Wedding photos by Philip Chang
Sacrificing travel plans for a wedding ain’t cool. Have your wedding cake and eat it too.
I could write about how not to spend money on a wedding — getting married at City Hall or eloping to some far flung place. But this is for those who want to have a more “traditional wedding” without having to take out a second mortgage on their home.
Below are some tips on where and how you can save some cash in planning your wedding, and still make it the beautiful and classy one you always wanted.
Free cherry blossoms
1. Keep the guest count down
Do you really need to invite your third cousin twice removed’s little niece? Stick to those who you keep in touch with on a regular basis. If you haven’t broke bread with someone in over a year, it’s probably not appropriate for them to partake in your day. We kept the guest numbers down by limiting the invitees to immediate family and the closest of friends.
Yes, you may rub some people the wrong way, but this is your day. You have your reasons, and they should be respected.
To take that further, we split the wedding in two parts: ceremony/dinner and par-tay. Half the guests came after dinner to celebrate with us, which also helped keep costs down.
2. Make your own invitations
Another nice thing about keeping the guest count down is you need fewer invitations. This means you should have time to make and send them out yourselves. If you’re crafty like my wife, you can make unique and special cards. We included a blank page in the invitation and requested that the guests make it their page in our guestbook and to bring it to the wedding.
With the time they had we received some really thoughtful and colourful pages to insert into our guestbook. Much more personal than just a couple sentences and a signature, or, worse, drunken words of advice.
3. Use your contacts
If you think about it, you probably know someone who has some handy skills you could take advantage of. Maybe even a friend of a friend. An old high school chum who I occasionally ran into agreed to do our flower arrangements (it just so happened she is a florist). In lieu of payment, we invited her to the wedding.
Friends and family were also more than willing to chip in as they could, some coming to the venue early to help set up decorations and chairs. And speaking of venues…
Barclay Manor in Vancouver’s West End
4. Find a cheap venue
While the big ballroom with floor-to-ceiling glass and a panoramic view over the ocean is ideal, it’s going to be expensive. Find a place that doesn’t normally do weddings.
We scored a beautiful heritage house and struck up a nice little relationship with the events coordinator. We negotiated a great deal and had extra access to the venue for planning purposes and also cleaning up post-wedding.
5. Be your own DJ
Sorry DJs of the world, but you aren’t needed here. We sent out an email to our guests and asked them for song requests. I then mixed everything together myself with MixMeister. It was easy to use and it was fun putting it together, plus it makes a great memento. We still have the original file and dance to it on our anniversary.
At the wedding, you can play this mix from your iPod or laptop. We rented a mixing board and big speakers for party level music. We also got a dancing colour light.
Professional DJ for $1000 or this set-up for $80? You decide.
6. Don’t go pro
It’s not always a case of “you get what you pay for”. We’ve all heard the horror stories of professionals providing less than adequate service. But it also works the other way round. You can get some seriously good service for a discounted price.
Photographer: We found one just starting out in the biz and so was offering a deep discount while he built up his profile. He came with an assistant (with his own camera too) and was with us for eight hours.
Plus, he was willing to give us all the images he (and his assistant) took throughout the day instead of just a set amount of prints.
The “homemade” wedding cake
Videographer: Also a newbie, but as this was his first wedding he offered to do it for free to get his portfolio going. The end result was fantastic and he was extremely professional, polite, and took great care of us.
Caterer: Try a culinary school to keep your catering costs down. If you’re in Vancouver, check out Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. My mouth is watering just thinking of the food they dished up that night.
We found a cheap and cheerful bartender off Craigslist, where we also found the photographer and videographer. Just make sure you meet with them at least a couple times to make sure you’re comfortable with them.
7. Make your own cake
This is not for the faint hearted, but you can save heaps here. Rather than a sugary, fluffy cake, use one you actually like. We used a tuxedo cake (from Save-On Foods) square base, with a round raspberry and white chocolate cake on top, offset in the corner for artistic purposes. And, of course, decorated it.
8. Find some good, cheap booze
Who says you have to spend over $20 a bottle for some good wine? We tested a bottle or two each week, which was fun in itself, and found a red (Chile) and a white (Germany) for around $10. Same goes for the sparkling stuff, no need for the Dom Perignon.
9. Finally, recoup the costs
I don’t care what people say, I think it’s perfectly fine to ask for cash gifts, especially when the guest knows where it’s going (i.e. travel funds). You can also mix it with a registry of sorts for things you actually need.
Other random things we did to keep the costs down:
We rented a white PT Cruiser — modern, classy AND cheap — and I asked a work colleague to be our chauffeur. We “pruned” the cherry blossom trees around town for some free and beautiful center pieces (do this under the cloak of night).
All unopened bottles of booze and mixers were returned to the liquor store and Safeway, respectively.
Also, Yvonne’s wedding dress was so last year. But it was also so not expensive. And it was so gorgeous.
COMMUNITY CONNECTION
If you’d rather plan a destination wedding than go the traditional route, Matador has the Ultimate Guide to Planning a Destination Wedding.
And we’ll never leave you at the altar– check out 16 Places to Stretch Your Honeymoon Dollar too.
For those of you who have already passed this stage and are on the next phase, you’d best read the Expectant Mom’s Guide to Travel.
How about you? Do you have any wedding money saving tips to share?
Pop them in the comments below!
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19 Comments... join the discussion!
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Totally with Eva on the Awwwww factor! And I LOVE the last photo, especially.
These are such great tips.↵ -
Awwwwwww!
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Great ideas! And your cake looked (and, I imagine, tasted) amazing.
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Aww, thanks guys!
