I’m one of those people who hates to spend money. It’s not that I don’t like stuff — it’s the “having to pay for it” that makes me a little queasy, especially if the price tag is “up there”. So I’ve been practicing frugality for some time now, and it’s been a good lifestyle to have.
It all started back when my husband and I decided to take the plunge and get married. Since this was Mark’s second marriage (and he’s painfully shy), the last thing he wanted was a lot of fanfare, but I’d been a bridesmaid in too many weddings to be satisfied with a shotgun wedding in front of the justice of the peace, complete with a witness I’ve never met.
However, after a few weeks of careful planning, it became readily apparent that I could not afford a traditional wedding.
How much you’ll spend on your wedding is dictated by a few things: your expectations on how “grand” it’s going to be and the number of people you plan to invite to it.
Setting The Wedding Budget
The reality is that not everyone is going to have a cheap wedding, unfortunately. The wedding industry is notorious for charging you a premium on services. So the biggest tips to save money? Try DIY, negotiation and bartering. What I mean is, do things your way as much as you are able. Be resourceful. Tap your network of friends and family (if they are available) — maybe they can gift you with their services, and the use of their skills and talent instead of something material.
Bartering and negotiating for discounts with service providers may also work: is there something you can offer them in return for services rendered? Who knows — they may oblige, so it doesn’t hurt to ask. And how about going with something borrowed (or gently used)? There are a lot of areas and opportunities where you can cut costs if you really have to.
One more reality: whoever holds the purse strings usually controls the wedding preparations. It makes sense that whoever is paying for the wedding ends up taking control of it. So those with generous parents — watch out! If someone else is footing the bill, you’re pretty fortunate if you can have your say on how your wedding will be like.
Here’s more on how to plan a wedding without getting too stressed.
Cheap Wedding Ideas On A $700 Budget
In our case, Mark and I agreed to a compromise. We would get married, but on our terms. That meant that I got to say my vows, wear my dress, and even get pictures, but we would only spend $700 on the “wedding”. That was “the budget”. And while we didn’t have to do this, I’d suggest using budget management software if you’ve got a complicated budget to work with.
Believe it or not, I was actually able to come up with a mutually satisfactory solution that not only stayed in budget, but actually left us a few dollars in the bank so that we could have our honeymoon. It started out with writing down the things that we absolutely needed to have vs stuff we could skip. The list:
Will Have: wedding dress, rings, cake, chapel, honeymoon
Won’t Have: food, invitations, flowers, DJ, limo, etc. (we did away with the big party: more on that later!)
Here’s how we made it work:
Paying For A Wedding Dress
First of all, some of the biggest expenses for any wedding are the dress and the rings. Now we’re talking about a dress here (and not a car). Scale back and buy a wedding gown from last year’s rack. Most likely, these are the ones that are going to be on clearance and buying one will save you a boatload of cash. Not only are these dresses drastically reduced, but you can save even more by putting your negotiating skills to work. Often, you can negotiate an even lower price for the dress beyond the already marked down price by simply dickering a little. These dresses are just as beautiful this year as they were last year AND are still eligible for all the same tailoring that come with the new ones. I bought my dream wedding gown (the Cinderella type, complete with a ten foot train and TONS of beading) for $200.
As for rings? You can choose to hold back or spend a lot on this. I’ve seen some people fashion wedding rings out of family heirlooms they already have. We covered this expense for a couple of hundred dollars.
Searching For A Great Wedding Cake
For most people, the menu and the cake also take a bite out of the budget. You can trim your expenses on this front by adjusting the menu and food choices (particularly the drinks!) or reducing your guest list. In my case, I opted to focus on the cake and skipped the dining experience.
So I sought a cake that was cheap and tasty. You’ll save quite a bit by opting to call on a friend, family member, fellow churchgoer, or anyone else you can scare up that can cook and bake, if this is something you can’t do yourself. Some folks I know have even gotten family members to volunteer their services in lieu of offering wedding gifts! You can get a great looking and tasting cake for little or nothing this way. Our cake was free.
