Official 'How to save money on your wedding' thread!

Self-proclaimed cheapest bride shares how cheap she REALLY was.... Thought I'd share with the 2008 ladies since you are all probably early in your planning process...

Im going to get on my soapbox briefly and share ways that I cut probably $10-15,000 off of my wedding expenses. I will steer away from “have it at an off time”, “DIY”and “keep your guest list down” because those are obvious ]

I encourage all brides, past and present to contribute to this thread.

Warning: A lot of these tips say “people won’t notice”.. so if you aren’t going to believe me, these aren’t tips for you.

Oh and I wrote this at work, not on my own time...

A little background: DH and I make very good money. However, we also have a few splurges in our lives that we can’t live without. (i.e. we enjoy taking 3-4 vacations a year). I was not about to let an expensive wedding change my lifestyle for my 13 month engagement in any way. I paid for my wedding out of pocket, no debt, no dipping into savings. I am an Economist by trade and have an MBA and treated my wedding as a financial project. Oh and the wedding was absolutely brilliant. Ok enough about me.. on to the tips!

Before I get into specifics, I have a few general recommendations:
1. Negotiate!!!!
Seriously. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING is negotiable in a wedding. RH prices, flowers, quoted prices on photo, video, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask if that’s the best they can do. Don’t think “If I bargain with them too much they won’t like me and will try to ruin my special day.” HOGWASH. Their rep is on the line with each and every job they do, regardless of the price they eventually do it for.

This doesn’t work for ALL vendors but the worst they will say is no. In fact, some of my favorite vendors refused to budge but I booked them anyway.

Never feel pressured into making an immediate decision. You’ll hear “that month is booking up fast” but there is no WAY someone is walking in their door in the next 24 hours wanting their services the same exact date that you do.

2. Think of things in “real life dollars” not “wedding dollars”
When you are planning a wedding and you think “Maybe I should add the high centerpieces, its only $1,000 more”. Sure, in a wedding budget $1,000 is a drop in the bucket. But are there ANY other things in your life where $1,000 doesn’t mean anything? Hell, that’s a 3 day weekend away for you and DH. OR it’s a brand new couch, or mattress.

3. You don't need a DOC I know alot of girls will disagree with me on this. Keep in mind, a DOC really is a coordinator for the DAY OF, not throughout the planning process. On the day of the wedding, you actually have coordinators included in your RH package.. your BM and your bridal attendant. These people are at your beckon call. They will have your vendor contact info, they will control everything from the flow of your reception to the temperature of the room, etc.. There are very few things the day of your wedding that a DOC can handle and a BM or bridal attendant can't. And these few things must not be very important because I can't think of one example.

I won't knock wedding planners because you might just be too busy or have a wedding that is so huge that you need someone helping you throughout the process.

Specific Tips:
Flowers
I estimate that I saved probably about $2,000 on flowers. The reason is two-fold:
1. I did bouquets for the girls. And centerpieces with rose petals and candles. And a cake topper. That’s it.
-Guys don’t like boutineers. They get crushed immediately when someone hugs them. They easily look crooked and are never perfect in pictures. I didn’t think they were necessary so I just didn’t get them.
-I used a local florist. For my bouquets, caketopper and rose petals she charged about half of what the “professional wedding florists” were charging. And her enthusiasm was remarkable. Little things like letting me keep my sample bouquet and volunteering to set up my candles and rose petals because she “just didn’t trust the RH to make it look right” are the kinds of things you really don’t get from the ‘big guys’ that do 20 weddings a week.

RH
1. Underestimate your minimum.. just in case. We negotiated our minimum lower and still didn’t meet it. We got extra desserts thrown in, but I would have been a ball of anger if we had signed a contract for the original minimum they proposed.
2. Pick a RH that you think is beautiful. If not, you will spend hundreds/thousands of dollars “dressing it up”. I had a friend that got married in a bland hotel ballroom and spent a TON on flowers to pretty it up. It did look gorgeous, but had she picked an aesthetically pleasing place, she would have saved a ton of cash.

Veil and Slip
The absolute EASIEST way to save money. My veil: $25 on ebay. My slip: $35 on ebay. I wore my veil a total of 40 minutes. Even if I wore it for 10 hours it wouldn’t be worth more than $25 to me. Why do you need a more expensive veil? It doesn’t look any different in person? And it definitely wont look any different in pictures.

Don’t get me started on slips. No one sees them. I left mine in the hotel room trash the next morning. Disposable slip ?

Hair and Makeup
Consider a salon. I probably saved about $300-500 between my trial and the day of doing this. Sure, its nice to have someone come to you. But would a 5 minute car ride to a salon kill you? I liked getting out of the hotel that morning with just my MOH and being distracted by the fun things going on at the salon. No one could knock on the door with a crisis, and all of the ladies at the salon were sweet with their well-wishes. I thought it was definitely less stressful than being there with all of my family running around.

Shoes
My romantic, magical wedding day shoes? Silver sandals from Payless $12.99 that I wore when I was a MOH in a friends wedding two years prior. I know Im losing some of you now and getting some . But let’s be honest. Who sees your shoes? I wore them for about 2 hours and switched to flip flops.

