Budget!

That's great Shannon! I might have a few ideas for you... I don't know if they will be your style so let me know:

Butterfly invitation wrap. Like it?

Using wine bottles to make your seating chart

DIY gold Mason Jar centerpieces

Let us know how it goes! I can't wait to see all your ideas!

Hi Kate! These are amazing ideas! I'm so happy you're joining us and sharing these with us. Did you find anything interesting for your veil?

What did you choose to for your reception? Will you go for a cocktail reception? I can't wait to hear all about your plans!

Hey Emilie!

Thank you! I'm planning to do the centrepieces entirely myself, that being said I feel like they will be so easy but I guess we will see! Other than that, I'm not too sure, probably invites also!

Awesome! Photography was my #1 thing that had to be awesome, that being said my friend is absolutely amazing and we're getting 2 photographers for $1900! So we definitely scored there! Lots of great ideas! Thank you!!!

Hahaha OMG best response ever! I love it! I think we're going with the teal and purple so it'll be nice I think

Peacock colours are amazing! Such an awesome combination! We aren't having a theme either! I'm not a "themey" person lol When people ask me what my theme is I usually say "My theme is getting married" hahah

We cut the photographer (family friend will do our wedding party portraits)... Print your own invations $30 for 100 at party city (they also have a good selection of decorations)... Bulk flowers from Costco, they will deliver them to your door a few days before the event... We are getting the local girl guides to cater our supper, it will be about $16 a plate... We are doing a diy photo booth for around $100... I'm also waiting on buying things till they go on sale, and asking for further discounts at the till (doesn't hurt to ask, the worst they can say is no)... Before I bought my dress off the rack and on clearance from a bridal salon, I visited most of the thrift stores in Edmonton there was a surprisingly good selection of wedding dresses, each store had at least one.

Wow! Lots of tips thank you!! I envision somewhat peacock themed but just the colours, we aren't going with an actual theme. I have the centrepieces that I want to do set, just a matter of getting the things to put them together!

Hi there, im constantly looking for ways to save too. Currently im looking online for things like my vail, wedding jewlery, gifts for wedding party, decor or even my flowers. There are so many wedding things for sale on Kijiji just watch the pricing some people are willing to get ride of stuff for cheap others are not.

Food and venue are the most expensive part of the wedding so i would start there. If your having a small wedding think about putluck, or pricing out cheaper places like gercery stores, local cafes or costoc! You could have a coctail hour recpetions later in the evening that way you dont have to feed guest a full dinner, just have apps and late night snacks. Some venues are cheaper on fridays or sundays, and shop around.

Hi Shannon! I'm so happy you already got such useful advice in here! Welcome to the community! You can also take a look at these discussions for ideas: Budget brides

Have a wonderfull wedding with the lowest budget

Going over budget

You'll see that the community is a wonderful place to exchange tips on how to save.

Are you planning on doing any DIYs for the wedding?

Congratulations and so sorry about your mom! I'm sure she's helping you from a very special place! For invitations, a fellow bride Simone told me about Zazzle! They've got great Invitations and you can find some thay are reasonably priced. Check out Bridal Salons too! Alot of them carry invitations and some are cheaper than what you can get online. Saratina Bridal on Oakville had Invitations I really liked and for 125 of them they were around $200! Not bad. Check in the video section. I posted a video of budget friendly wedding planning I found on you tube. Some great ideas there. Check out local bridal shows in your area too. You can find local vendors that give out great promotions! Oh check out a site called Withjoy as an option for a wedding website ! They have lots of classy templates and I like the way it's organised and set up. There is so many things you can do! What do you imagine your wedding to be like?

I understand, having it on a Saturday was really important to us as well. Also, as much as I LOVE DIY, it can get pricey when you have to buy all the materials and tools so just watch out for that (depending on the project of course!). Unfortunately without specifics, I'm not sure what else to suggest. Samtam had a great suggestion about the invites! I completely made mine myself and I love them! It was a bit time consumming, but I've definitely taken on worse. And it was WAAAAAAYYY cheaper!

