When you have your ideas and your plan, remember that planning and arranging can take time. Give yourself enough time to work on your wedding the way you want to do. This will help you avoid feeling rushed and making decisions that cost you more than you’d like. It also allows you more time to shop around if your first choices are unavailable.
Tags: time and money saving
If you are a scrapbook hobbyist you might be looking for ways to include your hobby in your wedding. Great Wedding Photo Album Ideas has some good thoughts on this.
Yes the specific ideas there must be purchased through Heritage Products. I don’t know anything about the company or costs, but I did think creating scrapbooks of your guest book or wedding album a great way to cut some costs given how much any premade bridal product can cots. Another advantage is that it’s completely personalized!
I was reading an article on saving money on wedding flowers. The writer points out that sometimes it’s not worth it to do it yourself. Understand the look you want and what is practical. Also understand your level of competence. Price it out doing it yourself and having someone else do it. The cost may not be worth it to do them all yourself.
This article talks about flowers but depending upon the paper you want and the style, this may also be true of invitations. Paper and printer ink may make invitations more expensive to make than to purchase something similar. Know what you are getting
Periodically, Trent at a Simple Dollar writes about saving money on weddings. This week he has a nice overview of A Reasonable Wedding.
Highlights:
As always The Simple Dollar is filled with great ideas. Check it out to see if any of these ideas work for you.
Is there a culinary school in your area? Consider calling them. They may be able to cater your reception for a fraction of the price. Add in some inexpensive ingredients and you could have a very elegant wedding spread at a minimal cost.
If you are having favors, consider using them as a centerpiece. If you have small boxes, you can make a pyramid with them. If you made cookies or have candies, you can get a nice dish or even a double tiered server (they don’t have to match) to place in the center of each table. Now you have a favor that is doing double duty.
I’ve already talked about saving money by getting married in the off season. I just read that the cheapest month (and it makes sense) for hotels (if you want a hotel wedding) is January. If you are at a ski resort this may not be true but for most hotels, you are after the holiday parties but before the spring weddings.
If you are having a casual outdoor wedding, consider having a picnic for the reception. That’s right–a real picnic with picnic tables and red and white table cloths. Picnic type baskets can be the centerpiece with the food inside.
Just because something isn’t advertised as a particular item there isn’t any reason not to use it. I was shopping at home improvement store when my friend who had been looking for table cloths saw exactly what she wanted, but it was a shower curtain. Now these shower curtains were on clearance at about a $1.00 each. Still there were enough of them for us to buy them, cut off the top and set up a long seam and use them as table cloths for her wedding
Don’t turn down something because it has a different use from what you want it to! Be creative.
As you start planning your wedding, start looking around (online and off) for coupons that might be useful. Save them all in one place. If you are an organizer, organize them by subject (flowers, food, clothing). Check online from some of the main coupon sites and save some money that way!