There is nothing sweet and sentimental about “special wedding day shoes that I HAVE to splurge on”. That’s ridiculous. Spend the money on a pair of nice work shoes that you will wear more than once.

Jewelry, Hair jewelry
Unless you are having a jeweler come to your reception with one of those little eyescope things, get fake jewelry, hair clips, tiaras, etc. NO ONE will notice. Seriously! My jewelry was cubic zirconia ($12 total) and my hair pins I bought on Ebay.. supposedly Australian crystal but they were shipped from Canada and cost $14.

Favors
I don’t care what your Aunt Bess says… favors are NOT necessary. I didn’t have them and no one has requested one. In fact, Im pretty sure people wind up throwing away 90% of the favors they receive. No matter how cute and practical you think a favor is, it probably isnt and won’t be to a majority of your guests. I hate to sound harsh here but its true. I don’t need any more tiny frames that hold placecards. There is nothing you can do with these. I would never really put out love/heart/etc. themed objects (coasters, glasses, etc.) in my living room, it just doesn’t fit with my decor. A cookie with your name on it is great, but chances are I just ate 3,000 calories worth of desserts at your wedding and I don’t want it now and it won’t look appealing later. Favors are for your mom to put in her China cabinet to remember your wedding. I promise you that you can do without them.

Ceremony at RH
The fee my RH charged to have our ceremony there + an officiant fee was probably comparable to a church donation. I saved money here because I didn’t need limos! We got ready at the hotel next door and walked over to the golf course for pics. Even if you aren’t so lucky with location, you don’t need limos as you don’t need to make a grand entrance/exit from the church since there isn’t one.

Music
Ceremony music- While the romance of a harpist, flutist and string quartet sounds magical its going to cost you HUGE amounts of money. My DJ did my ceremony music for $100. I was able to then use unique music: Bridal party processional was “My life” by the beatles. I walked down to “To make you feel my love” by Billy Joel, etc. I couldn’t have done this with a harp and my guests are still STILL talking about how great and unique that was.

No one will notice how many live musicians you have at your ceremony and you won’t hear a thing because you will be in such a zone.

Cocktail hour music- we went back and forth on this. Finally, I decided no one would even hear it because the room would be too loud and I was right. If we had it, people wouldn’t have been able to talk.

MC – You don’t need one. Your guests will either dance on their own or sit out. An MC is annoying, expensive, and sometimes makes people dance even when they aren’t comfortable dancing.

Invites
People will open your invitation. They will note how cute it is. They will write the date down in their calendar. They will attend your wedding. They will throw the invite away. WHY are you spending $8 per invite for that to happen?

I got mine at Party City. They have all the huge books of invitations that other invite stores have and they are always on sale. They came out perfectly. I believe I wound up paying less than $2 per invite.

LIW “traps”
As my favorite LIW lady Brittny817 says.. do NOT feel like you have to keep up with LIW stuff. Petal cones, We Do letters, slipper baskets, etc etc are all completely unnecessary, will not be missed by guests, and add up to serious $$. And cry packs? Don’t get me started. I’m sure I will have people sending me nasty FMs but I think crypacks are very presumptuous. “Here are some tissues because I KNOW you’ll want to cry at my beautiful wedding”. I don’t think Id hear the end of it if I had crypacks at my wedding.

SAVING OTHER PEOPLE MONEY
This was VERY important to me. I didn’t want the bridal party and OOT guests shelling out mucho bucks just because it was “my special day”.

BM
-Consider David’s Bridal (or something else inexpensive). They are so affordable. These girls will never wear these dresses again and will thank you for it.
-If the dresses are floor length, please don’t sweat out shoes.. they won’t show and the girls will love you for it.

Tuxes
We set up an account with Men’s Wearhouse and a week later I found a coupon for 20% off the guy’s tuxes. I phoned corporate and they adjusted the prices on the guy’s tuxes. That was $20 saved for each person. If you are using Men’s Wearhouse keep this in mind.

OOT guests
I started a post when I began posting on LIW about getting great rates for your OOT guests. I will repost it HERE and hope that it works for you. These people are traveling for YOU and you should do everything you can to get them a good deal.

I also kept track of when Southwest was releasing their schedules so that my OOT guests had the opportunity to book as early as possible. If you have guests flying in to MacArthur I highly recommend doing this.

My “splurges”
Video – I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again. Get video. Your day will be such a blurr to you you’ll be glad you have something to help you recall the memories.

Two photographers – We took pics beforehand. One photog took the guys, one took the girls. We had sooo much time to take pictures and got some great shots because we had two.

Chair covers – My mom actually paid for these, so I guess it doesn’t count as my splurge. BUT, the chairs at my RH were ugly. The chair covers made that nicer and also served as pretty much the only ceremony decorations we had. Consider them based on the ugliness of your chairs.

Gifts- Most likely your bridal party has put up with your wedding planning for at least a year. They deserve a nice gift. Paying for something “wedding related” like hair and makeup is more a gift to you than to them. I got my girls massage gift certificates and other treats. Unless you know their specific jewelry tastes, know they love personalized tote bags or know that they would adore an engraved gift, stay away from these. You don’t want the gift that represents your thankfulness to them for wedding help gathering dust somewhere in their house.my review here for more info.