It's no secret that a wedding can be expensive and costs add up FAST. It's a fine line between creating the wedding of your dreams while sticking to the agreed upon budget. The good news? Small tweaks in your wedding details can really make a difference.
First of all, it's really important to know the budget you are working with before you start planning. Be realistic with yourselves. You don't want to be broke or in debt your first year of marriage, and you don't want to pressure your parents into giving you more money than they are comfortable with. No matter what your budget, your wedding can be spectacular and special. The most important thing is that you and your fiancée are tying the knot, right? If only it were that simple...
Once you've got a budget, it's time to lay out your priorities. I'd create a pie chart with percentages that will equal out to monetary amounts based on how much, total, you'd like to spend. This is a great visual way to see where you want to spend the most and the least amount of money. As you book vendors and purchase items, you may need to adjust the percentages accordingly, and that's okay! You might fall in love with some invitations that cost more than you had allocated. You just need to simply cut some percentage points in another category to balance your total.
Your spending will increase as your guest list does. The more bodies present at your wedding, the more expensive it gets. This makes sense, right? More people means more chairs to rent, mouths to feed, wedding favors to distribute, and often times can result in in a larger cost for your wedding planner. Coordination for a wedding with 400 guests will almost always cost you more than coordination for a wedding of 150.
Don't go for upgrades. Folding chairs rather than Chiavari chairs (the two most commonly rented chairs) can save you a pretty penny. While Chiavari chairs have a slightly nicer appearance, it's super unlikely that your guests will care, and will not even be looked at once they are being sat on and everyone is eating, laughing, and enjoying the party.
Folding Chair vs. Chiavari Chair
Images from Classic Party Rentals
Another chair tip: repurpose your chairs! If the staff you have hired and your venue allow, feel free to use the same 100 chairs that your guests sat in at the ceremony and move them over to the reception dinner tables while they are at the cocktail hour. This, of course, is dependent on whether or not you have a long enough cocktail hour to make this transition happen and if the cocktail space is not in eye-sight of the ceremony/reception locations.
You can also use this repurposing trick for your flowers. Large floral arrangements can come out to multiple hundreds of dollars each. If you have large alter arrangements, ceremony aisle flowers, or even bridesmaids bouquets, you can repurpose all of those to become centerpieces and room décor for your reception. Your wedding planner can collect the arrangements and bridesmaid bouquets and place them into vases of water on tables after the ceremony or while they are enjoying the cocktail hour.
An example of flowers that were repurposed from the ceremony and used as cake table décor
Image from Bridal Guide
Finally, a great way to curb your spending is to go with a new kind of wedding registry. Companies like Honeyfund and Zola allow you to register for monetary amounts/experiences, rather than the traditional household item route. While you may not realize it, your honeymoon can take up some of the money you've allocated for your wedding. Since many couples today live together before getting married, they usually already have a lot of the household items that would typically go on a wedding gift registry. These websites allow couples to ask for contributions for their honeymoon plane tickets, romantic dinners, couples' massages, fun activities, etc. This let's you worry less about what you are spending on the wedding, knowing you have a fun, special, once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon to look forward to and taken care.
Ask your planner other ways to cut costs on areas like dinner service style, alcohol packages, digital save-the-dates and invitations, and DIY projects.
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