Budget cuts

We're not serving a full meal. (Appetizers and Cake)


I'm DIY-ing bouquets and centerpieces. (Maybe artificial so I can resell them afterwards)
We're not having favors. (Who wants our initials on a jar of jam anyway?!)
I've set what I hope are fair amounts for different parts of our big day, and so far I've been on track or under budget! Hopefully that continues, we're trying to stay under $6500.

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Hi wondering where you are having your wedding ??

We cut the favours. No one will miss them and most of the time, guests forget to bring them home.

A photobooth and limo we cut!

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Who will control the playlist? thank you!

We skipped the DJ instead we are using a playlist on our phone and a rented sound system! It saves us about **** dollars

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So sorry to hear about your FH injury! I hope he gets better very soon

thanks for the tips, we are thinking to cut out corsages/boutonnieres for parents too, our decor will be 95% second hand

It's funny that I seen this today, over the weeding my FH and I were sitting down and talking about cutting things out. He got injured and is off work for at least 6 weeks ( wedding is in 9 weeks) so now the money is even tighter than before.

So we are cutting out ceremony seating, chairs only for the elderly and ones we know can't stand for long.

Our favors are the cupcakes as our buffet comes with dessert.

We originally planned on paying for the ladies hair and makeup, they are now and understand why.

No day of coordinator

cash bar, my step mom offered to pay for the wine, which is being served instead of just left on the tables

No gifts for each other

parents and grandparents are not getting corsages/boutonnieres

Decor is borrowed from friends

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Great tips! We are doing similar things regarding: same venue for reception and ceremony, no wedding planner, simple and multipurpose place cards/favours, our wedding is on a Sunday so we saved a lot of money with that!

I'm still 2 years out from my wedding, but I am reducing paper! I'm going with digital save the dates (most of our guests are flying in from all over the world so it also saved an additional $240 on postage), we aren't doing menu cards, we aren't doing timelines on paper, just one on glass for everyone to see, we aren't doing name cards either we are just doing a seating chart and people can choose where they sit at the table allocated to them.

Fake flowers, I'm making our bouquets so I want to be able to do them well in advance and not worry about them dying. It's a 2 for 1.

Our honeymoon - Matt and I are avid travellers and have decided to do a very unconventional honeymoon, instead of all-inclusive relaxation we are going for a conservation trip in Africa. It's longer, cheaper and suits us better.

Ceremony and Reception at the same venue. We fell in love with our venue and don't feel we need two locations.

Wedding cake - Just a tiny cake for us to cut. Nothing spectacular and we aren't telling the bakery it's for a wedding to save even more $$. We don't need it delivered so it works out.

We are doing an open bar, but we are keeping it simple: Wine, Beer, Vodka and Bourbon

Found some cute, cheap wedding favours on eBay. I wasn't bothered either way if we had them or not, we are covering everyone's accommodation with the rental of our venue so I don't feel I owe our guests a spectacular favour.

By supplying accommodation we save on transport too, no drunk drivers and no need for us to hire limos or anything.

We aren't using a wedding planner, and I have connections from working in the wedding industry for 6 years so I am taking advantage of that when it comes to photography and videography.

We are cutting corners in places that won't be noticed so we can spend in other areas like the open bar.

Not so much having cut those close to the day, since most of our vendors were booked far enough in advance. Here's what we've cut:

No engagement photos, no bridal party, we're going with fake flowers instead of real ones (and saved about $2,000 doing so!) and we're reusing some of them throughout the ceremony and reception, went with a buffet vs. a plated dinner, not renting a limo or fancy car to drive us back to our airbnb (my parents are renting a car, so we're using theirs), not doing favours, not doing an open bar, not renting any decor and using everything that's included with the venue.

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of them right now.

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Thanks for the tip! We are not planning to hire a planner either. A lot of days for sure, especially flowers!

I didn't really cut things closer to the day, but I planned ahead of time to do a lot on my own. We didn't bother with a planner, our wedding was at a restaurant so we did very minimal decorating. They would use their own linens or we could bring our own - we opted for theirs. It just depends on how important certain things are to you.