Here’s a look at some fun and affordable wedding cakes.
Booking The Venue
Okay, so now you’re ready to book the venue. This one’s also going to cost you. Mark and I opted for a “wedding chapel” wedding. Since we live in a tourist-y area, there are TONS of wedding chapels around us with a variety of wedding options we could choose from. Of course, we picked the cheapest service they offered and ponied up $150.00 for the service. You may even do one better by holding your wedding on private property: know someone who has a large enough yard or garden to accommodate the event?
Picking Up The Marriage License
Last but not least, the marriage license. Unfortunately, marriage licenses cost money, thanks to the local government’s obsessive need to dip into our pockets at each and every opportunity. Since I live in the great state of Tennessee, a blood test is not required, so the marriage license that Mark and I got cost just $13 and we actually walked away from the county clerk’s office with license in hand.
While this may be just the tip of the iceberg for typical wedding costs today (on average, costs can reach $30,000 these days!), I’ve shared my example to show you that you can get married on any budget you choose to set.
And here’s our final tally: as you can see, I managed to spend $563 of my allotted budget, so now for the good part. We eloped, got married, booked a Jacuzzi suite in town and blew the rest of our budget on our honeymoon. We ate well, drank even better and spent several nights playing Galaga and Centipede in the arcade next door. Not very romantic, but we always have a great story to tell!
This wedding was the beginning of a beautiful (and hilarious) happy thirteen years of marriage complete with 2 kids and 2 dogs. Would I trade my wedding story for a $30,000 lavish wedding? Not in a minute.
Image Credit: mydreamwedding.ca, bridaloccasion.com
Copyright © 2010 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post. A wedding is an event that you will need to spend money on to make it beautiful or grand but you can also save money if you really want to by choosing an alternative plan aside from your original plan which costs more.
Unfortunately, we now have a generation where everybody wants their wedding to be grand with lots of fun, enjoyment and with a huge party…
These are very cute ideas! I agree that it seems silly to spend $30,000 on one day. My dad always says, “wouldn’t you rather use that money for a down payment on a house?” And I’m finally coming around to the idea that, yes I probably would!
I know you didn’t do wedding invitations, but one of my friends just sent hers out and saved a lot of money by being resourceful. She skipped the save-the-date card and instead made a personal phone call to everyone on their guest list to let them know when the wedding was. Then instead of regular invitations, she sent really cute custom postcards, and it only cost her $20 to do 100 of them!
What’s interesting is that I heard of some people who’ve thrown grand weddings, who’ve invited well-heeled guests and who thereby ended up “cash positive” based on cash gifts (and other gifts) they received for the occasion. I think this works only if you are well-connected, unfortunately.
For most of us, a modest wedding will do… 🙂 I cut my guest list in half and it was the biggest factor on savings. Of course, with less people attending, you can book a smaller site for your wedding, have less cake, food, booze, invitations etc. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to say “no” to everyone who wants to attend and wish you well.
Great article. I agree that the cost of a wedding dress can quickly blow a frugal wedding budget. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly sample or second hand wedding dress you should check out SmartBrideBoutique.com. Many retailers post their sample dresses or last year’s models to the site and individuals post used and new dresses too. Saving up to 50% on the cost of a wedding dress can help you dramatically reduce your wedding costs.
We did our wedding on a budget as well and it is still talked about years later as one of the best weddings our guests have been to.
Neither hubby nor I wanted a lot of fuss and certainly not the fuss that can lead up to the wedding day but we wanted our family and friends there so eloping wasn’t an option.
We choose to host a black-tie cocktail party which we paid for ourselves. We sent out invitations inviting our family and friends to our surprise party and yep we didn’t tell them it was our wedding.
Many started guessing closer to the date, thinking it was our engagement party but none guessed exactly what we had in store for them.
