Cheap Wedding Plan & Affordable Wedding Ideas

I was talking to a girl friend not long ago who was beside herself over credit card debt and the knowledge of a new family member on the way. It struck me as odd that after such amazing news she would be so upset. After talking with her for some time I realized the source of this financial ruin was their wedding not 3 months earlier. She got married just a few months after me, but while my wedding didn’t cause too much financial unrest hers seemed to be tearing the newlyweds apart. According to Credit.com the average wedding in America costs $20,000!! After all was said and done my wedding cost close to $7,000 to serve a total of 200 people. This is still a striking number for most newlyweds who are usually just out of school and have not been in the job market long enough to have any capital built up. At such a critical turning point in your life when you need to really spend time getting to know and accept your new life with your spouse, money should not be the foremost thing on your minds.
I can’t help thinking that the multi-million dollar wedding industry is to blame for our girly fantasies and extravagant dreams, but this is still OUR wallets and no one is forcing you to buy a gazebo for the service or that lavish honeymoon. The solution then is approaching a wedding like any other large financial decision. In many cases the first large financial decision you and your new partner will make together. Think of it as a trial run on how you and your partner approach financial decision. (Complicated by other extended family factors yes, but in reality what financial decision isn’t??) So, here are some tips and budget helping items that you can use to still have an extravagant wedding while spending only half of the average wedding. The real trick is trying to combine as many things as you can. Make outfits & decorations into gifts and overlap wherever you can to cut spending.

#1 Gifts/ Honorariums: This is an item people always forget about until last minute and even if you are cheap this can easily be $1000! I’ll put what I ended up getting in ( ) so you can think in the right price range. Note that cash is usually appreciated more than checks, include a thoughtful card and you will have happy helpers!
Pastor/ Clergy Honorarium: $100-200 Each ($100 Cash)
Organ/Piano Player: $100-200 ($125 Cash)
Singers/ Musicians: $75-150 Each ($75 Cash)
Bridesmaids & Groomsmen: $25-100 Each (Matching Shirts, Steins, & custom jewelry)
Grandparents & Parents: $25-100 Each (Wedding Photos & Steins)
Flower girls & Ring Barrier: $25-75 Each (Handheld Games)
Ushers: $15-40 (Matching Ties)
Church Gift: $100-300 ($)
Candle Lighters: $25-40 (Handheld Games)
Gift Barriers: $25-75 (Gift Certificate & Handheld Games)
Bubble Princesses: $15-30 (We had lots of kids to employ during the wedding, so 5 of my nieces handed out bubbles for our grand exit from the church)
Cake Cutters: $15-30 (Set of bath soaps & wedding photo)
Tips:
• Asking your family to help out in your wedding is an honor, so don’t feel obligated to them gifts. Even a card can be enough of a thank you in some cases.
• Think of practical gifts, for example we gave all our ushers nice silk ties so they could wear them at the wedding and have nice ties for themselves to keep. By having them wear black pants and a nice white shirt instead of renting them outfits kept costs down and they were still matching with the ties.

#2 Venues:
Service - If you (or your parents) are members at a church, this always fits best with a tight budget. (You also get to invite those in your church community you’ve grown up with your whole life.) Many churches don’t charge members for using the chapel, but do expect to make at least a small donation to help cover cleaning and utility costs during of the wedding. We also reserved our churches basement for the bachelorette party the month before. ($ Donation)
Reception Many churches have utensils and all the dishware needed to host their congregation which makes them the most affordable option for receptions and parties. However if you want to go to a separate location, have a large number of guests or want to served alcohol you may want to think about alternatives. Community centers, convention clubs, or your local Rotary or Kiwanis clubs make great affordable options. These groups will often rent out their facilities a lot cheaper than hotels or restaurants and they are often more flexible when it comes to decorations too! We chose to have our receptionist at a nearby community center that had a huge convention room to fit all our 200 guests, a dance floor and had an adjoining board room we used for child care. The sheer size of our wedding meant a convention center was a required splurge in our budget. ($1200 - $2000)
Tips:
• Ask the caterers to hold the leftovers for you. Many times they throw out the extra, which could serve as a weeks worth of food. Something your family might appreciate after a stressful wedding week.
• Talk with the building manager of each venue before you book to make sure you can decorate like you want to. Many places don’t allow candles, candy, or confetti near their buildings. Be warned some venues also require you to buy any food through them which can make or break a budget. Book at least a year in advance and do your homework early!