Thanks! Losing Mom has honestly made this so much harder! She was my best friend and I was looking forward to having her for all of this, so it's definitely hard.

We're cutting save the dates, planning to do invites on a website with sale (haven't heard of Minted but will totally check it out!) we were looking at vista print. The one venue we're looking at has a rental fee of only $200! Which would be amazing! Then meal on top of that, but it's only $35 - $45 per person, and catered by one of our favourite (and top restaurants) in the area.

I think I'm struggling on finding inspiration. I have ideas, but hard to put them into play. It was alot easier planning a pinterest wedding before I was engaged! haha! I think it's also hard because my SO would prefer just going to the justice and signing papers and doesn't seem thrilled about the whole day. He doesn't like attention on him, so I'm not sure how to make it more fun for him either :/.

Hey Valerie,

We're definitely skipping save the dates to cut that cost, the photographer we budgetted $3000 and came in at $1900 so that was a HUGE saving right there!! We aren't planning a traditonal cake, I was thinking more of a donut cake, since I LOVE donuts! We might get something small to cut, but haven't thought of that!! Sadly our guest list is the hardest to cut. I have a large family in which most of them I can't imagine not having there. I've considered a Friday but the date is really important to me, so I'm pretty set on it! We also have friends and family coming from out of town, so I don't want to make them book off more time than needed to travel!

Thanks for the ideas!

I'm sorry about your mom. Fake flowers are a great way to save money though! We did paper flowers and they were much cheaper. They looked amazing too and were a highlight of our wedding! We also saved a ton on our Save the Dates and invitations. We got our Save the Dates off of Minted and waited until they were having a sale to order them. We got our invitations off of Etsy and they were less expensive than some of the fancy places. Michael's has some kits for invitations and you can print them yourself. (And they have great coupons every week!)

We were also very minimal with our decorations which helped keep down costs. Luckily our reception space was already really nice so we didn't have to add much to it. For our cake, we did a 2 tier display cake that we cut and then the res of the cake was sheet cake. Sheet cake is generally $2-3 cheaper per slice and tastes the same!

Just keep in mind that DIY does not always mean less expensive! It can be costly to buy all of the materials to make what you want and sometimes you can find someone else who has more experience and can buy the materials in bulk for their business.

What other ideas have you come up with so far?

Hey Shannon! You can skip save the dates, favors, menus, programs, cut back with a shorter photography package, make whatever you can, get a smaller cake for display/cutting, use sheet cakes from grocery stores (or Costco) for guests (it's cut in the back so no one knows), fake flowers, minimal decor, second hand wedding dress and keeping your guest list as small as possible, to name a few. There are many ways you can save money, it all depends on what's most important you and your SO, and that you make sure to host your guests properly (with proper food and drink).

Also if you haven't booked your venue you can go with an off season date and a Friday or Sunday wedding will REALLY bring down the price!

Agreed, you definitely save on not going with real flowers! Plus there's always people with allergies lol! I was at a wedding show on Sunday and one of the decorators gets her flowers from Michaels and they looked amazing! On that note I'm a huge fan of coupons for saving $$

We are planning to save quite a bit of money by not using real flowers, I would've used flowers from my Mom's garden but sadly she's no longer here to help me with that, she used to be a real green thumb, so we're going to steer away from real, whether we go silk, or something else is another thing. The one venue we've located is SUPER reasonable, so if we book there, we will save over $800 we budgetted for venue! Which would be a nice chunk!

I think I gotta learn how to be crafty and start making things! haha! Thanks for the tips

I know a lot of girls save quite a bit with making their own centrepieces and decorations, if you are fortunate enough to be crafty! I think most venues increase the prices on long weekends/ special occasions as well if you haven't set a definitive date!