10 great ways to save money on wedding costs
If you’re looking to save money on wedding costs but don’t want to compromise on your dream day, here’s 10 ways I saved money on wedding costs to give you some inspiration.
In my previous post I talked about the areas I chose to splurge on for our wedding. By prioritising the things that truly mattered to us, it allowed to to save money on other areas of our wedding.
Everyone’s tastes and priorities are different, but hopefully you can get some ideas to balance your wedding budget more evenly.
Stationery & Seating plan
I hand made all my own save the date cards, invitations and seating plan. I bought silver ribbon and craft butterflies like these to decorate. My invitations were printed out using our home printer onto shimmery paper like this and looked professional. I would still be happy with these invitations today. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of one to include in this post.
If you don’t want the hassle of making your own wedding invitations but want an affordable ready made option, I really like these pre printed wedding invitations in packs of 20.
Make Up
I paid for a hairdresser for myself, bridesmaids and my mum but we did our own makeup. I had been for a makeup trial but couldn’t really see much of a difference as to how I would do it myself. However, I did treat myself to brand new Lancome foundation and it is still the type I use 12 years later. Although nowadays I reserve it for special occasions and use my beauty dupes day to day.
Video
After spending so much on a photographer, we wanted to capture the day on film but not spend any more. A friend offered to film, edit and put together the DVDs as his wedding present to us.
Shoes
I had £300 budgeted for my shoes, and had some Gina sparkly numbers in mind, which were very 2007! Then I found some that were perfect in Next for £25. Result! So even though I had budgeted, it didn’t stop me from grabbing a saving.
Flowers
My mindset was after being to several friend’s weddings I never remembered the table arrangements so I certainly wasn’t going to spend a fortune on flowers. I opted for the bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquets, buttonholes and 1 arrangement for the registry table.
Table decorations
I decided to make my own shabby chic centrepieces using cake stands, and cupcakes decorated with love hearts that doubled as favours. They were ok – but did look a bit lost on the size of the tables.
Pinterest did not exist back then and by today’s standards they would not be up to scratch but hey – is anyone going to remember other than me?
Photo Booth
For guest entertainment, we hired a photo booth from Smart Pics UK Event Photography
We got some great feedback from the guests and this was an affordable option that provided some extra fun! It also gave the guests a great momentum of the wedding to take away with them.
Chair covers
I was able to buy two x50 packs of chair covers like these for a very affordable price (under £50 at the time of purchase) which was enough to decorate the room for our 84 daytime wedding guests. This was a much bigger saving versus the cost of the venue sourcing them for us.
Plus, I was then able to sell them on eBay after the wedding and make some money back!
Music
Luckily, we had a friend who was able to DJ at our evening wedding party as his wedding gift to us which allowed us to save money.
I think today I would have had a band but you can’t regret your past choices if you didn’t have the same tastes back then!
Rings
This is “half” a saving thanks to my husband. He’s not a fan of jewellery and for this reason he chose a very modest white gold band. For a long time I was going to go for white gold myself, which would have been considerably cheaper, but at the last minute I thankfully decided platinum was the way to go.
White gold would have discoloured by now whereas the platinum has stood the test of time so this is not something I regret at all.
Whereas my husband does not regret choosing to spend less on his wedding ring, illustrating that you should prioritise the things that matter to you and save money on those that don’t.
In Summary
Looking back, I do have a couple of small regrets about the things we chose to save money on for our wedding, but I think rather this than regretting spending too much!
We were very lucky that together with our parents contributions, we earned enough to pay for everything we wanted without getting into any debt.
How could you save money on wedding costs?
Did you get married on a budget or are you planning to do so? Let me know how you plan to save money on wedding expenses in the comments.
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Where we chose to spend more on our wedding
