How to Plan a Wedding on the Cheap

Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the single most important days in your life. For me, it was just that. According to Weddingcostaverage.com, the average wedding costs over $27,000. That is more than I make in 1 year of work. Despite it being such a memorable occasion, I could not justify spending that amount of money on one day. For many of us, this is the case, and I needed to figure out how to plan a wedding...on the cheap.

There are many ways to save money on a wedding, and still make it beautiful. The first things you do when planning a wedding are to decide where, when, and who's coming. My husband I chose a free location that suited our needs. Yes, free. Our date was set for February 3^rd, a cold month, but it offered the chance to have a white snowy wedding and a cheaper venue in the off-season.

I am a member of a local church; therefore, the church was free to my husband and I for our special day. If you are not a member of a church, consider other locations where you or your family have some connections and use it to your advantage. Many locations, especially churches, will offer their facilities for a $100-$500 rental fee for the day.

Figuring out the who's who of who's coming is difficult. Should you invite your Great Aunt Bess or your third cousin twice removed? No. As much as we want to be a "nice bride" and invite everyone we have ever met, keep in mind it is you and your future husband's day and no one else's. Although our wedding list consisted of over 225 invitees, we knew about 90% of my husband's family could not attend due to living over 2500 miles away in Canada. We expected just over 100 to reply attending, and you should do the same. 100 is great number where there are plenty of people to join the celebration without being overwhelmed.

Once the date, location and guest list are secured, it is time to get your invitations in order. Thank Goodness for Microsoft Word! I put my handy HP printer workhorse to work on printing out over 150 invitations to mail out. I visited my local Staples and purchased cardstock paper in a cream color along with matching envelopes. I designed the invitations, printed, folded and mailed everything myself. It took some time, but it saved me a ton of money. I spent about $100 on ink, paper and envelopes total and an additional $100 on postage. Many paper supply stores also offer pre-designed invitations that you can print out yourself for a reasonable amount. Remember to save the invitation format and leftover paper to assist in printing out your own bulletins. I had fun creating the wedding bulletins and adding our personal flare to each one. It took some time, patience and a lot of ink, but they turned out beautifully.

The next step in good wedding planning is choosing your wedding dress, tux and bridesmaid dresses. It is customary for groomsmen and bridesmaids to purchase their own gowns to keep costs down for the couple. I spent just about $400 on my dress and recruited my mom to do the alterations. Your wedding dress is an important factor in the planning, but do not go overboard. You can find your dream dress below $500. Just keep an open mind and try on everything! If you do not have any family or friends that can do alterations, contact a local seamstress who will probably do the alterations for half the price of the bridal boutique. Shop around-you should be able to get alterations done for about $50-$75! Also keep in mind that if alterations need done, you should have the dress pressed and cleaned at a local dry cleaners. This should cost around $75-$100 and should be done about two weeks before the wedding.

Shoes and accessories are ever important as well. Shop novelty jewelry stores in the prom aisles. You'll find great deals on nice looking goods and consider making your own veil, or not wearing one. I chose a headpiece that I purchased on Ebay for about $30 without a veil, and I loved it. For my shoes, I scoured local outlet stores for and paid less than $20. You can always find a good bargain on the clearance shelves or at outlet stores. Talk to your family about borrowing heirloom jewelry to fit the occasion. My mother-in-law's pearls were perfect for the day.

For your fiance's tux, shop around for specials. I went through Men's Wearhouse, which offered lots of options as well as amazing customer service. Plus, when your groomsmen rent through Men's Wearhouse, your fiancé gets his tux free. Nice deal, huh? They were great to work with, and when sizes came in wrong, they fedexed the piece overnight so it was there in plenty of time for the wedding at no extra charge.

Floral arrangements were a difficult decision. Fresh or fake? After weighing price options, I decided to go with silk flowers. I searched many local craft stores but could not find just the right flowers for my bouquets and corsages. Although you can order silk flower bouquets online, the price isn't much different than real flowers. I found a local Flower & Craft Warehouse about 45 minutes away and hit the road for a day of shopping. They had thousands of silks to choose from, and after several hours, I settled on some lilies, roses and greens. I borrowed some wire cutters from my Dad's workbench, and after picking up some blue ribbon and floral tape from the local craft store, I went to work. It took a bridesmaid and me about three hours to complete the task of putting together the arrangements, corsages, and boutonnières.

I had purchased some silk floral balls, about 12 inches around, at a local craft store for the bridesmaids' bouquets. I put a friend from church to work adding decorative ribbon to the bouquets for some pizzazz. Between the silk flowers from the warehouse, tape, ribbon, and the flower balls from the craft store, I spent about $75; much cheaper than some of the thousands spent on fresh floral arrangements. Plus, mine are still as beautiful as the day I purchased them.

Photography is probably the most important thing on your wedding day. You want your precious memories to be captured in the perfect light at the perfect price. Again, ask around. Many friends and family are amateur photographers looking for a place to use their talents. We hired a family friend to do the photography and spent around $450 for her services including a book holding a 3x5 of every picture. We had the option to purchase prints through her, or to get them ourselves, as she gave us the negatives as well. The pictures are fantastic, and we loved the price.

Finding someone to perform the ceremony is an important decision. I chose the pastor who dedicated me as a baby and baptized me. He came out of retirement to marry us and I was especially grateful. Most pastors do not charge or expect payment for their services, but it is nice to give them some funds that they can keep for themselves, or donate to the church. We gave our pastor $75 as a thank you for his services and pre-marital counseling sessions.