#3 Food: With 200 people this was by far the priciest item in our wedding. For smaller weddings you may want to modify what is served. We chose to have a buffet style meat with just the bare necessities: Chicken, assorted vegetables, 2 salads, and bread which still ended up being $10 a plate. We chose caterers because we wanted everyone at the wedding to enjoy themselves, not be caught serving food or cleaning dishes. ($2000)
Alcohol - We opted to buy one keg of beer for guests and 2 bottles of Champaign for the head table. Any guests wanting drinks after that had to pay for them. I had bartended in the past and had seen first hand how people could abuse open bars. Imagine a $2000 alcohol bill and evaluate where you want to spend your money. ($150)
Cake – Wedding cakes are expensive! Think about renting Styrofoam cake (that the bakery or florist will decorate anyway you want) and getting sheet cake to serve to guest. The cake acts as decoration all night and you still get the great photos, but don’t have to hire a special cake cutter. And most places offer more flavors of sheet cake to choose from than those huge tier cakes. ($300)
Tips:
• Ask the caterers to hold the leftovers for you. Many times they throw out the extra, which could serve as a weeks worth of food. Something your family might appreciate after a stressful wedding.
• Rent a Styrofoam Cake & Serve sheet cake to guests.
• Think about getting just a keg or giving drink tickets to make drinks affordable for guests.

#4 Decorations: No one thinks decorations are ever going to be a big ticket item, but they can become expensive in a hurry if you’re not careful. Wedding favors also fall into that category. They are decoration and also serve as a way to say thank you to guests. We decorated the cake table, head table & gift tables with tons of tole & Christmas decorations. Pin icicle lights behind your table skirts, drape/pin tole with intermixed beads and other decorations. We borrowed the tole from my cousin who had recently been married, then we bought very lightweight fabric for a splash of color on the head table. If I can track down a photo, I will share it with you. For the rest of the decoration we rented them from an events store in town. We got mirror tiles for every table and used tea lights (the community center already had) for each table. On every other table we rented flute vases and had topiaries made to fit the color theme. In total costing no more than $300.
Flowers - The real question here is to do real or faux flowers. We found an amazing florist who helped make our faux flowers look better than real ones and they turned out being half as much. We had real flower boutonnieres for all the main wedding party, and then made our own boutonnieres for any others roles.
Favors - my mother was of the thinking that every wedding needed bells and candy on the tables. So, we got a book of silver wedding bells with ribbons & pre-cut thank you notes at Wal-Mart and placed 4 on every table figuring not every guest needed one. Then on the alternating seats we placed a soap rose (I lost the original site, but here is the rose) which came in sets of 9 for only $0.50. The fragrant roses made the room spell great and served as decoration on each table. Then around valentines, my mother picked up a few bags of Hershey's kisses matching my wedding colors.
At the end of the night we gave away our flower decorations to our parents and others as thank yous, stretching every dollar.
Tips:
• Think about making your own favors or using favors that act as decoration in order to cut down costs.
• Using faux flowers cuts down on costs a lot and they last forever, so you can use them again!


