(Lindsey is today's author. Welcome her back!)
‘Tis wedding season again! It seems like every year since
graduating from college I have a multitude of weddings to attend Spring &
Summer. I personally love everything about weddings but it was not until I got
married myself that I truly appreciated all the time, work and money
that goes into a wedding. To put it simply, weddings are expensive! I found
myself working hard to still have all the nice things I wanted but trying to
figure out ways to keep the cost of the wedding down. Here are some of the ways
that I discovered to keep the budget under control while still having the day
of your dreams!
First and foremost, you are going to want to decide
what is most important to you. Is it the dress, the honeymoon, the venue? I
found when you knew what the important purchases were, it was easier to make
them a priority and search for creative ways to cut costs on things that were
not so crucial.
The second thing to think about is when you are
having your wedding. What time of year has a big impact on what things are
going to cost you! My husband and I got
married in February in Pittsburgh – definitely NOT peak wedding season. Because
of this, we were able to get our venue, DJ and catering for half of what it
would have cost us if we had the wedding in the summer! While it was not our
intention to have a winter wedding, we found ourselves saving tons of money and
would recommend this to anyone whose heart is not set on that June wedding.
If you can make it, do! While some people are not
necessarily ‘crafty’ people, craft stores like Jo Ann Fabrics or Michaels make
it easy to create things for your wedding, even for those not-so-Martha Stewart
types. For example, we bought invitation kits and printed them out on our
computer. I used a kit that was being discontinued and only paid about $12 a
box! These kits vary in what they come with but mine came with 25 invitations,
decoration sleeves and ribbon, response cards and all the envelopes needed. It
was a little time consuming to feed each individual invitation into the
printer, but it was worth it to save a couple hundred dollars and just because
you’re making it doesn’t mean it has to look cheap! People said they had no
idea we had done the invitations ourselves since they looked so professional. I also made everything from the programs,
center pieces, and seating cards to the church decorations – saving tons of
money. All you need is a hot glue gun, a little creativity and friends and
family to help! If you are having a hard time finding things or not sure what
to make, look at websites like Pinterest or bridal magazines for some inspiration.
Another great way to save money is by utilizing your
resources! Do you have a friend who does photography or a relative that makes
cakes? See if you can use them and they may give you a nice ‘friend/family’
discount! We had an aunt that made wedding cakes and she did ours for free as
our gift. It looked absolutely amazing
and would have costs us
hundreds of dollars to have a baker make something similar.
Some other ways to save money are looking into doing
silk flowers instead of real or selecting seasonal flowers from a local
florist. You can chose to not ‘waste’ money by forgoing the traditional ‘gifts’
you give your guests that usually get thrown away and donate money to a charity
in lieu of favors. If you want to save money on stamps, you can create a wedding
website for free on sites like The Knot or My Wedding and have guests submit
their response online. The possibilities are endless thanks to all the kits,
projects and websites that have come out in recent years. Cheers to wedding
savings!
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