Tips On How To Arrange A Fabulous Wedding On A Shoestring Budget

Tips On How To Arrange A Fabulous Wedding On A Shoestring Budget

In my last article I explained the steps you can take to make sure you benefit from the best deal possible when choosing your wedding venue, your caterers and your reception music.

In this article I am going to show you how you can make massive savings on the purchase of your wedding dress, flowers, cake, invitations and wedding favors. As will become abundantly clear, there is only one secret to discover…Where to shop!

Wedding Dress

While you obviously want to look your best, it is worth remembering that your wedding dress will only be worn once, so think carefully before you rush out and spend thousands of Dollars on a dress!

You’ll probably be surprised to learn that if you know where to look, you can find a dress that would normally cost thousands in a wedding boutique, for less than a couple of hundred Dollars!

This is where I know I can help you – by directing you to a source that many retailers use themselves to stock their boutiques, you too can get your wedding dress at almost wholesale price.

Flowers

If you intend to use real flowers, you should consider arranging your wedding for a time when the flowers you want are in season. This will save you a considerable amount of money.

A better and more affordable option would be to use artificial flowers. While the best artificial flowers can be extremely expensive, again, if you know where to shop, you can find an array of fabulous artificial share this site flowers and bouquets at surprisingly affordable prices

Wedding Cake

There are many money saving options you may want to consider before you make a final decision on your wedding cake.

1 Homemade Wedding Cake

By baking and icing your own wedding cake you will have the satisfaction of providing a personal touch. If you’re not an accomplished cake maker, maybe a family member or friend can make the cake for you? Someone who enjoys making cakes might even be honored to make it for you as a wedding gift.

2 Artificial Wedding Cake

While an artificial wedding cake made from Styrofoam may not sound very attractive, it can look absolutely fabulous! All you need to do is frost it and decorate it with an appropriate cake topper, just as you would a real one. A Styrofoam cake will look just like the real thing, but without the huge cost!

When the time comes to serve the cake to guests, just cut a simple sheet cake and leave the artificial cake up for decoration.

3 Professionally Made Wedding Cake

If a real professionally made wedding cake is a “must” for you, you should try and find a local bakery to make it for you. You will find it will only cost a fraction of what the same cake would cost from a wedding cake specialist.

Additionally, regardless of the number of guests you are having, keep it to a small affordable cake and if you need to, supplement it with a cheap sheet cake.

Wedding Favors

Wedding favors are traditionally used as a couple’s way of sharing their good fortune and saying “thank you” to their guests on their wedding day. They are usually small symbolic gifts that are meaningful to your relationship, your family or the theme of your wedding.

When you are tied by the constraints of a tight budget, you may want to consider using simple homemade favors. By making your own wedding favors, you are creating the opportunity to make affordable gifts that reflect something unique about yourselves, your relationship or the theme of your wedding

If you’re not the creative type, again, there are places you can shop for wedding favors at close to wholesale prices; such heavily discounted wedding favors should not adversely affect your budget too much.

Wedding Invitations

Wedding invitations can be incredibly expensive if you rely on local stores and wedding boutiques, but there are a couple of very affordable alternatives you can use to keep the costs to a minimum.

1 Professionally Printed Invitations

You don’t have to pay several dollars per invitation for professionally printed personalized invitations. If you know where to look, you can find places where you can buy high quality personalized invitations for less than $1 each.

2 Homemade Invitations

Before you go to a craft store to buy the materials to make your invitations, make sure you know how many invitations you need to make. If you don’t have this information at hand there’s a good chance you will over buy and end up incurring needless costs.

While making your own invitations can be a great deal of fun, you need to take great care because if you don’t like the finished product, the chances are you will scrap them, and your money, time and effort will be wasted!

Other Money Saving Tips you should consider to keep your Wedding Costs to a minimum.

It is estimated that it can cost up to $80 per guest at a wedding. Having said that, if you use my tips you won’t be spending anything like that, but the fact remains, when you pay the bill, it will be far less to pay for 80 people than it will to pay for 300! So keep your guest list to a minimum.

If your venue does not permit guests to bring their own alcoholic beverages you would do well to skip the booze altogether and serve soft drinks only.

Last but not least, if your family and friends are willing to help, use them. Many of them will possess specialist skills that can save you a lot of money. For example, bakers, caterers, florists, dressmakers and hairdressers.

In addition, as I mentioned in my previous article, if you have enough helpers in the cooking department, you can forget the caterers and, with the help and support of your friends and family, self-cater your own wedding.

Conclusion

Although the people that follow these things say the average cost of a wedding is now more than $25,000, the cruel reality is, there are millions of couples who are not in a position to spend so lavishly on their wedding.

The truth is, you really don’t need to spend $20,000 to $30,000 to have a memorable wedding day. If you follow my tips and act frugally, you can organize a really fabulous wedding for around a tenth of what these “so called experts” say is the average cost.