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One of the biggest decisions in life is to say “I do.†Not only that, one of the biggest expenses in life happens when we say “I do.†It is normal for every engaged couple to dream of their perfect wedding. However, it isn’t exactly the most practical thing in the world to blow all your savings for something that will only last a day.
Smart engaged couples manage to marry both things beautifully- a beautiful wedding and a reasonable budget. Many couples struggle to find this balance, with many brides and grooms fighting over every wedding expense. Here are five simple ways for engaged couples to save on their wedding day. You may be pleasantly surprised to find out how much these simple tips will save you!
- Consider having your wedding on a weekday– We know that weddings are usually held on weekends so more people can make it, but the people who are most important to you will not mind taking the day off to celebrate. Another perk of a weekday wedding is that hotel rates and general supplier rates may be cheaper and easier to book!
- Go “green‖ Let your wedding be an opportunity to go green. Instead of printing out invites, why not make an e-copy and email them to everyone you love. Do the same to the RSVP cards and the save the dates. You’ll cut back on invitation expenses and paper usage too.
- Invite people that both of you know– The temptation is to invite the most obscure people, who may not even know you as a couple. Your wedding is a celebration of your love for each other, so the most fitting people that should be there are those who have been a part of your relationship, and not some far away relatives!
- Keep your wedding theme and colors “doable‖ what do we mean by this? A fancy theme and a complicated color scheme will automatically mean more expense, as there will be more to execute. However, if you choose to keep things simple, then there will be more opportunities to save. For example, should your wedding colors be black and yellow, then you can easily request your bridesmaids to don black dresses they already have. There will be no more need to spend for this, thus saving you money.
- Work with products and items that are local and in season– Food is a vital part of your wedding, and a great way to save money is to decide on a menu that features local, seasonal products. If ingredients are local and in season, then they will be cheaper, and not only that, you and your guests will be assured of fresher produce!
Sam Briones writes for SafeAuto, covering an array of topics from finding cheap auto insurance to safety tips.
For more wedding saving tips and ideas head on over to Budget a Wedding.
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Great ideas Heidi! My husband and I met and were engaged within 6 months, married within 3 of that. Not a lot of time to save a ton of money for a huge wedding (even if it was 300+ guests). We focused more on our life starting that day and our honeymoon (more money went to that). Although it was nice to have everyone there to celebrate with us.
A few ways we saved money: getting bridesmaid dresses off the rack at a department store, guys wore khakis and white shirts (something everyone already had), evening wedding that was late enough that we were able to do a smaller buffet and lots of help from our family helping us make our programs and we had enough left over for a more intimate send off brunch the following day. Oh and I designed our invites on the computer and took them to the printer and had them put on a “pretty” cardstock. 🙂
I love your suggestions too!
Those are great ideas 🙂 We focused on our honeymoon too – we still got great deals, but we didn’t worry about “splurging” either since that was important to us. 9 months to meet and plan a wedding for 300 people though, wow!! I think I would have lost my mind 🙂
I definitely saved quite a bit having my wedding on a weekday. I don’t know if it would have been any more meaningful if we were surrounded by only people we both knew though. It was a great chance to show each other off to friends and family and a good way to introduce each other to the people we didn’t know.
I think you can save a few cents here and there by doing lots of things too. Invitations, for example, if you go with cheaper companies, you can really save on a lot but without losing on a lot of your quality.
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