My daughter just got married this past May, and she followed in our footsteps, keeping her costs down to a minimum, despite having 100 guests. Her best deal by far was to buy her wedding dress directly from China. She fell in love with a dress here in town that was priced at $1400.00, and it needed $400.00 worth of alterations. That was simply out of the question. Instead, we sent off her measurements to the Cinderella Bridal Company in China, and three weeks later, her wedding gown arrived. The EXACT same gown of her dreams purchased from China cost us a grand total of $155.00 ( shipping inclusive). No alterations were necessary because the dress was made to her exact measurements. It was spectacularly beautiful. We took it to the bridal shop to get ironed, and they could not tell the difference between the one we purchased in China, and the one they had in the shop. Also, it only took three weeks from the day we emailed her measurements to them, until the dress arrived here in the US. Best deal from her wedding by far!

The Wedding Lens allows couples to get the same photos that they would get by having a disposable camera on each table — but without having to buy disposable cameras or print a ton of blurry photos. Couples see everything from their guests perspective but only print the best photos.

Since I am an arts and crafts fan, I have no trouble at all making invitations and creating my own small gifts and decorations!

As for the food, I am very sure I have a few friends and relatives who would love to help me prepare food. For the invites, for various religious reasons, we have no need to spend too much on a wedding (fortunately! lol) so inviting some close family and friends will actually do as our “banquet”

We also don’t listen to music or dance, so we can save on that DJ, music, and dance hall :D

As for the bride and grooms’ clothing, I have no problem doing that at all. I actually got the idea of doing a short Indian wedding, salwar kameez (the Indian traditional clothing) comes in a lot of great colors and patterns, and usually cost less than $100 to look nice on this day. For wedding dresses, there are a lot of Muslim stores in my city, and most of them will have a special occasion section for very inexpensive “wedding gowns” for about $50-100 at least. Since I am petite, the shorter and slimmer you are, the less the item costs.

I don’t really expect a honeymoon, so not going to one wouldn’t get me upset.. I never like expecting too much anyways.

I’m sure these suggestions would work for one of my friends, although I don’t know anyone as young as I planning to get married soon.

Reception was at a friend’s house who has a huge backyard. We borrowed tables and chairs, covered them with white and other decorations. The decorations came from the Dollar Store and WalMart, and they looked great, not cheap at all!

We hired a photographer who had done professional work, but not a wedding. He did several hours of work, plus editing, for about $250. The pictures look wonderful.

We used our computer and set up a wedding playlist for the reception music.

We bought most of the food from Costco, some already prepared, some we prepared ourselves.

My wedding dress came from the after-prom sales at Sears. We bought the guys matching shirts/ties and they wore whatever black dress pants/jackets they already had.

We bought fresh flowers and made bouquets with those. Wrap the stems in rubber bands and ribbon, they will be perfect!

A Mary Kay friend helped me with my makeup; I had my hair styled at Great Clips.

The entire affair (including hotel suite for the mothers) cost less than $1000. It was fantastic, and several people said it was the best wedding they’d ever attended!

Decide what is most important to you. Spend the money on that (for us, it was food, drinks, and decent photos). Choose inexpensive options for the things that are less important! I am SO glad we went low key, I had a great time and hardly stressed over anything.

Good luck!

http://suddenlyfrugal.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/a-frugal-wedding-5-planning-tips/

Also, in terms of shameless self promotion, I’m the author of the book “Tie the Knot on a Shoestring.”

Good luck to all the brides- and grooms-to-be!

Leah

1. Look for bargains with flowers. We found a wedding package for $100. It included flowers for the entire wedding party (bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, ushers, and parents).
2. Avoid alcohol. We are having no alcohol at our receptions. We are providing a pop dispenser that we rented from our reception hall for less than $100 for the dispenser and all the pop. The guests can have as much to drink as they want, and it will be safer than alcohol.
3. Have your bridesmaids dresses made. Material and labor cost the bridesmaids less than $100.
4. If possible, recycle. I’m wearing my mother’s wedding dress. Only cost was the alterations, which were minimal.
5. Skip the stylist. All of my bridesmaids are doing each other’s hair, and my maid of honor is doing my hair, make up, etc.
6. Cupcakes are cheaper. A typical traditional wedding cake can cost over $2 per serving. We are doing a cupcake tower for $.75 per cupcake. Total cost is around $100 versus a traditional cake for over $300.
7. Cheap and classy centerpieces. Small globe vases that you can find at the dollar store filled with water tinted your wedding color with a small tealight floating in each one is a wonderful centerpiece. They last longer than flowers, too, especially if you’re having a winter wedding.

We made our own invitations out of a kit, and we’re making our own programs. It’s amazing how much can be done for cheap.

I say keep it small if you can’t afford something bigger, and if you can’t afford bar service, don’t serve alcohol. I didn’t want my wedding to require any GUEST to open their wallet. They were our guests, after all.

The only rule we disagree with is the cheap honeymoon. My fiance and I are travelers, and nothing makes us more happy than exploring a new country. So, we’re having a very small wedding (practically eloping) and then using the majority of our budget on a tremendous honeymoon. The memories we’ll have from the trip wil far outweigh any obtained from pretty flowers or a kickin’ DJ. Best off all, we’ve been saving for trip for about a year now. By the time we get back — fully hitched and honeymoon’d — we won’t owe anything.

