Cheap Wedding Tips from Friends
A couple of friends have shared their “cheap ways to wed” tips with me this week. They’re a good reality check and example for how you can get creative with your budget!
A girlfriend who was married just a few years and works for a destination management company who has connections to vendors in the area ago shares this:
• I did my foliage, flowers, rehearsal dinner and reception cake through work - all at cost.
• My coworkers paid for our honeymoon hotel and sent many treats while there.
• I had my wedding suit made (with materials and labor $100). I made my hat and veil made as well.
• We found our bagpiper at Fiddlers Green [a local Irish restaurant] and paid the high schooler like $50 to play.
• I hired the string quartet directly.
• My friend did my invitations for cheap and I had a "write them out party."
• I made my out of town guests welcome bags myself.
Overall, I think my wedding was like $5,500. I blew all the money on my photos which I
wasn't that thrilled with. That's really my only regret.
A guy friend who was married quite a few years ago shared this:
We were two college kids, flat broke. I had graduated six months before. My wife was a fresh graduate. She had a job, I was working as a janitor.
• Let's see, the suit was ten bucks from the church rummage sale.
• My wife’s father began saving his quarters when she was born. When she said, I'm getting married he gave her twenty rolls of them. (It paid for her wedding gown.)
• The church was free. (I worked there)
• The reception was free. (The ladies quilting club knew my mother so they "catered" the reception. (TONS of homemade cookies and classic wedding punch).
• The head custodian (my boss and one of my ushers) didn't charge us.
• The organist was 50 bucks.
• The photographer was 150 for the most basic package. (Plus my wife's brother was a amateur photographer and his pictures wound up being better than the professionals)
• My mother made all the bouquets.
• My roommates and I were all communication majors so they made a "mix" tape to play at our reception.
• I did pay an additional ten bucks for a tie.
On the flip side, my wife's roommate at the time had been cutting pictures out of bride's magazines since she was 12. She wound up paying thousands and had the most miserable day of her life because nothing went like she wanted it to.
Go figure.
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Thanks for the tips, guys! Post your wedding tips in the comment section!
Comments
Hey Cara,
I just bought your book a few weeks ago from your husband in school. and OMG! it's helping me so much.. now i really dont have to worry about putting a huge hole in mine or my parents pocket and still go to collage!!!! Thank you so much for your time and effert its a huge help....oh yea and me and my husband to be would love to have you and Mr Davis attend our wedding so I'll be sure to get your home adress before i leave the school. once again thank you i dont know what i would have done with out all this helpful info!
Love
christina
Posted by: Christina Paez | April 4, 2006 08:30 AM
Cara,
I read Cheap Ways To Tie the Knot, and gave a copy to each one of my friends who are recently engaged. I love the book and recommend it to everyone I know who is getting married. My only problem now is that I am a Bridesmaid for 4 upcoming weddings. If they weren't my best friends from college, I would have said no. But now I'm looking for cheap ways to be a Bridesmaid. There isn't much information out there, so I am wondering if you have any advice?
Posted by: Kara | January 16, 2007 01:54 PM