If you and your partner are about to join 61.96 million American couples in matrimonial bliss, congratulations! There’s nothing as exciting as a lifetime of joy, adventure, and wonder with the person that you love more than anyone and anything. Still, before you can begin a beautiful life together, there’s the big stressor of planning the perfect wedding- eek!
One of the most stressful things about wedding planning is money. It’s an expensive endeavor, especially if you want the reception that you’ve always dreamed of. Luckily, there are ways to have a cheap wedding and make it look like you spent all the time and money on it that you wish you could.
Read on to learn some ways to have the wedding of your dreams while on a budget!
Table of Contents
Know Your Budget
Before you can begin planning your wedding, it’s important that you know your budget. Having your dream wedding is important, but remember that you’ll need money for the honeymoon as well as the actual marriage- one day isn’t worth going into too much debt over.
Look closely at your bank accounts and get a feel for how much you have. Then look into the various aspects of your wedding that you need to consider- clothing, food, flowers, decor- and budget for each category.
Make sure that you’re being realistic during this step of the process. It’s easy to get caught up in your dreams, but your wedding is very real (and imminent!)
Find a Bargain Dress
Wedding dresses are one of the biggest expenditures for any wedding. In fact, the average wedding dress costs $1200!
Fortunately, there are ways to find beautiful dresses while on a budget. One option that many women choose is to rent their wedding dress. While you won’t get to keep it after the big day, you’ll have pictures to last a lifetime. Besides, you’ll get to wear the dress of your dreams while still not shelling out too much cash.
There are also gorgeous wedding dresses that you can buy secondhand in ‘like new’ condition. If you want to have your dress as a lifelong keepsake, this may be the right option for you. Some women get there dresses this way for only a couple hundred dollars, which is a huge bargain.
Bridesmaid Made
Your bridesmaids are also going to want to look great on the big day, and you’ll want them to, too. There’s nothing quite like seeing the people closest to you shine, and you’ll be seeing them in photographs for the rest of your life.
You can allow them to express themselves by picking out their own (same-color) dresses secondhand. If you want uniformness, you can select a style that can be bought at a low price. It’s ultimately up to you, but this will save your bridesmaids quite a bit of money, too.
Speaking of your bridesmaids, you can ask them to help you create decorations for the wedding itself. Not everything you use needs to be professionally made. Place cards, invitations, and table centerpieces are fun to DIY while bonding with the women you love most.
Pick a Great Venue
Picking a venue is also an incredibly pricy venture for a lot of couples. While there are affordable wedding venues out there, you need to know where to look for them and how to get the best deals.
If someone in your family or close friend group has a big house or a beautiful backyard, you can ask them to allow you to use it for your wedding. Offer them a small sum of money to accommodate you and make sure that you pay for everything else and hire someone to do the cleaning up so they won’t have to.
If this isn’t something you want to do, consider gaining exclusive use of a park or stretch of beach. This outdoorsy wedding is sure to capture the hearts of attendees and look beautiful in photos for years to come.
Catering, Catering, Catering
Wedding catering can get incredibly expensive. People have been known to pay a hundred dollars for food at weddings… for each guest.
Clearly, this is a huge expenditure. There are ways around this, though- hiring a less expensive caterer is an awesome way to pay less for (let’s be real) tastier food.
Get something like a taco bar or a DIY pasta station. While it won’t be as fancy as it otherwise could be, people will likely enjoy the food more than some pretentious dish that they don’t care about. Not only that, but you can make the venue look beautiful and ensure that people don’t even notice that the food isn’t luxury material.
Cake… DIY Style
Everyone knows someone who loves to bake and is absolutely fantastic at it. If you’re lucky, this will be someone close to you. Offer them payment to bake your wedding cake and decorate it in a style they like. You’ll get a personal touch, make a friend’s day, and pay significantly less than what you would when hiring a professional baker.
If this doesn’t describe any of your loved ones, then there’s another equally awesome option.
There are lots of gorgeous cakes you can DIY alongside your partner. This can be a fun break from wedding planning and a good way to de-stress together. While unconventional, there’s no way to make your wedding more your own then DIYing the cake.
Have a Cheap Wedding That Looks Awesome
While planning a wedding can be stressful, knowing your budget, looking for deals, and doing a little DIY can save you a lot of strife related to money. With that out of the way, you can focus on the aspects of your big day that really matter: friends, family, and, of course, the love of your life.
Now that you know how to have a cheap wedding but still make it look perfect, it’s time to get more tips in time for your big day. Check out the ‘lifestyle’ tab on our home page for more tips on how to live your dream on your wedding day.
Congratulations again!
