Dream Wedding – Low Budget! How to Pair Those Two
How to have a dream wedding on a budget?
What areas are the best save on when it comes to weddings… but without compromising with the quality or the experience?
Weddings are every girl’s dream.. until they actually save the date, open the budget planner and realise they’ve just entered one of the 9 circles of Hell.
Okay, no exaggeration anymore, I promise.
But planning a wedding when you’re short on cash isn’t as fun as they make it look on the reality shows.
Part of you wants that big classy shiny day where you’re the start of the wedding show. And there is that sceptic other parts of you that stay in the corner with her glasses on, knock on the whiteboard and says “Do you know how many OTHER things you could do with that money? Paying off your loans, going on a dream holiday... feeding a few hundreds of hungry children…”
And then you realise that you aren’t just fighting your bank account, but yourself too.
How to have that dream wedding without feeling guilty about it? How to enjoy your Day without getting into more debt and scraping the last coins from your future husband’s jeans on the back of the wardrobe?
Would a Cheap Wedding make you look stingy in the eyes of your guests?
What about your guests?
If you finally find a way to save some money for your dream wedding and make it on a budget, how would your guests react?
Will they see you went for fake flowers because real ones were too pricy?
Will they enjoy the compromises you made with the venue?
Will they judge you for your cheap wedding?
Hold on!
Why panic so much?
There are countless of ways to make your dream wedding happen with less money than you imagined.
It might not be for free, but it can be for less.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you sign up or make a purchase I might get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my business. See full disclosure.
Dream Wedding When You Are Broke? Here Is The Secret To Make it Happen
Below I will give you 12 juicy secret ways to organise your stunning dream wedding for as less money as you wish.
These wedding tips could save you up to $5000!
Wouldn’t you prefer to enjoy a beautiful honeymoon in a sunny place rather than staying home and hustle to pay off all of your debts from your wedding day?
In fact…
None of that means you will have to compromise with your beautiful dress, with the food, or the venue.
There’s only one thing you want to know and one question to ask yourself before taking any of the wedding planning steps.
The question is: How to reduce the price for each one of the things you would want to have on this day?
You don’t have to exclude anything (almost), but you want to be creative with the ways you afford it.
Ready to plan your dream wedding on a budget?
Let’s get to work then!
12 Things To Save Money On For Your Wedding
1. Wedding Planner – $1800 or $4000
Planning a wedding with the help of a professional wedding planner could cost you up to $4000 (source).
It would be great if you could afford it, but if you are unable to spear such an amount, then you will have to take control over your own special day.
This might sound scary at first, but I do know a couple who got married just a few months ago, and they both prepared everything for The Day. The wedding was gorgeous, and nothing led me to think that there was no wedding planner involved in it.
All you will need is a big file folder, internet connection and lots of coffee.
What if you’re clueless as to where to start?
See this wedding planner book on Etsy that will give you all the steps you need to go through while planning your dream wedding. It has questions and infographics that will help you make decisions on how your dream wedding actually looks.
That’s how you save almost $4000 on your dream wedding at the very beginning.
2. Inviting Everyone on Your Special Day
Of course, you want to spend the day with the people who love and support you the most.
However, with an average of $60 per person for catering, you might want to reconsider how many people you’d want to invite to your wedding.
In fact, if you are looking for a wedding on a budget…
I suggest you make a list of everyone you want to have on this day – parents, closest friends, etc. Scratch off the list everyone you speak to around holidays and on birthdays only. Skip the people you feel like you should invite but don’t really enjoy their company.
Keep the list as short as possible.
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”Of course, you want to spend your wedding day with the people who love and support you the most.” display_tweet=”Of course, you want to spend your wedding day with the people who love and support you the most.” style=”1″ remove_url=”yes” remove_username=”yes”]
3. Too Many Flowers
I understand you cannot skip the flowers.
And you shouldn’t!