The cocktail party was fully catered with a barman to help keep the drinks flowing. We included on the invitations, which we emailed or phoned in to our guests that following the surprise cocktail party we were intending to head to our local french restaurant, which had special meaning to us as a couple for a 3 course fixed price dinner and drinks package. We welcomed our guests to continue partying with us and join us at the restaurant for $50pp. All of our guests chose this option as it was a good restaurant, good reason to all get together and have a good night out at a reasonable price.
During the cocktail party we surprised all of our guests when my hubby gave a beautiful speech and announced that he had asked me to marry him and we’d set the date. The date was now! The responses from our guests was priceless, some were in shock, some were excited and some laughed and said ‘how totally you guys’. All of our family and friends were there to witness our vows which we wrote ourselves and many had been mingling with our celebrant who was there as our guest.
It was a great night that started early evening and finished early morning with lots of good food, good friends and good times.
The day was everything my hubby and I could have hoped for. I did not want a traditional wedding dress, that’s just not my style so instead I chose a beautiful cream evening gown from a local designer. A dress I have managed to wear again to a black and white ball due to its classic style.
What a fun post—I am getting married on this weekend, and we’ve spent more money than I originally wanted to. You are correct–everything is an arm and a leg, but it was important to us to have a party complete with booze, food and dancing (some of my favorite things). At one point I toyed with the courthouse wedding and even a hawaii/some other island beach wedding with a few family/friends. Both options would ultimatley be cheaper. DIY can save a ton of money–sadly this is advice i didn’t follow. Fiance and I work in demanding jobs, so we hired a wedding planner and outsourced a ton of work and that did come with a higher price tag. But that was a decision I had to make–if I want something I either do it myself and work less or pay someone else to do it. But anyway, you are correct–you can have a really amazing wedding for less. The wedding industry is out of control and you don’t “need” half the stuff that people try to sell you and as long as you do what you and your future spouse want and can afford it–you just have to tune everyone else out.
Interesting coincidence! CNN.com just published this article on offbeat weddings, including a story on a “bowling alley wedding”, an example of something non-traditional and memorable that can be low cost as well!
My sister is having her wedding at the moment. It’s a big old glamor fest with 4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen. I’m thinking about getting married next year and I am not doing the same thing. However, I don’t think my elopement plans are going to fly with my partner. You guys sound well suited… good catch!
Another advantage of having an inexpensive wedding is that it will save you stress.
You will never completely avoid stress while planning a wedding – but worrying about how you will pay for it all, or, if your parents are paying for it, how that will affect your relationship with them – adds a whole extra level of stress.
Doing a wedding on a $700 budget shows great discipline and maturity and a focus on your financial future. I note that you eloped. I wonder what kind of budget you could throw a traditional wedding for???
Our daughter’s wedding.
Flowers- “amazonflowers.com” EXCELLENT
Dress- classic- but last year’s
Cake- local grandmother who makes the best cake in the area
pictures- new photographer
Dinner- a new local place
Invites- our printer and beautiful paper
Our budget was around a thousand for the wedding day.
She wanted simple and a great honeymoon instead- we provided both.
We could have invited the wealthy crowd and recouped with $$ they gave as presents- but what is simple and cozy (and romantic) about that? Mine had 350 people. Great presents- but didn’t know 1/3 of the people well. It was a circus!
When you’re on a budget, there are some tough decisions to be made when it comes to the wedding. Kudos to you for doing it your way! (And avoiding debt in the process.)
Check out these budget bridal looks for under $800 for everything. It’s still not cheap, but when it comes to wedding dresses these are a bargain!
Going with individuals instead of a company often times can help to save you money on your big day. Craigslist offers us the opportunity to shop around for talented photographers or DJs while saving money. Just remember to always ask for their portfolio as well as references.
Great article on saving $$ on weddings. Cheap wedding ideas are great. A wedding can be cheap (inexpensive) and not be cheap (cheesy)! I am a wedding consultant and one of the most fun and challenging things for me is to find everything on the cheap! I love to save money when I shop for myself, and it has grown into my own website to help brides save money.
There’s a saying – “The bigger the diamond, the shorter the marriage.” I would even go so far as to say – “The more expensive the wedding, the shorter the marriage.”
