5 Easy Wedding Money Saving Tips
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When trying to save money on your wedding it’s easy to waste hours looking for deals and bargains. Here are five super easy wedding money saving tips.
Wedding Money Saving Tips
I’ve already written a couple of wedding-related posted including the big one – Why I wish we’d actually spent more money on our wedding. However, I know there are still plenty of people our there who are trying to be super budget conscious about theirs.
When trying to save money on your wedding it can be easy to get bogged down in hours and hours of bargain hunting – time which could be put to better use elsewhere on preparation for the big day. Here are my quick and easy tips for spending less without going bargain hunting.
1. Get extra wedding certificates at the registry office on the day
When you get married you will be issued a wedding certificate, which of course is a very important document. If you think you will need copies (I ordered 3 – one for safekeeping, one for using to change my name and one spare in case the one I’d sent off didn’t end up coming back) then it is much cheaper to order them on the day. Additional copies on the day cost just £4. If you need to order them at a later because of loss or damage it’s £10 a certificate. Just don’t do what we did and put all three in a ‘safe’ place and then forget where that was for six months!
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2. Wedding Money Saving Tips: Not Everyone needs to be a bridesmaid
There seems to be a growing trend for brides to have an inordinate number of bridesmaids. And of course the more you have the more costs will creep up. Even though it is possible to source cheap bridesmaids dresses (see if you can guess where mine were from here) there is then the additional costs of extra bouquets (or whatever you chose to walk down the aisle holding) and thank you gifts.
Think about other ways in which friends and family could be included in your special day such as asking them to do a reading, asking them to sing or play an instrument while you walk down the aisle or if they would like to be your something blue.
3. Fake flowers can look just as nice a real ones
At our wedding, we had a combination of real and fake flowers. This is because I have severe allergies and didn’t want to be holding pollen under my nose all day.
It meant I didn’t have the worry of flowers drooping or wilting and means that your bouquet will last forever. It also meant that all my bridesmaids could keep theirs’s too.
Fake flowers are considerably cheaper than real ones. I had mine made by a florist but you could easily have a go at home yourself to save even more cash. The brides and bridesmaids flowers are usually one of the biggest floral expenses so doing these yourself could be a great way to save money on your wedding.
Related Post – 5 Things that won’t actually save you money on your wedding
4. Wedding Money Saving Tips: Have a Separate Legal ceremony
Something you could consider doing to save money is to have the legal ceremony completely separately to the main wedding day. The most basic ceremony costs just £50 (plus the additional £35 each to give notice) and would be between just you and two witnesses.
This would eliminate the need for a registrar to attend on your big day saving around £400 pounds on average. It would also mean there would no need for the wedding to take place in a licensed wedding venue opening up a whole host of possibilities, such as a wedding on the beach or in the forest.
It would mean the ceremony could be performed by anyone you like too – from a friend or family member to a pagan priest or priestess. We chose to have an independent celebrant on our wedding day – you can find out more about him in this post.
5. Don’t give everyone a plus one
We had a really small wedding, only inviting around 60 guests to help keep costs down. This meant not actually giving some of our guests a plus one.
While I realize this is controversial – especially when it comes to only invite one half of a married couple – we found that not a single one of our guests complained or chose not to attend because of this. Some of our guests had new partners – so new we hadn’t met them yet so these were some we chose not to invite.
If you want to keep costs down think long and hard about each person and whether you really want to spend money on them being there.
Simple and elegant event planning can cut the cost on a huge scale. Also, I would prefer simple and small weddings, It can cut the cost too. For the small weddings, a couple can invite only a few of their closest family members and friends. It will not just save money but also give the couples a feeling of an intimate wedding. By the way, thanks for sharing those tips.
Thank you. Our wedding was quite small, just 50 guests in the end, and we really enjoyed the sense of intimacy that brought.
Thanks for this tips. Will surely come in handy and helpful for soon to be grooms and brides. I really like your ideas. There are definitely a few minor adjustments I could have made to save extra on my wedding.
Thank you for your comment!