After all, they create almost half of the impression on this day along with the venue.
But do you really need flowers as a centrepiece on every table?
Do you need flowers hanging from all the weird places around the venue?
The average price of wedding flowers is $ 2061.
That’s $2061 on flowers that will fade two days after you give the money. That’s just sad… for the flowers and the money wasted on them.
So…
Replace the flowers as centerpieces on the tables with something you can DIY. Don’t have time to DIY anything or lack ideas? See below 3 affordable wedding centerpieces that will fit any budget.
3 Wedding Table Centrepieces You CAN Afford
A beautiful terrarium for your wedding tables. An affordable way to avoid having real flowers. Just get a candle and lit the magic.
Is your dream wedding rustic style? Go for these Mason jar lights to add that spark your wedding tables need.
My sister has similar lanterns for her wedding next summer, but she chose white ones. They look gorgeous and are a beautiful add to any wedding table.
4. Expensive Wedding Dress
Did you know that brides are comfortable paying around $800 for a wedding dress?
Did you know that they usually end up paying $1259 for it?
Why this gap?
Well, I assume, the first price is the one a bride would think of before entering the shop… while the second price happens to appear right after she walks out of the fitting room.
Let’s face it, girls!
We are weak when it comes to wedding dresses! We drool around every wedding magazine we see and take deep breaths when having to pay for the dress we love, knowing we’ll wear it for merely 12 hours (more or less).
Once we like clothing, especially if it’s a wedding dress… we’re doomed to follow our own urge to get it right here and right now.
I must say that when I had to buy my wedding dress, I entered the shop and just ignored the dressed that didn’t fit my price range. I was looking first at the price and then allowed myself to dream of it or not.
Sounds too harsh? Nothing I can’t live without!
5. The Delicious Wedding Cake
The average cost of money spent on a wedding cake is $350, but prices could go up to $700 if you have a sweet tooth.
Should I say more about the prices of wedding cakes?
Last summer I went to a friend’s wedding.
They had the best solution I’ve seen so far for a wedding cake that doesn’t break the bank.
They had a small wedding cake for the cutting, and separate mini cakes for each one of the guests. We were more than 120 guests and if the couple would have had to pay for a big cake, it would have been way more expensive than this option?
If you are aiming for a cheap wedding with just 20-30 guests, maybe this option is not for you. But if you have more guests and don’t want to compromise with quality taste, then getting mini cakes for each one of the guests might be the best you could do.
6. Wedding Guests Book
I am shocked!
The average price of the Wedding Guests Book is $62!
Ok, before you say I am way too cheap, let me defend myself.
I agree to pay lots of money for high-quality things that will benefit my guests and me.
A Wedding Guests Book is a white agenda with beautiful writing on it! That’s it!
I don’t see a reason to pay more than $10-15 for it.
Actually, I could design it by myself using Canva and pay for the printing only. Youtube gives me many tutorials on how to bind the papers together…
It makes it personal, beautiful, and even more precious than if I’d bought it from the shop.
The fact it will be cheaper is actually just a bonus.
Amazon also offers cheap and beautiful wedding guest books for under $20 and hey, nobody will know!
7. Wedding Invitations and Programs
We spend around $411 on wedding invitations. The price of wedding programs is not included in this money.
Dream wedding on a budget means there’s a little bit more work for you to do than usual.
The money you would pay to someone else for designing your wedding invitations and put the Wedding Program together is something you could save for your honeymoon.
Many platforms will allow you to design your wedding invitations for free. Canva is one of them. It will take you an hour or two, but all you pay for is printing. I doubt it will cost you $400 to print them.
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”Dream wedding on a budget means there’s a little bit more work for you to do than usual.” display_tweet=”Dream wedding on a budget means there’s a little bit more work for you to do than usual.” style=”1″ remove_url=”yes” remove_username=”yes”]
Here is one idea on how you could do it all by yourselves:
Also, there’s an almost-free-option to all that!