#5 Pictures: I talked to all my friends who had gotten married before me and their one hang-up was that they wish they had more pictures of the day. So, one of our biggest items was our photographer. We found a couple that would go crazy taking millions of pictures and would give us the rights to the photos later so that we wouldn’t have to only order prints through them. It worked out great!! We were able to print thank you cards later for dirt cheap ($0.09 a piece) with our wedding photos and make our pictures available on-line to all the wedding guests at SnapFish.com and Shutter Fly. We found out this is the one item that you don’t want to skimp on and it works out best to pay more for the service up front if your photographer gives you the rights to the photos later!!
($1500)
Tips:
• Ask around to your friends about photographers and don’t be afraid to ask them about prices.
• Always ask if photographers will provide digital copies and/or rights to the photos!!
• Make a list of all the photos/shots that are important to you and
• See if your photographer could do the engagement & wedding photos at a discounted price. You might want to also ask if they would think about doing photos of just you and your partner a few days before the wedding. That way you have lots of time to take pictures and can go to several different locations.

#6 Cloths: Clothing is such a very personal thing, but I found lots of creativity to be had at David’s Bridal. The best part was there was a store in every state, so even my bridesmaids coming in from other states (and other countries) were able to match colors/styles/sizes. It was a really simple process and affordable for all the ladies. For the men, suits do not come cheap, but most guys have at least a plan black suit or should plan on having a plan black suit (they are the every marriage, celebration, and death outfit). So, it’s easy to have guys wear their black suit and then you can rent them the vests/ties/shirts. We chose to buy our guys matching shirts as our gift to them.
Tips:
• As cliche as it sounds, pick bridesmaids outfits that you might think of wearing to a nice event. If there is a possibility your bridesmaids could use the dress again, then you won’t feel bad about asking them to pay for their own.
• Since we were asking for so much time and effort from the parents of our flower girls and ring barrier, we decided to pay for the dresses and rental outfit ourselves as part of our thank you. Then we gave each child a toy that would be entertaining at the reception. We got ours dresses from this site.

#7 Childcare: Often not something you think about when planning a wedding, but chances are you know someone with small children. It means the world to them if you have childcare available. Think about getting one sitter for the day and just paying them a flat rate. We chose to have childcare in the basement of the church during the service and then had a separate room for kids at the reception. Parents could rest easy with their child literally steps away and they were free to enjoy themselves. We decorated the kid’s room with a luau theme, so kids felt like they were having their own party. We lined a table with stock paper for coloring, then got a toy bowling set at a discount party store, had lays on the table and some board games from home. Beware, kids love to steal any table cameras you may have!
Tips:
• Don’t spend anything in this category (other than to pay the sitter). If you have crayons at home, then you already have the makings of a great kid’s room/childcare room. Just find fun stuff around your house that you wouldn’t mind letting the sitter have for the night.

#8 Invitation/ Programs/ & Thank You Cards: I got lucky, I married a graphic designer. We made all of our own stationary and got huge compliments on everything! The best advice I can give you is that stationary doesn’t have to be fancy, just heart felt. Go to Barnes & Nobles one night and check out books in the wedding section on writing thank you notes & invitation etiquette. You don’t need to buy the book, just pick up thoughtful phrases and wording to use later. Letting people know that you care goes further towards a beautiful wedding more than anything else. We bought a $20 paper cutter & paper punch, then went to a local office supply & paper warehouse were we could buy 500 sheets for $20. The most expensive part of our invitations and thank yous was the postage. (We handed out as many invitations as we could as holiday get-togethers, the bridal shower, & when we say people.)
Tips:
• Don’t those stationary software programs and other catalog invitation stuff. If you want something really fancy and aren’t marrying a graphic design than go ahead and look into the invitation magazines, but otherwise you can save tons of money by avoiding them!
• Try a paper warehouse or office supply warehouse for affordable envelopes and paper.
• Lazar printers use much less ink then ink jets, you will go broke trying to print invitations from an ink jet printer!
• Sometimes little touches make the difference, we used hot glue guns to put seals on all our invites and thank yous making them much classier looking.

Finally, congratulations! I wish you all the happiness, including financial, that my husband and I have shared over the years!!