How to Have a Better Wedding with Less Money

The sound of wedding bells is certainly sweet music, especially if you are in the wedding planning business. The cost attached to the average "dream wedding" can vary from anywhere near the thousands to the tens of thousands to even the millions, which is nothing unusual for the common celebrity. But is all of this necessary?

What about the love, what about the commitment, and what about the blessing you want to be given to you by your community? None of these things sport a price tag, but they are each more important than even the wedding cake, custom-designed invitations, or little fresh pink rose petals that will be thrown by the flower girl. Not to mention the professionally edited video of the event, the fee for the D.J., or the color-coordinated table decorations.

But we lose track of the more important things, which are not so simple to control, in order to feel as if we are in control of the less important things. This is exactly the reason why the costs of weddings are so out of hand, and it explains as well why the costs of divorce are even more out of hand than the weddings themselves. When couples are obsessed with unimportant things, they cannot stay together in the end, no matter how in control they feel. So, give up trying to buy every little doodad that will make your special day succeed.

This will cut down your wedding costs significantly.

But this is only a start. If you are really serious about having a warm and truly memorable wedding experience, you will probably want to consider the following 3 tips:

Pay For Everything in Cash

This might seem extreme, especially with the standard cost of a common wedding, as I mentioned. But you're not interested in just having a common wedding, but exactly the opposite, an uncommon and truly extraordinary wedding.

The best thing about using cash is that it brings your planning down to earth, unless you are one of the rare folks among us who is already a multi-millionaire. Most of us are more focused when we're financing an event with cash than we are with credit cards and other delayed methods of payment.

It is essential that you restrict your planning to a budget, or the next thing you know you'll be soliciting a freelance sculptor to craft a mini-likeness of yourselves to be placed on top of your wedding cake. We get worried about so many unnecessary things when we don't plan ahead.

The biggest way that you can benefit from planning ahead is in where you decide to have your event.

Consider Alternative Venues

A wedding can happen anywhere. We have been trained to dream expensive dreams about how a wedding should look the sort of place it should be carried out in. The reality is that dreams are nice, but love is nicer. Love doesn't need most of the things we think it does.

Love can be blessed in a park, in a house, or even in the sky if you happen to be parachuters.

The point is, evaluate your dreams, and see if other more simpler dreams are not even more meaningful to you.

Permit Others to Play a Part

Finally, and most importantly, permit others to become involved in helping your wedding be special. This tiny tip can be your saving grace, because it is what a wedding is really all about. This is the beginning of your lives together, not the end. This is the reason that you want to introduce and share your dreams with those who will be making up your new extended family. And what better way to share these dreams than to let others play a part in making them happen? For example, there is always someone who wants to pitch in items like tablecloths or candles or even tables and chairs.

Take my words of advice: Let them.

A wedding should not be an exclusive affair, but should include as many as who want to support the bride and groom on their special day. You will be surprised at how many people will be honored to honor your love if you are not afraid to give up a little control over the most important elements of your wedding: Love, Commitment, and Blessing.

Do yourself a favor. Give yourself a chance to have a better wedding for less money.