Congratulations!
Everyone deserves to get married their own way, withing the limits of their own budget. As a wedding service provider, here is a tip on negotiating. Remember that when you ask a vendor to discount their prices, you are essentially telling them that their services are not worth the price they want to charge. This can make vendors justifiably prickly! It’s better to say, “I’m sure your service (product) is topnotch, however, I’m on a budget and my limit for this service is $X.XX. Is there anything you offer in this range?”
When a prospective client asks poses me this question, I can often scale back, offer them a less-customized service, or do something to give them my services at a price they can work with. On the other hand, the client that proclaims, “I want this, this and this (the “thises” being quite high end items) and I WON’T pay more than $X.XX ,” (X being a rock bottom price) makes a vendor want to (sarcastically) wish them well and go on their way.
You are entitled to be on a budget and this article is correct, asking never hurts. But take it from one who knows (and who has married off two daughters). There is a courteous way to ask.
Great advice. I got married last year and wish I had read this before. As a wedding supplier (I perform close up magic at weddings in the UK, I would say something else that works is when people book late. Brides and grooms panic and try and book all their suppliers early, but leave it as late as possible and you’ll find that people are prepared to offer you some bargains as they don’t want an empty diary.
Love the pictures! My niece recently got married in a very budget-friendly and fun ceremony/reception. I know she bought her cake at a grocery store bakery. It was a beautiful, tiered traditional wedding cake and significantly less expensive than one from a bakery.
Our wedding is coming up in a month, and while we have had to re-think our budget we are still well within what we can afford for a wedding.
the one thing i found though is sometimes you have to be REALLY up front with vendors. Our reception hall gave us a pricing packet and neglected to tell us that none of it applied to weddings! so when we had picked out everything we wanted to do and informed the sales woman we were told that “oh…well we don’t normally do THAT for a wedding.” they also neglected to tell us about the 9% meals tax and 18% “service charge” (aka mandatory tip) that is applied. we knew to expect it, but they didn’t tell us the amount until the very last possible moment. That added quite a bit on to our tab which is mostly why we are over the original budget amount. If i hadn’t already put in a down payment (they require the room fee up front) i would be going with another venue. They’ve given me such a run-around that i’m willing to go bridezilla on them just to get the price settled!
But i managed to find a BEAUTIFUL dress at davids-bridal (tag price $450) that i got for $99 during their sale, and my aunt helped make the bouquets (i paid $140 total for 4 HUGE bouquets and like, 10 boutoneirs) and she’s helping me put the centerpieces together (for a whopping $40 for all 20 centerpieces). so there are options available for a beautiful wedding – as long as you have an aunt who’s crafty with a glue gun!!
Wow just $700! Unbelievable!
I personally could never understand couples who invite hundreds of people to their wedding. Why would I want someone at my wedding who I don’t really know? But maybe that is just me.
I find smaller weddings are much more fun and memorable. Nowadays with the Internet, you can find some real bargains QUICK! because you just have to know which websites to browse and then you can compare prices with just a few clicks.
I think that couples need to decide what are the most important things for them – things that they’d really like to splash out on (if possible) … for eg. for the bride it might be that gorgeous wedding dress she’s always wanted, or a stunning engagement ring. Then for the rest of the wedding stuff (like decorations, supplies, etc) try to get the best deals.
My auntie got married a couple of weeks ago and I think it came to around £9000, she sure could have used a few of these ideas!
Wow, haha, I love the photo of the groom and the bride on top of the wedding cake, it’s great. Thanks for the budget ideas, not everyone has £20,000 for a wedding (I heard that’s the current average spent).
I’m getting married in January, and I picked out my dress on amazon. I searched for “bridesmaid dress” and looked through them until I found one I liked that also came in white. My dress is gonna be like $90 with shipping. :]
I love the frugal mind. Growing up the youngest of nine kids with a carpenter father and a stay at home mom, I saw frugality put into practice daily. It is not a bad thing. Frugal people are better for our nation and economy. The best things in life cannot be bought and there is nothing wrong with good honest work and prioritizing.
