(Photograph by Melanie Duerkopp)

We Planned Our Wedding Part 2: 5 Cost Saving Tips for Planning your Own Wedding

We planned our wedding with a budget that we didn’t meet, came close to it though. We started off with a grand vision and found cost saving measures along the way so that instead of the wedding costing us the equivalent of a Mercedes, it was actually the cost of a Toyota. Here are a few tips that saved us major $$$.

1. Have a big wedding party
We can’t thank our 10 closest friends enough for making our wedding go as smoothly as it did. Their help and expertise saved us thousands of dollars. Since we had a lot of DIY items, we needed the help. A few bridesmaids helped with arranging all of our flowers and the wedding party helped with the decorations throughout the venue. A close family member who creates beautiful pastries as a hobby made our wedding cake which offset around $750 that it would’ve cost us. She also acted as the coordinator during the day of the wedding. The groomsmen helped deliver an SUV load of food, and decor. Our family took care of our Chinese Tea Ceremony activities. Our wedding party offset the need to hire a wedding coordinator and additional staff for when problems arise, which can easily cost thousands of dollars.

2. Utilize your connections
We had a list of items that we needed to buy for decor. Turns out, some of these items are just lying around your friends’ or families’ garage or closet. We were about to purchase a $100 portrait stand for our 18x24 wedding portrait canvas but my dad had (2) lying around at his work and we borrowed it for the weekend. We were able to use the 2nd stand to hang our seating chart which was posted on a corkboard from my dad’s storage. Other examples include vases for the larger flower decor and bouquets, foldable tables, dessert plates, and holders. I recommend to also contact other married couples to use any applicable wedding décor leftover from their weddings.

3. Keep things DIY.
Companies charge overhead, when you buy things or hire vendors, they have to also pay for their cost of running their business (office, electricity, payroll, advertisements). These costs can be 2-3 times the cost of the material plus a person’s labor cost. There are plenty of DIY items shown online such as Pinterest. The follow are a few items where we saved cost:

-Bar
We had a DIY yourself bar (no bartender). By keeping the alcohol and drink choices simple, we were able to purchase large quantities of a few types of drinks from Costco. We only provided Red and White Wine (2 brands each), Beer (3 brands), Coke, Sprite, and water. After the wedding, we were able to return the unopened wines for a refund.

(Photograph by Melanie Duerkopp)

-Dessert Table
We kept this simple by having a decorative wedding cake gifted from a family member. For edible desserts, we bought some fruits, madeleines, and 3 cakes from Costco, altogether, about $100.

(Photographs by Melanie Duerkopp)

-Flowers
We purchased a Sam’s club membership for $45 just to purchase flowers. In total, we spent $570 on Roses (125 stems), Hydrangeas(15 stems), Gypsophilia(6 bunches), and 17 Piece wedding collection. This offset $2-3000 worth of flowers for 12 guest tables + 4 decor tables, and all the bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, and even a box of petals. We had help from our bridal party to arrange the flowers in mason jars and transported them with us to the wedding venue to lay out for decoration.

(Photograph by Melanie Duerkopp)

-Invitation Cards
Although this is not really DIY, we found that Costco had one of the cheapest customizable wedding invitations at approximately $1 per card. Additionally, if you’re not satisfied with the invitations, Costco will refund your cards immediately. We also used their return policy on our wedding canvas when the photo printed on the canvas was not cropped properly.

4. Keep Decorations Simple and Cheap!
Our ceremony décor were two vases holding the toss-away bouquet and some flowers, and (2) white lace curtains wrapped around the vines of a tree at our venue. The vase was borrowed, flowers were part of the wedding, and the white lace curtains were $20 total.
Our reception was decorated with DIY items and cheap Amazon bought items. A list of some cheap but effective décor items are listed below:

$30 Mr. & Mrs. Décor
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LW3X7IY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

~$40 Table Card Numbers and Holders
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DS7ZKOW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FK8Y7GK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$23 Battery-powered Candles (x5)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E5F4EN4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

~$10 each Light-Up Letters
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00USRXSQI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$14 33 feet LED String Lights
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NXEB0W2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The one expensive item of decor were uplights scattered throughout the venue. All of the other decorations were started from a random idea from pinterest and turned real when the price were reasonable for the value that the decoration adds. For example, the 33 feet LED string lights were scattered in front of the “love table” which made our table special, especially because the lights were remote-controlled to different blinking patterns.
Overall, we kept our décor simple and cheap, which avoided rental costs of large items such as a $3000 drape that we saw at another wedding!

5. Do Your Research on Wedding Type
This was one tip that we did not follow and wish we had. We loved our wedding venue, except we realized too late that if we had an Asian Restaurant reception, it would’ve saved over 25% of our total budget. Here are some other costs saving ideas:

• Consider a restaurant instead of a venue and separate catering. This option can save money and stress on decoration and coordination. 1 less vendor to pay and work with.
• Consider a package, typically a hotel. Packages may lead to perks such as an upgrade to a master suite during your stay.
• Consider buffet style, if providing catering. Less servers = less cost.
• Consider a brunch/lunch wedding. May have more location availability leading to a less expensive wedding. There may also be less expensive food options such as serving tacos or waffles.

With our selection of venue and separate catering, we saved money by selecting a venue that had perks such as being able to use their lawn for the ceremony, their kitchen for the catering, or their newly installed projector for our videos. Also, were able to rent a large room for a Chinese Tea ceremony and use their large, free parking lot for our guests.

In summary, you should ask yourself the following: Why do I want this item at our wedding? If I were a guest, would this item matter?

Although we may not have met our budget, our significant savings from these items led us to upgrade our dinner menu so even if our wedding didn’t go so well, our guest would at least eat a great meal. Best of luck and be smart with your spendings! I hope you save a bunch of $ on your wedding so that you can splurge it all on the honey moon!

Part 1 and Part 3 of this post will be regarding tips for planning your own wedding and what not to do.
Here is Part 1: https://steemit.com/life/@frankstuff/we-planned-our-wedding-part-1-7-tips-for-planning-your-own-wedding