How to got married on a budget

I’m going to start by saying that I was that little girl who dreamed of a super fancy wedding with all the bells and whistles. I wanted my wedding to be like those fairytale weddings you see on movies and the TV. As I got older, I got a bit more independent, I realised the value of money and the cost of weddings is a lot, but more importantly I re-evaluated ‘Why’ it was so important for me to have that big, flashy, ‘everyone-gets-a-puppy-at-the-end’ kind of wedding and it made me realise that it wasn’t as important as I’d thought.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a big, flashy wedding (or as we like to call in Australia, a ‘Shindig’), it just wasn’t for me (or my soon-to-be husband). We had middle-income jobs, we lived out of home, we were in a little bit of debt and we had just had our first-born baby (He was 6 months old at the time of our wedding). So, for us, finances was definitely part of the equation but also, we just weren’t really big, flashy, wedding people and we didn’t want to wait to get married.

We decided on the ‘simple, yet elegant’ approach and we still get complimented on how chill and awesome our wedding was, even 4 years later.

Here are a few tips based on our experience.

Tip one: The brainstorming process.

Brainstorming on what your wedding will look like

Figure out what’s important to have in your wedding (i.e. do you want it to be traditional? Venue? Sit down or Cocktail? Buffet? Do you want it super structured? Or just chill?

What is important to you and your partner?

The more detail you have on your list, the easier it is to cut down on costs if you’re doing it DIY.

Tip two: Ideas on where you can save money

My BIGGEST piece of advice in keeping things low-cost? Do everything yourself. Use what you have and make everything yourself.

Bouquets: I’m pretty creative so I bought some fake flowers off eBay, some ribbon and a hot glue gun and I made the bouquets myself. Pinterest will be your best friend (Warning: Pinterest is addictive).

Dresses: I bought my dress off eBay as well for like, $80.00. I always wanted a very simple wedding dress so I didn’t mind but you might want to spend a bit more and get your dream dress and that’s okay too. Just remember, you will only wear it for one day and some photos then it will spend the rest of your life collecting dust in a cupboard or you will sell it for half the price you paid for it. Either way, I wasn’t about to spend an arm and a leg on a dress that I knew I wouldn’t wear again.

My bridesmaids bought their own dresses and I had one Maid of honour and one bridesmaid. My husband had a best man one groomsman. It made our wedding a lot more cost efficient and it was all we needed.

Entertainment:

We decided we didn’t need entertainment. It’s just as easy to set up a playlist from Spotify or set up a platform where people can add songs to the queue. We had a very informal, chill wedding so we didn’t have a wedding band. We didn’t even have a first dance or father daughter dance and that was okay with me. One less expense – TICK. One thing I would have loved is Karaoke but get yourselves a couple microphones, some decent speakers and you can do your own Karaoke.

My (now) husband and I are quite musical so we were the ‘wedding singers’ in the ceremony along with our friends and family. We didn’t really need a DJ or the extra expenses that come with fancy entertainment. Surely someone in your circle of friends knows how to pick up a guitar and hold a tune. Utilise them, if they’re anything like our friends, I’m sure they would be honoured.

Favours:

Although I didn’t really need favours, I liked the idea of favours. Favour boxes from eBay are like $30. I just made up the boxes, printed a little thank you poem and attached it to a little infinity symbol pendant looking thingy, then lastly put a Ferrero Rocher in the box. Voila. Favour boxes. The Ferrero Rocher’s were the most expensive part of the favours. I just made up 150 of those little favours and left them on the table.

Decorations:

This one was easy. Pinterest everything, it will change your life! I bought some little flower looking crepe paper lanterns and hung them up at our reception. I don’t think we decorated the church at all.

The church we got married at had a HUGE screen that dropped down behind us so we could put whatever backdrop we liked (we had the control room of a TARDIS as our backdrop).

There are some seriously amazing ideas on Pinterest that are pretty low cost so go check them out if you’re keen.

Cake:

We were extremely lucky that my nan made our wedding cake but there are some awesome cakemakers out there that won’t charge an arm or a leg. Do your research and get quotes from everywhere. There are some beautiful cakes for a fraction of the cost.

Last Tip: How to get everyone to your wedding without it costing a bajillion dollars

There’s nothing worse than having to cut down loved friends and family off the guestlist because it will cost $80+ per head at your chosen venue. We didn’t want to leave anyone out because we’ve been left out and it’s not a fun feeling, but, after planning a wedding I totally get why that’s the case now. Choosing between your great aunt and one of your close friends because your mum says “You can’t leave family out” is a really crap feeling. So, we figured out a way that we can have our cake and eat it too.

We had 150 guests on our list. We found a venue (a church) that held at least that many people, we had an afternoon tea (catered by us) for everyone directly after the ceremony (cocktail style). We did speeches, cutting of the cake and other wedding must-haves here. We then took our close friends and family back to someone’s house and had a very informal buffet dinner catered by a local caterer which was about $1500 all up and we catered dessert ourselves.

I think in total our entire wedding was like $3000. Everyone brags about how chill it was to this day and for us it was perfect.

If there is one thing I would spend my money on it would be a professional photographer. This one is important. Those memories will be with you for the rest of your life. I definitely would spend money on a professional photographer.

It’s definitely possible to have your wedding day at a low cost yet still elegant. I hope your wedding day is everything you imagine it to be. :)