Weddings are one of the most special days in our lives, but it doesn't have to break the bank. Check out these budget wedding tips to save where it makes sense …
(The following is a guest post by Kostas Chiotis, a blogger and an economist. He posts regularly to his blog at FinanceBlogZone.com. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter for even more useful tips and advice.)
Budget Wedding Tip #1: Don’t call it a wedding
You don’t have to live in denial. But when you’re doing a search online, avoid wedding related terms. Don’t search any phrase with the word “wedding†in it. The reason is that a lot of companies will jack up the prices for a product or service simply because it’s for a wedding. This is your special day so they assume you’re willing to pay a “special†price to make it perfect.
For example, booking a trip for your honeymoon using the word “honeymoon†will increase the price compared to if you just booked the trip without specifying that it was for your honeymoon. There are also a lot of other tricks for saving money on your honeymoon.
You can save a surprising amount of money on the reception hall, the photographer, and even the dress by simply not using the word “wedding†in your internet searches. Don’t worry, you can still say “wedding†around your friends and family.
Budget Wedding Tip #2: Set a price before setting the date
If you commit to a date before checking prices, you could end up setting one of the most expensive dates of the year. Instead, be more flexible, check the prices for a variety of different dates. In some cases (especially when booking flights for your honeymoon), the price can drop by hundreds of dollars just by going one day later or one day earlier.
This is true of everything else you book for your wedding—the reception hall, the hotel.
Budget Wedding Tip #3: Save instead of charge
Having the wedding of your dreams is definitely a goal worth aspiring to. You only get married once (hopefully) so it should be as special and magical as you have always hoped it would be.
However, if the wedding of your dreams comes with a pretty hefty price tag (even after using the other hacks in this article), you may need to delay it a bit.
Avoid the temptation of just charging it all to your card and dealing with the debt later. Trust me, once the reality of those debt payments hits, it’s going to make you doubt whether that extravagant wedding was really worth it. And having doubts like that is no fun. It’s far better to have the extravagant wedding and then to live with it as a purely fond memory for the rest of your life.
But if you want that extravagant wedding without the doubt or regret that comes later, you need to do it without going into debt. That means you need to figure out how much it’s going to cost. Then save up the money you’ll need so you can pay with cash instead of debt. This might mean a longer engagement than you planned. But it will be worth it when you are free of that debt and the stress it comes with.
Budget Wedding Tip #4: Buy used or rent
Yes, getting your wedding shopping done on Craigslist doesn’t sound as magical as you had dreamed. But the fact is that there are a lot of items you need to buy for your wedding that you are only going to use that one time. For example, when’s the next time you are going to need hundreds of folding chairs or a lighting system? Unless you’re an event organizer, I’m guessing never.
Don’t buy brand new, full-priced tables, chairs, cutlery, or anything else that is never going to see the light of day again. Buy it used on craigslist from the couple that didn’t take this advice for their wedding. You can also find a rental company for these supplies (remember to avoid the word “wedding†when you search for that company, though!).
Budget Wedding Tip #5: Invest where it counts, skimp where it doesn't
This is one of the easiest things to lose sight of in the chaos of wedding planning. Once you step into the world of wedding planning, you are going to be overwhelmed with companies trying to sell you not only the most expensive of everything but also more items than you ever thought possible.
While it can seem like only a little more to spring for the cream colored tablecloths rather than the eggshell white tablecloths, do you really actually care what particular shade of white the tablecloths are? Is that the detail you’re going to remember most fondly 20 years from now?
Tying it all together
Avoiding these little extra costs and expenses will earn you a budget wedding, and will add up to huge savings. Don’t get swept up in the highly effective marketing which tells you that your wedding will be a disaster if you get local, seasonal flowers instead of orchids.
To do that, write down your plans before you do any searching. Describe your perfect wedding in detail. Write down the color scheme, the music (band or DJ?), the dress, the guest list, and so on. Do all of this without looking at a single Pinterest page or wedding magazine. Just use only your dreams.
Then, rank those details in order of priority. If finding the perfect wedding band is your top priority, put it at the top of the list. If walking down in the isle in the most stunning gown ever made is your main priority, put that at the top of your list.
Once every detail is ranked in order of priority, you know which items are worth investing in and which ones you should skimp on. Before you spend any money, look at where that particular item ranked on your list. Let that give you some perspective on whether or not its really worth it to splurge in this area.
For those items low on the list, go as cheap as possible because you won’t care about how cheap it was years from now when you are looking back on your magical night. If it’s not on your list at all, don’t spend a dime on it. If that item didn’t even make it into your wildest dreams about your wedding, chances are your special day will be just as perfect as you dreamed without it.
Final Word
As you can see from this list, there are actually a lot of strategies for saving money that still make the wedding of your dreams affordable. With just a few clever tweaks and a little bit of flexibility, you can save thousands of dollars and still get everything you wanted for your special day!