For a guest book, we got creative and had everyone sign a slip of snowflake paper with their name and write a tidbit of marriage advice for us newlyweds. Each put theirs in a jar, and everyday after we got married, we pulled one slip out to read to each other. It was a fun way to read others' advice and a unique way to get everyone involved. The cost of the jar and paper was less than $15.

Music is another intimate detail of any wedding. Ceremony and reception music are two different arenas, but both very important. Many of us have talented friends who are musicians. Please use them and give them the spotlight to perform at your wedding. We had a close friend play piano and it was lovely. I chose songs after doing some research online for wedding favorites and also threw in some personal flare. I purchased the songbooks for the musician, about $50, and paid her via a gift certificate for a side business I own.

Music for the reception was something that was important for us, as we love to party. My brother, being the tech genius that he is, volunteered his services and downloaded every song my fiancé and I requested onto his laptop. From there, we rented an amplifier and several speakers through a local electronics rental shop for about $100 for the day and my brother and his friend Troy set up the entire system and Dj'd. It was a great time, and everything ran smoothly. If you don't have a tech genius in your family, search craigslist.com and other free ad agencies for cheap DJ services.

The reception is another huge part of wedding planning, and the costliest. The best thing I can recommend is to ask around for advice. Many friends and family know of venues you haven't even thought of, for special events and parties that are reasonably priced. After some investigating, I managed to find an older hotel that offered a FREE room and great catering. Do not worry about dinner options: everyone loves chicken! I ordered a great Chicken Diane for everyone that was tasty, along with special potatoes, salad and dinner rolls. It only cost us around $15 a plate and included our wait staff and free linens. We opted to pay a bit extra for special colored linens to color coordinate with our wedding. All in all, 109 people attended, and the reception cost was only around $2500 including extra appetizers: A bargain in today's world

Alcohol is something that can add extreme cost to any wedding. My fiancé and chose a cash bar and purchased a bottle of wine for every table to have with dinner and to toast. It was a $75 setup fee for the cash bar and bartender. Between that, and the wine, we spent less than $200 on the alcohol. This is an affordable choice to make to keep everyone happy. For our special toasting glasses, I faired well at Linens N Things and purchased blue accented that looked beautiful. They were around $15 total, and un-engraved, were great to add to our wine glass collection in our home.

Your wedding cake is one of the most memorable parts of the reception. I happened to know a friend who made cakes on the side. For our 109 guests, it cost me roughly $250 for a beautifully decorated cake. Serving was included in our reception hall agreement, so this was a steal. Ask around for independent cake makers that your friends and family have used. If not, don't rule out a local grocery store. I know Acme makes amazing cakes and has great icing! As for the cake knife, server and cake topper, Oriental Trading Company offered a matching set of all three with engraving for about $25. They were beautiful and still look new and shiny a year later. Be creative, especially with the cake topper. It should speak of your personalities.

Centerpieces, decorations, favors and flowers were one of the most difficult parts of my wedding planning. It took a full month of fine-tuning prices and ideas to decide where and what to order. Starting with centerpieces for the reception, I stalked Walmart and Kmart at the end the Christmas holiday season for anything blue and white (our wedding colors) or snowflake themed. It is nice to have a theme, but it can make product hunting more difficult. We chose snowflakes, and at the end of the holiday season, it did make it a bit easier. I chose tissue paper with blue and white snowflakes as an accent for the centerpiece. My church had these great cream bowls that I was able to borrow at no cost to burn floating candles. I purchased a bulk bag of floating candles at a local craft store and the effect was beautiful, yet cheap. All in all, I did not spend more than $25 total on my table centerpieces, nor should you!

Decorations were also procured through Kmart and Walmart, as well as local craft stores. I used colored netting to hang snowflake ornaments from the ceiling to create a falling snow effect in the church. We also used blue beading and more netting down the aisles for a grand entrance. It is nice to keep things simple in the church, as to not distract from the bridal party. These items cost around $20 total.

Oriental Trading Company is a great place for favors and decorations. I found some awesome Chinese carryout containers with a snowflake pattern to hold our reception favors. It was tough to decide what to throw or make noise at us as we left the church, but I decided to settle on the almighty kazoo. A fun toy for everyone, and it came in a snowflake pattern. Oriental Trading Company has many options and ideas, all on a cheap budget. Between the two, I spent under $50 on these favors.

A few days before the wedding, I rounded up family to help with dipping pretzels in chocolate and sprinkling them with blue sprinkles. It was to be a tasty after dinner treat for the guests, and they looked classy. It took just a very large bag of pretzels, roughly 2 lbs. of melting chocolate and a few containers of sprinkles. Total cost: $30.00. A great treat for great guests at a great price.

My bridesmaids and groomsmen knew how much we appreciated them for being a part of our special day. As a thank you to the boys, my fiancé searched Ebay and purchased cheap tickets to see a hockey game. They all spent an evening out on the town and had a great time. For the girls, I gave them all gift certificates for Mary Kay products, a home business I run, and I purchased their jewelry. This saved us a lot of money by being creative and using our noggins. Between everyone, we spent about $200 as a thank you to everyone.

Things such as rehearsal dinners and honeymoons are an entire other article, but be assured, you can do it yourself. Think of great cooks in your family, or family vacation homes or time-shares that you can use. Get creative! Weddings are great, fun times, and so memorable. Don't spend anymore time worrying about how to pay for it, than you have to so that you can enjoy your special day.