And yes Michelle, the cake was amazing, in taste AND looks! (all thanks to Yvonne). We miss that tuxedo cake from Save-On.
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Great stuff, Carlo! From the looks of it, your budget photographer brought his A-game. Really nice photos.
I like the centerpiece foraging idea too. Anyone ever thrown a freegan wedding?
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Ha…never heard that term before Hal! Had to look it up. Would love to hear from someone who’s done that.
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Gorgeous photos and off the charts awwww factor. Or as they’d say in Japan, kawaii!! (”Cute!” : the ultimate compliment for just about anything.) That cake looks delicious.
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Excellent, excellent, excellent article Carlo!
Beautiful photos and that cake looks so decadent!
As you might know, I’m neck deep in planning a destination wedding right now.
And…..I’m happy to report that I’ve been using some of the tips on this list (self-made invites, cheap photographer,etc) to keep costs down as best as I can.
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Awesome article. Not planning a wedding anytime soon, but always thinking about how I’m going to avoid those outrageous prices. Thanks!
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Good tips ….. BUT …. keep in mind that when you do pay an established pro for a service, you are paying for less risk. There is definitely more risk involved with someone who doesn’t have an established client base behind them. Everyone does get started somewhere ….. but I’ve witnessed officiants coming late, a DJ not showing up at all …….. and a few others things that I would have rather not witnessed . The vendors that did the big screw ups were the newbies.
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Agreed 100%. There is more risk in using someone inexperienced, which is why it’s very important to meet with them at least a couple of times. You should be able to get a good sense of their personality and how interested they are in your special day.
Even the officiant, we met with her a couple times and spoke over the phone about vows and the timing/schedule. Any of the things we might have done differently had nothing to do with any of the service we hired, but choices we made ourselves.
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Hi Carlo-
I thought this was a fabulous article. I think you hit on all the “political” issues that no one wants to have to deal with when planning a wedding – relatives, wedding venues, booze etc…..
I like the idea of looking at alternative venues and Barkley Manor looks like a stellar place for a very special day (judging from your photos)
Been on Matador for awhile but getting back into commenting and posting again.
Cheers,
Peter
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I totally love the idea of making the invitations yourself, and adding a blank page that people can decorate and bring to the wedding.
My problem is that I have SO many people that I want to share this day with (having traveled a bunch since college, there are a bunch of people that I want to surround me when the day comes. So my brilliant idea is to have a huge barbecue outside; forget the china and Surf N Turf menus; no one remembers the food and a low-key giant outdoor picnic is exactly the vibe I’d want.
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Thanks for the words guys…I definitely think the most agonizing decisions are related to guests. I also think you’re bound to rub some people the wrong way, so what can you do!
Peter, are you in Vancouver? The great thing about Barclay Manor was also that we had it for such a long time. To get a more traditional wedding venue it would have cost an arm and a leg. I think because it’s not such a normal business for them that they are really free to cater and customize to your liking. And of course aren’t after the massive bucks that some places command.
Jen, that sounds great. One of the things we’d probably do differently if we could go back would be to have a stand up reception with hors d’ouevres. If we did it this way we could’ve had everyone there for the whole time instead of breaking it up in two. That said, there’s nothing we regret about it.
Best of luck with the planning!
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Just a word of caution – when you choose a budget vendor, you will probably get a budget product. Caveat! It’s your money, but it is also one of the most important days of your life. If your only objective is a big party, then by all means go cheap, but if you want good service and good quality products, be prepared to spend a little more.
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Thanks Luigi. Just to point out, this has nothing to do with a “big party”. On the contrary, our wedding was quite small relatively speaking (28 guests for ceremony/dinner, plus another 20 for the party). While it may be a bit more of a risk to go with the unknown, there’s also no guarantee that you will get your money’s worth if you spend the big bucks. That’s why I stress to make sure you’re comfortable with the people you are hiring.
And besides the hired help, doing things on your own not only saves money but it makes it very personal and special.
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I agree with it being OK to ask for money instead of gifts. My husband and I did just that, and now we’re happily backpacking around Peru. The hard part is how to word it–we don’t have room in our backpacks for crockpots, is what we said.
We also wanted to invite as many people as possible while keeping the costs down, so we opted for a camping wedding on my parents’ farm, where our friends brought their tents and hung out for the weekend. This allowed us to be able to spend quality time with people who we were close to, thus avoiding the traditional wedding problem of not having enough time to talk with everyone. Through using contacts and bartering with friends we kept our costs down considerably.
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I wish I’d read this article 3 years ago! My husband and I did a lot of these things but came up with them as our own “original” ideas. We had the wedding at a bed and breakfast (out of town guests also stayed there), made our own invitations (stamp embossing ivy leaves on the envelopes was a great yet simple way to make them look fancy), and got a woman who professionally bakes out of her home to make us a delicious wedding cake (a carrot cake with cream cheese icing). I bought my dress at Davids Bridal for $99 at their “$99 sale”. It was a classically beautiful Oleg Cassini dress (he designed for Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe) on sale for less than the fabric was worth only because it wasn’t a-line and strapless. We put our own music playlist together and bought box wine and a keg of Abita beer. The only thing we went professional with was the caterer (part of the B&B’s contract), florist, and photographer (a gift from my MIL). They were great except for the photographer, who ended up sending a newbie assistant in her place. My husband’s cousin picked up the photography slack, and his photography hobby has since turned professional!
Aside from the photographer, my husband and I couldn’t have had a better wedding. You’re totally right that you have other options besides eloping at the courthouse or spending $20,000, despite what the bridal magazines say!
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