I have to say, there are some great ideas here. When I got married at 20 years old, we had no choice but to organize everything on a tight budget and have enjoyed 11 years of marriage so far … It’s not all about the wedding, but the years after that count !!
You are spot on with what you say. One thing I would say, is that weddings have not become ridiculously expensive to a degree, it still only cost a few hundred $ or £ (depending upon where you are) it is people’s interpretation or expectation of a wedding that costs money. I have three daughters who have been married in the last years. Traditionally, the father of the bride paid for the wedding, thankfully though that doesn’t seem to be the case any more. I simply would not have been able to afford it.
I am getting married in a year or so. When you boil everything down it gets very expensive. I want the day to come but not looking forward to the bill.
Fabulous post. It’s a big relief for one who is looking for ideas and suggestions for saving as much as he/she can. A wedding is a very big event and a memorable occasion for a lifetime but it is also important to maintain and plan each and every expense. Thanks.
Wow $200 for a gown??! You are so lucky. For some brides, it is all about the dress. I personally think ditching money on the gown is the most impractical thing anyone could do on a wedding. Others hope to start a tradition and hand down the gown to their daughter and to their daughter’s daughter. But they wanted a new gown, didn’t they? Their daughters may want the same. So spending much money on a dress that would only be worn once is not a very good idea at all.
It sounds like your wedding as perfect and cheap should probably be swapped for inexpensive. There are a lot of inexpensive things you can do for a wedding or other event that don’t have a “cheap” look or feel about them. We love the do-it-yourself ideas. Our company announcingit.com sells beautiful papers to brides to print their own wedding invitations. The result is a very special invitation that is truly a work of art you share with friends and family. Congrats on putting your own spin on your wedding.
Good article. It’s really important to come up with a budget ahead of time – and then stick with it – no matter what. It’s easy to fall into the trap of – oh, it’s just another $50 bucks. Before you know it, you’ve blown way past your original budget!
I got a lot of good tips from the forums on the knot.com and from bellesonabudget.com
Lovely tips!
For me, at the end of it all, we were left with the love of our family and friends, a sweet new life, and PHOTOS. Lots and lots of photos. Those were worth the every cent we paid.
Dear SVB,
I understand that your wedding was a long time ago and out of state. A price like $700 for the entire wedding is unheard of in Silicon Valley, CA and will buy you a marriage license for $79 from Santa Clara county, old style dress, dinner for two and maybe a cake but not the wedding reception. One of the most expensive items after the ring is the reception venue, not the dress. To secure venue in Silicon Valley, CA means to leave a few thousands of dollars as you will be locked in “the minimum spent per night” and surely it would be at least twenty times more than $150.
I still appreciate your effort in spreading financial wisdom among brides. I wasn’t born here and was not infected by that “over the top kind of 400 people wedding bug” but I can see that too many brides in CA are brought up that way. Prices in CA are outrageous what comes to weddings. You will spend a few thousand if you want to have a traditional wedding no matter how hard you’ll try.
I got married last year at a beautiful golf course and got it all together for less than $10,000 for 50 guests. We both paid for the wedding. I watched our expenses like a hawk, did a few items myself, and was extremely happy with the results. Not too frugal, but not over the top. If anyone would like to know how I did it, you can read the details on my site.
@Smart California Bride,
This was not my wedding, but Alexis A’s wedding. 🙂 My wedding was much more expensive here in California. Alexis is one of our writers and she lives in a different state. Just wanted to clarify that.
Thanks for a thoughtful, interesting comment though! Having a wedding anywhere for a few thousand dollars is in my opinion, a great feat in itself.
Thank you so much for this article. My one sister just got married to a tune of probably close to $30,000. Another one is getting married next month to the tune of probably $15,000, both make my head hurt. I am waaaaaaaaaaay too frugal to even entertain either of these ideas, even if we were loaded — no way, not practical. Needless to say I’m in both of these weddings and shelling out money on my own for all this stuff as well. Ugh. I really loved this article and all the comments below. If we ever get married you betcha I’ll refer to this article and subsequent comments for all the wonderful tips. I don’t want a shower, bachelorette party or even bridesmaids. Cost effective, and simple yet still fun, will be my mantra.
