Calling all frugal brides

Most of the money to 4 vendors only:
Venue
Photographer
Videographer
DJ
Other costs were small ebay or amazon site. Favours close to $375
Wedding and Reception outfits + accessories $1100.

To save money we chose a completely different town to get married in. We both grew up in Canmore, AB (big wedding destination spot), but i was NOT willing to spend at the very least 10K on one day.

So we switched to a little town in BC where our cabin is, and it cut the cost down in half.

I've also bought decor items off buy and sells. My makeup artist is just starting her business, so i got a fantastic rate. Plus, we're only having 43 guests .

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That's right, Jen. I have found that as soon as you put wedding in front of anything, the price triples.

We found ways to cut down the price in our decor and disperse it elsewhere throughout the wedding. Our decorator wanted $2000 at first for everything but we found other alternatives. Always do your research and find other ways to cut down costs, without taking away from the things you want!

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I got my 3/4 length lace dress brand new for $40.00 last summer!! I think I'm also going to do my own nails.

Bethany, then you also saved on the handbag if you don't use one. LOL.

View quoted message I bought my shoes from le chateau but they were on sale. I saved on my veil by borrowing a friends. I don't have a hand bag haha

View quoted message For makeup, the venue has a spa on site that offers makeup so I just went with that. They had a deal For it so I was fortunate in that case. For hair, my hairdresser is coming down to do my hair, since I've been her client for a while and she's doing this as a favour she's giving me a deal. For nails, I may just paint them myself. Something simple. Like a nude or blush colour. For my dress I was blessed that my mom offered to pay for it. But, when my sister got married she purchased her gown second hand for like 150$! You would have never guessed it was used it was like new! I would definitely recommend looking at consignment shops or even groups online like on Facebook or even Kijiji, people are often selling used dresses at a discount and they are practically new looking.

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You can save a lot by buying from a consignment shop. Did you save on your shoes and handbag also?

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You chose the things that were most important for you to spend money on. What about your dress, make up, hair, and nails? Were you able to find ways of cutting costs in these areas?

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You are so right, there are all kinds of ways to save. The venue and food are often the most expensive so you did really well.

We put most of our money into the venue, photographer and dj. We didn't go all out on so and photographer but we paid what I considered reasonable. Those are the most important aspects for me so I was willing to pay a reasonable amount. We are either not having a cake or if we do, my FH's friend is going to make us simply one tier just to cut for photos (We have a LOT of food at the wedding so we aren't sure cake is necessary) my friend is also doing my flowers but we are only using real flowers for my bouquet and my MOH's bouquet (I only have 2 people on my side of the wedding party and one of them is a guy) the rest of the flowers will be silk.

I bought my dress at a consignment shop. Other than that, I just compared prices on quality against cost and booked that way. My wedding was still more than I budgeted, but I think I'm getting the best bang for my buck

We got a lot of things on sale (guestbook, invitations, banner to name a few) and will be making some stuff as well. We were lucky enough to be able to use some family property as our venue which was a big savings. We are also going to be using some stuff on that property like tables and outdoor seating during our cocktail reception before dinner so we didn't have to book extra stuff there either which was nice. We will probably be ordering bulk flowers online and making our own bouquets and centerpieces. We looked and compared several rental companies as well and even found one that didn't charge for delivery to a place 3 hours away . There are so many ways to save for a wedding.