare wedding flowers, or colors that a florist may have to create (hiking up the price a little bit more to do so).

Cut back on the frills
A friend of mine had separate menus at her wedding reception, one for her, the groom and the bridal party, and one for the guests. This is one way to cut back on the food budget for your wedding, if you are willing to take the heat for it. Most people would understand the thinking behind a decision like this but still many others may resent it, so take a step like this with caution. However, there are other ways to trim without sacrificing.

Rather than approach your caterer with a set menu, go to him or her with a list of several acceptable choices, discuss the practicality and preparation of each dish, the portion sizes (if it is a served dinner), and of course, prices. It is your wedding and therefore important that you are satisfied with your decisions but don't set your mind to something that is going to cost upwards of $20 per plate, just because it is your favorite thing to order in a restaurant. When putting together your menu choices, poll friends, co-workers, people who have less ability to sway your decision, the way family may be able. See what they would want, what they have had at other weddings, what they had at their own wedding. Compile a list and take your top five choices to the caterer.

Cut desserts from the menu. They will get cake, that should be sufficient. This may seem obvious to some but I have seen many a chocolate mousse cup at many a wedding. You could, instead, offer a tray of fruits for the occasional guest who would prefer to avoid the desserts altogether. A cash bar is another way to save a lot of money on the food budget. Free drinks still have to be paid for by someone and that someone will probably be you.

Or you can eliminate the bar option altogether but there are risks that come with that decision. One is having people smuggle drinks in or sneak them from their cars. Another is, if you want your wedding reception to be the party it was intended to be, you want your guests to stay as long as they are having a good time. Depending, of course, on your friends and family, many people will only stay for the meal then leave if there is no bar. But, it is cheaper and you run less risk of things being broken by drunken guests.

Another acceptable budget cut is to purchase (or pay rental fees) for your bridal party's clothes but ask that they pay for their accessories. Or give them their accessories as their gift, rather than accessories AND a gift. This is especially true of groom's men who are often given gifts such as shaving kits, but could just as easily be given pocket watches or cufflinks that they can wear in the wedding and keep as their gifts.

A spectacular wedding can come in well under budget, and the guests will be none the wiser, if you take smart steps to cut corners on the budget without cutting corners on the quality.