Wedding Wednesday: 5 Easy Ways to Save on Your Dream Wedding

Happy Wednesday, Babes!

If you’re new around here, you may not know that I recently got married a little over a year ago to my tall and handsome Hubby! He’s my biggest fan and sometimes even my photographer, so thanks to him, i can provide y’all with some great pics! Before the best day ever, AKA our wedding day there was A LOT of planning to do! If you’ve already planned your own wedding or if you currently are then you know what I mean when I say it can be total chaos and costly!

No one tells you when your start your dream Pinterest wedding board just how much cash you’ll need to make that board come to life! Chase and I had an almost 2 year long engagement so I had a lot of time to find ways to cut costs and save on my wedding budget. Today, I’m going to tell your five simple ways to save some money and still plan your dream wedding!

First up is FLORALS. I hands down believe these tips are what saved me the most money in my wedding budget! I knew I wanted pretty blooms throughout my wedding but I also knew that 1. they can cost a lot of money depending on the flower type and quantity and 2. you spend all that money and then they literally die, so it’s kind of a waste. I did some Pinterest exploring and fell in love with the idea off single blooms throughout my reception space in bud vases. Bud vases are small vases of all shapes and sizes that hold a few stems. I went to my nearest Hobby Lobby during a 50% off sale and bought about 100 different bud vases for less than $200. Buying my own vases saved me money on having to rent centerpieces from my florist and saved me money on the trip charge they usually include in your floral quote to come back to pick up their items! Also, since I was doing singular florals instead of arrangements, this saved me money significantly because the flowers themselves are expensive! We also opted not to have any floral decor for our ceremony other than my bouquets and boutonnieres. That might sound crazy to not have floral decor at your ceremony, but when you think about it, your ceremony is typically 30 minutes MAX, is it really worth all that money to put some flowers up for people to walk by and hardly notice? Fortunately, our ceremony space was a beautiful chapel that really didn’t need any added decor! I highly recommend looking for a ceremony space that requires minimal decor when shopping for your venue, it can make a world of a difference! I would say skipping all these saved me at least $1500.

Next up is CAKE. How many times have you gone to a wedding and ended up not getting a piece of cake because you were either too full or just not paying attention? That was me at all of my friends weddings, and I always saw so much cake left over! I took this into consideration when planning my own wedding and ultimately opted for a fake cake. That’s right, you read that correctly, FAKE CAKE! My cake baker and I decided to use what bakers call “dummy layers” which are basically styrofoam layers in the shape and size of traditional layers of cake. I had a beautiful 4 tier cake that cost me a total of $150, you can’t beat that! We did decide to keep the top smallest layer real, that way we could do the traditional cake cutting and save it for later. We also had a traditional Groom’s cake and then had a dessert bar of all kinds of bite sized mini desserts or our guests to snack on. This was a great option so our guests could get little bites without us being stuck with an undesirable amount of cake in the end! Doing this instead saved us about $400!

Third would have to be our LINENS. Our venue provided basic white or ivory linens, and at first, I saw them as completely drab. I wanted color and something eye-catching and just didn’t see how white or ivory linens could fit into my vision. While planning our wedding we attended several of our friends and to be 100% honest, I couldn’t remember what a single one of their linens looked like, that’s how unimportant/unmemorable linens can be! I got a quote to rent colored table clothes and napkins and it was crazy; $1200 just to add some color! You’re girl wasn’t having that y’all, not when she wanted to have a top shelf open bar! Instead, I looked for reputable linen companies online and came across one that sold colored napkins for $1 a piece. I figured I could BUY them for less than what I was going to be charged to RENT them and then I could re-sell them to make my money back on a local Houston Bridal Facebook group I was a part of. In the end, I ended up paying NOTHING to just buy colored napkins, use them, wash them and resell them. That sure beats the hell out of $1200 if you ask me!

Next would be STATIONARY. That paper can really add up! When you think about all the different stationary you need, such as, save the dates, invitations, inserts for invitations, shower invitations, thank you and so on, you will quickly realize just how much paper can cost! I looked at all the big stationary websites such as Minted and Wedding Paper Divas and was overwhelmed. I ultimately only splurged on our save the dates since it was the announcement of our wedding but still got them during Black Friday from Minted. After that, I turned to Etsy for the rest of my stationary needs, included any signs I had at my wedding! There are so many talented creatives on Etsy that I can almost guarantee you will find something you love at a fraction of what the big retailers charge. Also, I HIGHLY recommend utilizing an electronic RSVP system through a wedding website (which you can set up for free!) that way you don’t have to by a response card, corresponding envelope for that card AND a stamp for it to be mailed back to you! If you want more insight on electronic RSVP, let me know as I would be glad to help! Using Etsy ended up saving us about $500.

Lastly, I would encourage you to join a local bridal resell Facebook group. This gave me so many ideas and helped me save on the little things! I joined the Houston bridal group and there are women on their reselling everything from their linens and centerpieces and even their wedding dresses! I was able to buy my gold chargers and sparklers from our exit from two local ladies. Do you know how much chargers are to rent or buy from a vendor? TOO MUCH! Do you know companies will upcharge your for “Wedding sparklers” even though they’re basically the same as the sparklers you get for the Fourth of July? They do! Buying items that were gently used paid off big time for us. Doing this saved us about $200.

Altogether, these tips and tricks saved us almost $4,000! Think of all the things you could do with that extra $4,000. Go on a nice honeymoon or contribute to your first home fund. These are some serious savings and can easily be done if you’re planning your dream wedding while still bringing your vision to life! I hope these ideas helped your in your planning and if you’re stuck on anything I would love to help you out, please always feel free to reach out to me! Next week, I’ll be featuring a second part to the #WeddingWednesday segment with my insight on the vendors I used right here in Houston! If you’re a #HoustonBride or know someone planning a wedding in Houston, you won’t want to miss it!

Thank you so much for stopping by, I hope you have a great rest of your week!

Photography by the amazing Kate Elizabeth Photography.