View quoted message Ok awesome, thank you so much!!
Let me know if it's too personal to ask, but just curious: how old are you, if this is both you and your partners first marriage and if any kids are involved? If too personal just say so, i am just curious because of my, i guess "story"

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Save the Dates are for when you have an exact date booked, and it goes out a few months before the actual wedding invites, to inform guests early so that they can reserve that day for you (i.e. not plan anything else on that day)

VistaPrint is an online company that offers somewhat affordable invites https://www.vistaprint.ca/vp/welcomeback.aspx?xnav=welcome&rd=1

View quoted message Thats smart, i will have to think about it more for when I do get married, that being the invites or save the date.
Feel dumb asking but does save the date just mean to tell guess that this date is most likely will be when you will/might be getting married?
Also what is VistaPrint?

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Yes, thinking of doing VistaPrint for invites. And probably e-invites for Save the Dates and Rehearsal..

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Thinking to do the same. Pinterest helps!

We decided to not hire a professional decorator. All of our decor is either provided by the venue with our package or it'll be DIY. Between the venue and DIY, we didn't find it necessary to hire a decorator.

I’m thinking of cutting favours. Guests usually throw them out or forget to bring them home. I would rather put those funds towards something else that guests will love. Also the wedding cake. It’s so expensive so we’re thinking of doing a donut tower instead.

Favours are a big one as well as a real cake!!!

Cakes are so expensive so we are doing a three tier cake with the 2 bottom tiers being fake and saved loads of $$$

Most recently we have decided to cut having charger plates and instead go with customized napkins. We also don't have it in the budget to rent glasses (our vendors do clear plastic) but at the same time with our venue being on the river and bonfires in the evening we wouldn't want to give glass to drunk people to carry around outside...

We didn't cut decor but we have decided to DIY most of it and go for the minimalistic look.

I would recommend not cutting for photos, I personally would rather spend more on photos then anything else (within reason), because in the end photos are the only memory you have left. Invitations get thrown out and flowers die, and decorations in the end become dust collecters.

We cut the wedding coordinator- she did cancel on us about 6 months before wedding. We decided not to hire another one, we also made sure to stick to our number of guests for food and if people canceled it was money to help us with elsewhere- we didn't invite more last second. I didn't do boutineers or corsages for parents. We did fake for us and didn't think necessary as most take off after few hours. I am also highly allergic to most flowers too lol Decor I bought most and then able to borrow a bunch as well which has helped

Here's how we cut some costs :

- Later ceremony, no dinner but plenty of ''late night snack'' to be served from 9pm to 11pm. ( We are having a poutine and nacho bar).

- I didn't go overboard with my wedding dress. I know that's not something many wants to compromise on but I found beautiful dresses under 700$ that could work for me.

- I opted for cupcakes for my guest and a smaller wedding cake just for us.

- We bought our wedding bands on a payment plan, just so we had more cashflow and then plan on paying them soon rather than later.

- We opted for drink tickets instead of wine on the table.

Just a few ideas! I was able to stay within my budget

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True! I've actually started collecting secondhand decor from buy and sells online to save as much money as I can because I want so many decorations too!

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Thanks for the tip!

View quoted message Most suit places don’t provide shirts either, it’s an extra cost to look out for.

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Holy crap that is expensive!! We were expecting 1200cad at the maximum

View quoted message My FH was deadset on buying. The quotes we got were **** each. Ridiculous!!

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Same in Alberta! We also don't have any planners as that can rack up to at least 6-10k.. Also considering the suit rental for FH. But for now he is set at buying his own suit. I'm pretty sure he'll come round eventually lol

We aren’t doing a day of coordinator, so we cut that totally. My FH has finally decided to rent a suit instead of buying.

We are using a friend of my sisters as a videographer which saved us a ton of money.

We tried to save where we could but Toronto/GTA weddings are definitely not budget friendly