Where did you cut costs?

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ALSO: paying cash can save you the tax at many vendors! Ask if that is an option for you! We have saved over $1000 so far by paying cash deposits.

**** If paying cash - make sure you get receipts or confirmation of payment from the vendor

I LOVE THIS and really wish I would have thought of it.. so smart!

First thing first, the meal. we are doing family potluck. all our family lives pretty close by so not hard to get everyone together and get every one to make a dish to bring.

2. ALOT of DIY. although some people say this is more expensive we were actually able to cut a lot of cost. ( fake flowers= made all my own bouquets and center pieces ) plus a lot of the DIY things I made I had the materials to make them given to me.

and the last big help was my dress and the men's attire, I am wearing my sister wedding dress and the boys are wearing blue jeans and white shirts!

Oh where to begin!

1. Making our own wedding favours.
Luckily my Aunt volunteered her services to bake our wedding favours, so all we have to pay for is supplies and packaging.

2. Small wedding party.
We just have 3 people total in our bridal party, therefore only 3 people to buy gifts for.

3. No wedding cake*.
Our meal comes with dessert, PLUS the late night table offered at our venue is so much better than a cake will be.

4. VistaPrint invitations.
They were cheap in cost but high in quality! Yes, it takes time to find the one you like and adjust all the wording, but the effort is worth the money you save.

5. Getting married on a Sunday.
We opted for a Sunday wedding for a variety of reasons, one being that it’s easier on the pocketbook. We’re saving 20% on our guest meals, so we’re able to add in extras that we want with that saved money.

6. Using Uber to get around.
We love 10 minutes from both our venues and could not justify paying so much money for a limo ride that will take a grand total of 30 minutes for the day.

* We might change our minds and get a cake, but as for right now, there’s no cake to be had.

Cutting costs on:

Bar - we are having open bar but not through a hotel or anything that charges an arm and a leg

Food - we are having catering which costs WAY LESS than a hotel would charge you for using their executive chef

Flowers - not only are we going with artificial flowers, but my Baba is a florist that has access to all the warehouses so we get a bulk discount!

Invitations - Vistaprint + some hand delivering of invitations to save on postage

October wedding - out of season so we get the venue for the weekend for the price of a day

Cake - just getting one tier for cake cutting

Etc.!! lol there are so many places to cut costs if you try!

Saved on
-diy decor
-saving on flowers by purchasing bulk from a local flower farm
-small guestlist
-vistaprint for invites

We did however splurge on food and drink.

We saved money by:

- Not having a cake - it wasn't important to either of us

- Super small guest list. 12 people got invited not including us. Highly recommend this! We are having a summer reception at a campground for next to nothing and it kept everyone happy.

- Got married on a Friday - this saved us all the premiums. We got the private dining space for free and only had to pay for the food and alcohol. Our officiant's rates were cheaper for weekdays. The limos were cheaper. Everything was cheaper.

- We didn't decorate the venue - we just asked that vases be put out on the tables and we put our bouquets in them as the centerpieces.

- No DJ - we had a very small wedding so I created a playlist and people still had fun and grooved. Alcohol helped lol.

- Online invitations only and a Facebook event page to keep people up to date

- Chose a park as our ceremony venue and snuck in - you risk getting busted and kicked out but we're go with the flow kind of people and it was perfect and no one said anything so no venue fee there either

- We had a friend be our videographer for free!

I think those are the top ones. We had a pretty epic wedding that was destination (Victoria, BC) in an expensive area and we paid for travel (airfare/hotel/food) for ourselves and 4 other people and we splurged big time on a few things (outfits/hair and makeup/photographer) and we still came in under 20k all in.

We are cutting costs by:
-cheap but amazing photographer (found on kijiji)
-lots of greenery and garland in place of flowers
-reusing ceremony flowers at reception (on favour table etc)
-found bakery that will do a cake for $130
-my mom is paying for my dress but still keeping the cost reasonable
-lots of DIY decor. My fiancé is even building the arch for the ceremony that we will later keep in our garden
-DIY favours
-invitations from vistaprint

the key thing for me is constantly researching to find good deals on things

Regardless of cost we wanted a winter wedding, it's just a bonus that our venue gives us an off season discount on the food. our venue also luckily is quite decorated on it's own so we don't need a lot of decoration and of the decorations we will have, such as centerpieces, I am making myself.

