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You can try cutting back on little things that eventually will add up. Maybe not spending as much as you planned on invites by doing them yourself or looking for more affordable favors and things like that. My venue and vendors have gone above and beyond my budget so from here on out I am cutting wherever I possibly can.

Booze, flowers, favors, transportation, any reception entertainment? Cake? Rental Items? I hope you can figure somewhere to cut!

Have you tried local arts colleges and craigslist yet for a photogrpaher?

Cash bar, hardly any flowers but I can try, no transportation, DIY all paper products, DJ was included in venue price, cake is only $75 or so, and no rental items. You see the dillema!?!?

Have you looked into your cake yet? I had a semi-simple idea that would have cost me about $650 but then I toned it down a bit more and speperated the tiers on floating stands and ended up paying only $160 for a 4 tier cake. Im not sure what you are planning on having to help you cut things down further, but if I come up with any ideas I will let you know.
Oh! are you having a full bar? If so, would you be willing to cut it downt to just beer and wine? or add one signiture drink if you want. Also nix the champaign toast, people can use what they are drinking for the toasts. We got champaign for my wedding and only like 15 people got glasses for the toast and half of those just took a sip and sat the rest down.

Yep. Flying me & my assistant out there to do it for your budgeted price airfare. :)

I'm having a photographer who is shooting in digital and then providing me with a disc to get the prints done as I wish or rather as I can afford to. My brother who has also shot some weddings will take pictures as back up. Search Craigslist, there are plenty of hungry photographers out there.

The issue with the photographer is that I DID go through someone who was a student and charged less. And the quality was reflective of that. So we're trying to avoid that. I'm going to call the photographer and set up a meeting to talk about pricing stuff out. I think we'll be okay if she does payment plans. But, you know, it's still good to have a back up plan. How much would it cost to fly you out, Matt?

FWIW (I was totally shocked by this) but the wedding we did on Friday night, they were running super late, and over budget. They made an on the fly decision to start cutting things out of the reception to get the DJ out to not have to pay hourly and pass their time at the venue. They cut out the garter, bouquet, and dollar dance. I would've kept the dollar dance, as I regularly hear people passing a grand for that, which would've paid for the extra 30 minutes to have the DJ stay.

Honestly... I know its really hard but I am SURE you can find someone who fits your budget with the area you are in. It just takes awhile.... Consider a few things-- my FH was a little taken aback when he found our photographer worked out of her house. However, her work is awesome, we love her, and she charges less because she doesn't have to worry about renting a space/store. I would definitely utilize this website to the fullest. Look outside of the city.. this might increase your travel costs but it can save you a bunch in your overall costs. My photographer did an engagement session (with prints), about 8 hours of coverage, a book with ALL of our pictures, some thank you pictures, a DVD with all of our pictures, and webhosting for 1,900. She is in Frederick, which is outside of the DC Metro Area-- which if you didn't know is very overpriced. I think if we were able to find this deal you can find yours without giving up much!

I don't think your budget is unreasonable at all-- though I should ask how many guests you are having. The bigger the wedding, the more photography will be. Something unreasonable would be to have a 1,000 budget for 200 people.

We're only having about 100, and we're trying to stick to a $7,000 budget, with $1500 for photography. I'm trying to come up with a bunch of little things that may add up. Luckily I've been diligent with trying to keep us under budget in a lot of aspects, so it may not be as disasterous as we thought. But we also have NO money saved up to move in to our own place once we're married. AND FH wants to add a car payment on top of everything else now. We're going to sit down and go over everything tonight before he goes to work but I'm still super stressed out about it. I desperately need a job but can't find one that will pay enough to make it worth coming in.

It sucks, but take what you can get and just keep looking. A little money is better then no money. It might at least help with the bills until you find what you are really looking for.

I was shocked $155 per person round trip.

I say u can cut the bar, transportation, and favors. With FH tryin to put a car in talk with him about it and let him knw how stressful it is. I'm having my photographer for $900 and were having 200 guest. She's including 1vhs, 2 DVDs a big pix with a frame and an X amount of pix. Just take ur time and look around it takes time but defenatly worth it. About ur job situation I suggest u can use sites online using ur resume that's how I got the job I'm now in just a month ago. Good luck!!!

I know it might sound crazy to some brides but we've decided to cut professional photography all together and just include a note in our invites that we love the photos our friends and family have always done for us and ask them to bring their cameras to help us capture our special day. We spent a long time talking about it and ultimately we have a very small $3000 budget and find a photographer around us for $500 that was actually worth it was pretty tough. So we decided we'd spend that cash elsewhere. Our family and friends are really excited to be helping us capture our day. Then there is no worries on will the photographer get the right shots. :-)

What about coming up with fundraising options? Like have a garage sale? Combine it with a bake sale?

Are you doing favors (sorry if I missed that somewhere)? What about your accessories (veil, shoes, jewelry)? Can you cut down there?

Honestly I would just keep shopping for a photographer rather than cutting "the b word". I don't recommend students, but that doesn't mean that you can't find a photographer for under $2000 that won't give you great images and you wouldn't have to double your budget. Maybe it's just because of where I'm from having lower cost of living, but our expensive photographers around here are $3000. I run about midline at $1520-$2000 with my current discount and there seem to be plenty of people undercutting me. I won't say that I'd recommend all of the lower priced ones, but I think some of them would have my vote. Maybe a travelling photographer would be the answer for you. Like Matt was saying, travel expenses don't have to be huge if you shop for them. Luck to you in your decision, and you are welcome to check out my page if you'd like. :)

We asked all our guest to send us copies of what they take and hired a photographer trying to build their wedding portfolio. He has been through school, been working with some top name modeling photographers but needed to build a portfolio if he wanted to start in weddings. In exchange for being alowed to use our photos for advertising and in his portfolio we go a very discounted rate. Like $750 for 200 edited photos on a disk plus more un edited photos. He did and engagement session or TTD session, rehearsal & rehearsal dinner and wedding/reception with an assistant. Not bad and I was able to see his modeling work to see how he does with the shots. He does travel too. Did a vegas wedding a month before mine.

Like Ann (Ideal Portraits) said - I'd be leery of students. They can be very hit or miss. I had a senior student that I knew from sailing shoot with me last year. Kept bragging about how he was getting shots at a low ISO (lower ISO = higher light, less noise). When he handed over his photos afterwards, his shutter speeds were indicative of that reason, he had tons of motion blur in the photo to expose the image longer.


I know Ann is in the same boat, in the "getting the name out" phase and you'll find people in that phase at a lower price point per the quality standards. I know most of my local competition is double my price for similar or less quality with less to offer as deliverables.


Contact me through messaging if you want to discuss further about options. You've been around for a while and we've had a lot of forum based discussions!