It got so popular, that very soon the paper invitations and Programs will be part of the history. Check the next tip.
8. A Wedding Website
Many platforms allow you to create your own wedding website, where you could regularly update the information for the event, you could send wedding invitations via email, along with the RSVP option.
I would say that this is a very modern and planet-friendly way to save money and still have everything you want. On top of that, you could go wild with the design and create a stunning mini-wedding-world for you and your partner. Your guests will love it. Except for your grandma… maybe you should print an invitation to her.
9. Wedding Centrepiece
Would you like to know what is one of the biggest wedding wasters that no one really cares about?
The table centrepieces!
They are beautiful, a necessity, but… useless.
And yes, I know we already talked about them just a few paragraphs ago, but it deserves its own spot on this dream wedding money wasters list.
And that money waster costs you $272 on an average.
On top of that, if you lack ideas, you could pay up to $985 for the designer to … design them.
Could you reduce the cost of it? Of course!
Check out this video below for 4 inexpensive ideas for your wedding tables’ centrepieces.
10. Wedding Favors – The Best You Could Save On
Yes, it is charming to gift each one of your guests with a souvenir with your faces on it… but let’s be honest:
How many of them will actually look at it every single day of their life? How many of them will remember they got one in a year from now? Less than you think (and hope).
Replace an expensive printing of you and your partner on spoons, plastic bags, or wooden mini-boxes with something they could actually enjoy in the nearest time.
Check on Etsy for beautiful and unique options to give something useful to your guests. Here’s what I found after researching for less than a minute.
11. Does Cheap Wedding Entertainment Exist?
Entertainment is one of the most unsurprisingly costly details for your wedding day.
Of course, you would enjoy a live band to play at the event, maybe having a dance formation to entertain your guests, or even inviting a comedian to make them laugh until they spill the champagne on the tables.
However, if you are on a budget and looking for ways to save money on your dream wedding, this is one of the things you should pay attention to.
Having a DJ is probably the cheapest option of all. According to WeddingWire, the prices are between $750 to $1400 per event. It all depends on the area you live in and the DJ’s rates. They usually charge extra if you want them to bring their own lighting.
My advice?
The food and the music are the two main things that “communicate” with your guests all the time and will leave them with the main impression of the wedding (besides how gorgeous you two look).
Therefore, I wouldn’t compromise with excellent music and delicious food. Ask the local DJs for their prices, ask them for samples of their services, and choose the best that benefits your guests and is at a reasonable price.
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”The food and the music are the two main things that “communicate” with your guests all the time and will leave them with the main impression of the wedding (besides how gorgeous you two look).” display_tweet=”The food and the music are the two main things that “communicate” with your guests all the time and will leave them with the main impression of the wedding (besides how gorgeous you two look).” style=”1″ remove_url=”yes” remove_username=”yes”]
12. Bride’s Wedding Shoes
Would you like me to tell you a little-known secret?
Your wedding shoes will be covered by your dress 99% of the time.
That’s one of the best things you could save on for your dream wedding.
Wedding shoes could cost you $10 or $150. There’s no difference in the way they will appear on your feet for your wedding… because they won’t appear at all.
Aim for the most comfortable pair, unless you want to get your ballerinas with you and change in the middle of your first dance.
My source on for the average price number in this post is BBB and their research on wedding prices.
Which one of these 12 ways to save money on your dream wedding are you going to try?
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”Wedding shoes could cost you $10 or $150. There’s no difference in the way they will appear on your feet for your wedding… because they won’t appear at all.” display_tweet=”Wedding shoes could cost you $10 or $150. There’s no difference in the way they will appear on your feet for your wedding… because they won’t appear at all.” style=”1″ remove_url=”yes” remove_username=”yes”]
↓Pin This for Later↓
How To Have a Dream Wedding On a Budget Without Getting Broke (And Without Telling Your Guests)
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
