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.

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.

If you’ve hired a wedding planner, a great question to ask them is how much to tip each of your vendors.  Very often if you ask your friends many of them will have over tipped. A planner knows exactly how much is considered appropriate.  Don’t hesitate to ask her. You should ask this while you are planning your budget so everything is covered.

You’ve probably seen those advertisements for wedding planners.  They talk about how a good planner can save you a lot of money. Can they?

The situations where you can really save with a wedding planner are:

• If you are having a big wedding and want the best of everything, at the best price.  Often planners can get better packages from vendors.
• If you really aren’t good at negotiating yourself (although if you have a friend who can help, that’s even better)
• If you are renting a place that offers the services of a planner as part of their deal.

When don’t you need a wedding planner?

• When you are having a small wedding.
• You really know what you want.
• You are willing to take the time to shop around for a lot of different vendors and do some of the work yourself.

You find that perfect something for your wedding, either the dress or the hall and you want it now.  WAIT!  Always stop and think about where this falls in your list of priorities. Make sure this is where you want to spend your money.  Look around. Shop around a little more. You can always come back and the place you think you love now.  A little time won’t hurt and you may find a bargain that you love just as much.

Intimate Weddings has a lovely post on real weddings.  There’s a great quote from the bride:

The wedding industry is so geared to large, elaborate, circus type events where you are pressured to do EVERYTHING, and where every little thing has to mean SOMETHING.  You have to be very focused on choosing what is important to you, and sticking to those goals throughout the planning process.

This is very true. So always remember to set your priorities early and get a good picture of what you want and how you want your wedding to look. You never have to do everything.  Your wedding should always reflect you.

There is the added note in this article, that not all intimate weddings are about the budget. Remember you can spend just as much on a small wedding as a large one, so if you’re concerned about your budget, don’t think that trimming the guest list is all you need to do!

When planning your wedding, it’s so important to try and get an accurate head count.  Try this.  Multiply the number of people you invited by .66 and then multiply by 1.15.  This should give you a really close count on your total number of guests (and help you with your budget!)

Thanks to Fresno Weddings.

Timing is everything.

The most expensive season to have a wedding is the summer.

The most expensive time to have a wedding is Saturday night.

Consider a wedding in the fall or spring. Find out when summer season rates begin at your choice reception locations and see if the weekend before or after works for you.

Consider a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon wedding.   A Saturday brunch wedding can be a lot of fun and offers great potential savings.

Often the more specific you are the more you can save.  This article about having an excellent garden wedding discusses some of the big reasons to be more specific.   She is talking about how this can create a fantastic wedding instead of only a great one.

I believe that knowing exactly what you want within your theme will also help you to choose those things that are most important.  Further, by having more specific searches for those things you want to use to decorate, you’ll find more bargains.

Have fun.   That’s right.   You are probably thinking that that’s the plan, but relax for a moment.  Think about how to make your wedding fun.  How do you put your personal stamp on the wedding.

Little touches that make the day special to us make the day more special to those close to us.  Often these ideas are not traditional wedding ideas.  Each time you get away from the “traditional” wedding item, you start saving money.   A personal, fun wedding is going to be much cheaper than a completely traditional one.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a traditional wedding but there are probably some things that might appeal that are non traditional and very personal to you.  Think about it.