Thanks for the helpful advice for a low budget wedding. I wanted to have a small wedding, but didn’t know where to start. But this was helpful.
Another great way to save money on your big day is to consider buying a used or pre-owned wedding gown. This is a great way to get designer dresses at a fraction of the cost. Whether or not they were merely worn for a few hours or in some cases not at all when brides change their minds, it is a sure fire way to find glamourous yet affordable gowns. Think about sites like ebay.com or bravobride.com. Sites like these even offer more than just gowns with previously owned linens, bridesmaid dresses, veils, and other necessities for the big day!
One of the greatest challenges in wedding planning is keeping the cost down. Set your budget and stay within those parameters! You can have a beautiful wedding without spending a fortune.
So grateful for this post. I am just like you and cannot stomach the price of a traditional wedding. Thank you.
I can totally relate to this article. More than a year ago, my husband and I had a wedding with a budget of around $700 also when converted to US money. We’re in the Philippines, by the way. My family did not favor this as my parents, especially my mom wanted a traditional wedding. I just don’t like spending like there’s no tomorrow. We’d rather save the money for our future family. I had my wedding dress custom made for less than $100. It’s very simple but I’m happy with it.
Clearly you and I are on the same level. Minus the cost of my ring, which we chose together and he paid for, our up coming wedding with the dress, cake and dinner for 20 guests, is going to be around $1,200 A large expense was going to be our wedding site. Everyone wanted to charge between 500 and 1,000 to host the ceremony! So I called our favorite family owned Italian restaurant and asked if we held our 20 person reception at their establishment, would they allow us to also have our small ceremony in front of the elegant fireplace. Every Christmas, they decorate in beautiful white lights and the 2 fire places are always glowing:) A new Years Eve day wedding is planned with a personal menu including Surf and Turf! Small, romantic and within budget:)
I have a small budget of about 500.00, my venue will cost me 150.00 we’re having the ceremony and reception in the same place and to help with food we have decided to do pot luck and ask guest to bring there favorite dish , I have a few volunteers who are going to help dish out the food as guests bring up there plates. For the “cake” me and my sister are just going to do cupcakes with a small store bought wedding cake.
I am planning my wedding right now. I plan to have 100-125 guests. I am printing my own invitations. A 50 pack at walmart was only 10.00. I am paying 45.00 to have an outdoor ceremony at a local park. I got the reception site for free. The breakroom at my fiances moms work is huge and newly remodeled. it also has a pool table and dart board and such for the big party. we are having a family friend take our pictures as a gift. were cutting a dj and having a family member announce us and were going to put together 4-5 hours of music on our laptop. as for catering we found a sample menu on the gfs website of a simple pasta buffet and salad. for 100 guests it estimates just under 500.00! for the cake were doing cupcakes. i am going to pay a local bakery. but i wanted something special for a fall themed wedding. pumpkin spice, apple caramel, and pecan pie cupcakes. they will give you a cupcake stand for free and this will run my about 150.00 which is a steal compared to most wedding cakes! i did pay 350.00 for my wedding dress as my splurge from davids bridal. but it was originally 1,000! i also paid for my maid of honors dress which was 120.00. i did not want a big bridal party. i have a friend going to school for hair. so her gift to us is to do my hair. i got brand new 2 tier wedding vale for 5.00 at the flea market. i also got two huge pretty bushes of sunflowers to use as our bouquets for only 5.00! i got a ring pillow and guest book from a place going out of business for 5.00! i got fishbowls to use on my tables from a friend who recently got married for free! i keep shopping sales and clearance and its working great! it is possible to get what you want yet stay practical!
When I think about my own wedding, I couldn’t imagine spending only $700. I will admit though it would of been nice if we could have gotten somewhere closer to that number.