My wife and I have set aside some money for the weddings of our two elder girls. They should be (God Willing) get married in the next 2 – 3 years. Our customs also do not allow them to have a common wedding that would save us quite a bit of money.

The weddings I have attended lately all looked so expensive, till last week. My wife’s aunt and uncle had a wedding for their daughter and I am so glad that I have found a frugal example.

And they followed most of your rules.

One word: eBay. I bought my wedding dress on eBay for $539 (included shipping). The dress is originally $2k. I just took my measurements and only looked at items which offered the measurements of the dress. I’m not anticipating too much additional costs for a seamstress, but if so, plan on finding a recommendation on Yelp.com.

Centerpieces? We’re doing simple flowers from ProFlowers (whuich usually bloom on the 2nd/3rd day and tend to last a week or more) and a variety of pictures of us in pretty frames that we’ll “contest” off to guests as a take-home (buy Frames in Homegoods/TJ Maxx/online, etc. for deep discounts).

Not sure if we’re doing it, but for another personal and inexpensive touch, if you have wine bottles on the table (Charles Shaw of Trader Joe’s is REALLY good and costs less than $5 a bottle!) … buy some “Full page labels” from Staples and print out the pictures of the two of you to slap over the wine label on the wedding bottles.

Our budget is $8k for 75 people and with all of these little things, I think (hopefully) we’ll come in under budget.

I think I have all of you beat when it comes to planning a frugal wedding. I got married Valentine’s Day 2007, and was able to pull off a beautiful, intimate wedding and reception for a grand total of (drum roll…..) $800! Let me explain how, since I’m guessing some of you have raised eyebrows! LOL

*My husband’s aunt made our wedding invitations as her gift to us.

*My wedding dress was a 2 piece outfit bought off the rack at Dress Barn. My husband wore a suit that he had in his closet.

*We married on a Wednesday at 9 am. (Both my husband and I worked nights so we wanted our coworkers to be able to come. If they had to leave for work right after the ceremony that was fine with us.)

*Our reception was a brunch buffet. My mother in law and I made all the food ourselves. My friend made the wedding cake, and I let him know how much I had in my budget for this ahead of time. Because I wanted a white chocolate wedding cake, I gave him my recipe.

*My godsister made our music cd. I picked the songs and she burned them to the cd. I also picked a bunch of upbeat, fun songs (think “Celebrate Good Times” by Kool and the Gang or “Get This Party Started” by Pink) because to me a wedding is a celebration of two people joining their lives together. Too many times the songs that are chosen for a wedding sound more appropriate for a funeral, they are so sappy. The song “Trumpet Voluntary” (the same song that Princess Diana walked down the aisle to when she married Prince Charles) was our recessional and I had requested that it play until everyone had walked out of the church, so the people who attended would feel like they were part of the wedding party as well.

*All of our flowers were artificial, as it’s nice to have something that lasts forever. We bought them at a craft store when they were having a sale. Because my maid of honor worked in a flower shop I asked her to make the bouquets and bouitonneres as well.

*We borrowed as many decorations as we could for our reception. I actually had the idea to buy some dish garden containers from Walmart, fill the bottoms with colored glass stones, fill the containers with water and put floating candles on top. My friend (who also is my hairdresser) loaned me some large linen napkins and silver platters to set the dish garden containers on, which I then put artificial calla lilies around. Simple, elegant and cheap! (Yes I did put business cards for her shop next to the decorations; I’m a big believer in giving credit where it’s due.) The platters and napkins were returned to my friend after the reception.

*My husband and I spent our honeymoon at home, just being together and enjoying our new lives as husband and wife. As we were expecting a baby and he had recently declared bankruptcy, we felt it made no sense to go on a vacation when we could put that money to better use.

*Most importantly we paid cash as we went, so we could start our marriage debt free except for the mortgage. Again this was done mainly because of the baby on the way and my husband’s bankruptcy. Neither one of us wanted to start our marriage with any unsecured debt hanging over us. That was the smartest decision we ever made.

I’m sorry this is so long, but I hope it gives you some ideas.

http://manolobrides.com/2008/12/12/your-wedding-is-not-nascar-or-the-times-square-ball-drop/#more-1990

I was in the middle of graduate school working three jobs and just didn’t have the time (or inclination) to schlep all over town to get what I needed. Plus I was getting in another town 200 miles away. So, regrettably, I gave carte blanche to my future mother-in-law and ended up with horrible food, a horrible venue (DH’s grandma’s house which was old and the AC didn’t work when it was 100 degrees). Plus my family came all the way from England where I am from to TX and that added enormously to the expenses. Plus my MIL didn’t inform me of the costs of anything and just spoke to my mum and dad and asked them for money for EVERYTHING.

If I could do it over again, I would keep it very small, very simple and very cheap. It’s not worth the hassle to do it other ways. But then I am not one of those women who grow up “dreaming” of a white wedding and playing weddings with my Barbie. I just wanted to get hitched to the man I loved.

Still, the marriage has been great and we just celebrated our 21st (I think) this year. I just wish I hadn’t burdened my parents with a wedding that I didn’t really like. But my fault – I gave up control to my MIL because I was just too busy to do it myself. Big error.

I do agree with those who posted and recomended going with just wine/beer instead of mixed drinks. These days most people just drink wine or beer anyway, so I don’t think it’s as important to have mixed drinks as it was in the past. And it can save you alot of money, depending on the venue.