We hired a friend of my FFIL to do our photography so we are getting a big discount and we likely won't be having a videographer.

We cut costs by not hiring a professional decorator: we're doing all DIY!

I'm also DIYing the stationary so I only really have to pay for printing.

We spent less on our venues in order to be able to spend more on decor! I also work as a hairstylist so my bridal party will save money on their hair, and we’ve also chosen a venue where we can supply our own alcohol

We are saving on florals and decor. I wanted a minimal aesthetic, and luckily, that saved us quite a bit

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Oh I know - they're amazing! I'm keeping my eyes peeled for emails

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Vistaprint has 50% off sales throughout the year - I'm not sure exactly when, but if you keep your eye out it can save you so much if you wait to order them!

We are still planning but we plan to cut costs with:
- DIY the arch and some centre pieces
- size of cake
- doing the wedding during the week
- flowers

We picked a venue that included a lot of stuff so we didn't have to worry about buying it. So our venue does all the food, bar package, linens, center pieces and any decor that we need. We basically pick out everything we want and show up. So that has limited our costs a lot.

- not doing a videographer

- picked vendors from our venue (preferred vendors had lower prices)

- Borrowing a lot of wedding jewelry. I only bought a little hair piece.

Just limiting wherever I can. I don't have a set budget, but I have an idea of what I want to stay under.

Sor far we're cutting costs by:

- Florals: flowers aren't a priority for us so centrepieces will be artificial greenery with candles and fresh florals will be strictly in-season flowers

- Cake: FH's aunt will be making ours and giving us a substantial friends/family discount

- Decor: We chose a venue that won't need much but what we'll supply will be DIYed or thrifted

- Favours: DIY

- Invitations: Vistaprint & I'm learning calligraphy to hand-address the envelopes myself

- Transportation: Our ceremony, reception, photo, and hotel accomodations are all at the same venue so it eliminates the need for hired transportation

We will be DIY the centerpieces, bouquets with fake flowers, and not hiring a DJ will hopefully save us some $$.

We are cutting costs by making DIY centerpieces and favours. We have so much time from now until the wedding that we have been making more and more each weekend so that by the time wedding week comes we will not be panicking.

We also cut costs:

Invitations: We are planning our invitation designs now - looking on Etsy for a unique template then waiting for VistaPrint's 50% off site wide sale to order.

Keeping the decor simple, Fake cake - real top tier (for cutting into)

Our friend has offered to perform our ceremony and cocktail hour - so we only needed music for reception.

Transportation: Our wedding ceremony, pictures, and reception are all at the same place. We are saving money only hiring ONE limo for 4 hours. Picking up groom and groomsmen, then coming to pick up the ladies. UberBLACK for late night transfer to hotel.

ALSO: paying cash can save you the tax at many vendors! Ask if that is an option for you! We have saved over $1000 so far by paying cash deposits.

**** If paying cash - make sure you get receipts or confirmation of payment from the vendor

Happy Planning!

I didn’t start with a budget only because I’m getting married just outside of Toronto so I knew I’d be paying a pretty penny for a larger wedding.

now that I am about 85% done my planning, I have a number I want to stay around so I am:

- limiting my decor. Originally, I wanted to change all of the decor my venue provides (chairs, linens, etc.) but I’m foregoing changing out the chairs. It just got to be too expensive. I’m also shortening my backdrop to decrease the price.

- using student videographer. This has been probably my biggest savings to date. I’m using friends of my sister who are branching out into their own company. We’ll be their first clients.

- wedding dress. I’m quite proud of myself on this one. I found my wedding dress at one store but continued to shop around some more. The store I ended up buying from was over $1,000 cheaper. So definitely shop around even if you think you found your dress!

We cut costs with

- renting decor (did more DIY instead)
- faux flowers vs real (also needed this way due to allergies!)

-no garter toss

-small wedding cake instead of 3 tier and did some cupcakes

- didn't do deserts just did the cake instead

-cutting down on numbers for ceremony/dinner and inviting to reception only

We are just starting the planning process.
I was totally surprised as our estimated total grew and grew.
Some things we are already looking at cutting back or eliminating are:
-paying for bridal party suits, dress, hair, make up etc
-venue decorations
-amount of fresh flowers
-amount of bridal jewelry
-size of wedding cake