This post is by our regular contributor, Kristi.
The average wedding costs about $26,444 in the United States.
Almost $27,000! That number is astounding to me.
Can you say down payment on a house? How about a brand new car instead?
Of course that number is the average, meaning that it is skewed by insanely expensive weddings and the more moderate, budget friendly ones as well.
If, like me, you can’t imagine spending that much money on a party, don’t worry. There are a million ways to have a beautiful, unique, and unforgettable wedding without putting yourself into debt.
Read on to learn how you can party down while still keeping wedding costs down.
Limit your guest list
Basic math at its finest, the more people you have, the more expensive it will be. Would you rather have a wedding of 300 where you don’t get to have the type of food and venue you want, or would you rather have 30 people eating five star food in an amazing location?
More than likely you fall somewhere in-between. Remember that for each guest, you will be paying for their invitation, food, dessert, and gift or party favor. The more people you invite, the more it will cost overall for your entire wedding.
Keep it local
Unless you have some serious travel hacking points racked up, keeping it local is a much more budget friendly way to have a wedding. Destination weddings of any kind, whether out of the country, or even out of town, cost thousands more than having your wedding right in town.
If you travel for your wedding, you have to cover hotel costs for usually at least three nights, all dining expenses, and also the travel costs. You’re looking at plane tickets, rental cars, hotel stays, and other miscellaneous costs that pop up from not being at home.
Especially for international wedding destinations, you are probably going to be paying at least $10,000 for everyone and everything involved, and that doesn’t include the cost of the actual wedding itself.
Heavy hors d’oeuvres
When you think about your wedding, how do you envision the people attending? Is everyone sitting down to a plated dinner, or are they milling about through standing cocktail tables and the dance floor?
Typically, plated dinners cost anywhere from $25.00-$100.00 a plate, depending on the venue, quality of the food, and number of guest attending. If you had 75 guests attending your wedding at $50.00 a plate, once you include the cost of taxes and tips to the servers, you’ll be paying over $4000 dollars. That’s a lot of money!
Consider having heavy hors d’oeuvres instead. A good friend of mine had a heavy hors d’oeuvres wedding, and at first I was a complete skeptic. I thought for sure that everyone would be starving. Let me tell you, it was amazing! Not only did she save an unbelievable amount of money, because heavy hors d’oeuvres usually cost about $15-$20 per person, but the food was phenomenal. I was so full afterwards.
If you aren’t sure how a heavy hors d’oeuvres wedding would be, go out for a tradition tapas dinner, to get a good idea.
Limit the flowers
The cost of flowers for the average bridal party and reception runs between $1,000-$2,000. That was definitely not going to cut it for my own wedding budget.
We decided to limit our flower budget to the whole bridal party, including the groomsmen and the church. We had hand bouquets and boutonnieres, an alter arrangement, my bridal bouquet, and wrist corsages for the mothers and grandmothers. The grand total was $300. It was just enough romantic, chic, floral décor to suit my tastes, without going way over budget.
If you’re willing to cut flowers out of the wedding budget completely though, there are some amazing alternatives that you can create for next to nothing. Utilize Pinterest to spark your inspiration for completely unique alternatives to flower bouquets, like making antique book paper flowers.
Make your own decorations
Home-made wire trees for our winter wedding
This tip goes hand in hand with limiting your flowers. If you decide to cut flowers out of the budget, how do you envision decorating the reception?
Since I had decided to not have any flowers at my reception to save money, we made the centerpieces ourselves. By making the centerpieces ourselves, we spent only spent about $250 and the hall looked amazing. The best part is that we were able to put our special touch on the wedding in a very tangible and inexpensive way.
Hire a friend instead of a DJ
We hired a DJ that ended up being terrible. To this day I can’t believe we wasted our money on him.
With personal sound systems so much more affordable now than in the past, there is no reason that you can’t have amazing music without hiring an expensive DJ. You’ll be able to pick the entire music selection without getting stuck paying for and listening to music that isn’t your style.
Small cutting cake
Wedding cakes are expensive. A typical cake meant to feed the entire reception can cost upwards of $500.
If you want to have a traditional cutting cake, but not have the cost, opt to order a small two-tier cake instead. You and your spouse can cut the bottom layer for tradition and ceremony and still have the top piece to take home for your one-year anniversary. Order sheet cakes to have cut and ready for the rest of your guests, or opt to have cupcakes or a dessert bar instead.
Decide what’s important
Don’t spend $100 on wedding stilettos if you would be more comfortable wearing converse sneakers. Don’t pay for an open bar if you would rather have a dry wedding. Also, if you want to have an open bar don’t feel like you shouldn’t just because of the cost.
For example, for my own wedding, we decided that we didn’t want to skimp on a photographer. You only get your day once, so we wanted to preserve the memory of it. We found a reasonable local photographer who gave us some outstanding photos from our wedding. It’s a cost I’m glad we didn’t skimp on.
Don’t forget about all the unexpected costs of a wedding. Postage, thank-you cards, gifts for people in your wedding party…the list goes on. These expenses are easy to forget about.
Prioritize what you would most like to have on your wedding day and save for those items or activities that you envision the most. This is your day. Do whatever you want, and whatever makes you and your spouse comfortable.
Don’t focus on impressing anyone
What it boils down to is that your wedding day is all about you and your spouse pledging your love and loyalty to each other. No amount of money spent on the after party is going to guarantee a happy marriage.
Don’t turn your wedding day into some monstrously large and expensive reception if that’s only what you feel other people are expecting from you.
Stay within your budget, be true to your tastes, and use the party to reflect your passions as a couple and promises to one another. Yeah, drinking, dancing, and hanging out with family and friends is a lot of fun, but don’t put yourself into debt just for a party.
How did you save for your own wedding or how do you plan to cut the costs of your wedding in the future?
Photo by teodorpk
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Deciding what is important is so key! You cannot do everything on your pinterest board, so its best to just focus on what is most important to you.
I had one artistic friend who did paper flowers, and the wedding was really cool (and totally her style). We got married at a park and had a pig roast (though as a compromise we couldn’t have alcohol at our venue). It’s all about what matters to you.
Great tips Kristi! We did a few of these when we got married so as to keep costs down though still went a little over budget. Looking back, we both wish that we would’ve gone a much more simplistic route and try to get married on the beach (my wife is from San Diego) and just had her parents there as witnesses. That being said, you’ve got to determine and do what matters to you most.
Hannah UnplannedFinance Pig roasts are a lot of fun! You’re so right. Too many people get caught up in the perfection of Pinterest boards, but you really need to just pick the few things that are most important to you.
FrugalRules I agree, completely! We loved our wedding, but sometimes I wish we hadn’t spent quite as much as we did.
Great suggestions. We implemented each of those practices and had a great time with friends and family … and didn’t break the bank.
RetirementSavvy Good to hear! It’s tough to keep costs down when there’s so much pressure to spend spend spend, so good for you guys.
This is a great list. We kept our wedding pretty inexpensive because we were only 23 years old at the time. One other tip is to print your own invitations – so much cheaper and most of them are just going to end up in the garbage anyways.
super awesome info to keep in mind! My boyfriend and I want to have a much more affordable wedding and save some money for an awesome honeymoon instead.
We got married on a beach in Hawaii, with just a handful of close family and friends, and it was absolutely perfect. A small portion of that money that would have been spent on a big wedding went instead to a great holiday / honeymoon in Hawaii!
I think that deciding what’s important is critical. Managing your expectations and knowing what you want is the key to limiting the cost. I’ll be going through this next year so getting geared up for it now.
Thanks for another informative post.