*Frugal Brides*

We are having an iPod playlist instead of a DJ. No alcohol (almost no one in either of our families drinks anyways). After a TON of searching, we found a couple great reception venues that would only cost less than $600 (one is only $225!). We are also considering having an appetizer and dessert reception, rather than a full dinner. However, we found a caterer we love who could feed our whole crowd (about 125 ppl) for $650, which is within our budget. I'm planning on keeping it simple with the flowers, either buying in bulk from Costco or ordering dried flower bouquets on Etsy (gorgeous and only $20-$30 a piece). I also go a great deal on invites with a VistaPrint Groupon. All the little things start to add up to big savings

I also got a great deal on my dress from David's Bridal during their sale. I was also looking at recycledbride.com for an affordable dress.

WOW @ Katelin a caterer that will feed 125 ppl for $650?!?!!? that is awesome! we are you located?! lol I have been searching for a cheap venue, found one 1 but they do not allow liquor...hmmm. I am making our invites...hope that saves us a ton of money. I am also going to have them rsvp back by either text, email, or calling us. I saw it on this website about frugal weddings. That way we can save on postage.

My FH would love for us to have alcohol at our reception, but we aren’t. We have two main reasons for this…

1. I’m allergic to beer, wine, and champagne (I have a yeast allergy)

2. He’s an alcoholic (by the time we get married, he will have been sober for almost a year)

I can’t see spending a few hundred dollars on drinks that we aren’t going to be able to enjoy ourselves. We aren’t even having a champagne toast, as I don’t want to spend our wedding night curled up with a migraine (which is what small amounts of yeast will do to me) and I don’t want him to decide that he CAN handle his alcohol after all, and end up drunk as a skunk and starting our married life on the wrong foot (with a fight on our wedding night).

By not having alcohol at our venue, we are saving money in other ways… Because we have no alcohol, we aren’t required to hire security at $75/hour (though we do need to have a door person, but that is because the theatre doesn’t want people unrelated to the wedding deciding to crash the party). Our reception will also end at a more reasonable hour, meaning that we won’t be going over the booked time with the DJ.

We're trying to save on some things so that we can splurge on others (our splurge will be the DJ, gues list, maybe my dress, alcohol).

I'm planning on doing the flowers ourselves (bouquets, boutanieers, centerpieces), doing the invitations ourselves (or possibly through Vistaprint), centerpieces will be done ourselves, and we are borrowing most of ours from family (lots of weddings within the last year, and FI's family has tons of stuff to borrow), family member is doing our cake for free.

Not sure about the dress yet. I've decrease the budget twice...I just can't see paying $3,000 for a dress that I'll wear once. It will depend on whether or not I can find something that I absolutely love or not.

You can always pay for the first round for everyone, and then have a cash bar from there out. That can save you a ton of money, and still let you have alcohol there. Also, you can use fake flowers for centerpieces or just use nothing but candles, you can get some cheap tea lights that float and still look gorgeous, plus it looks so romantic and beautiful when everything is lit!

save-on-crafts.com this is a great site for cheap decorations!

and this is a great site for flowers and flower ideas fiftyflowers.com

hope this helps!!

Future Mrs C--I'm sure you checked DB clearance? My dress was $130 and I love it! I don't drink and my FI has maybe had one glass of wine in the last year and our friends and family don't drink really so we're fine without a bar. Sure does save money! As does appetizer and dessert receptions. And friends and family who want to help DIY or lend So thankful!

Jewel; advertising is not allowed here.

We're saving money by having the venue at an inexpensive location and by doing lots of DIY!

Before we started planning, my FH and I sat down and determined what was most important for us. We mostly agreed, and decided our splurges would be an open bar, the photography, and the fun level (so DJ). Be that as it may, we have still searched extensively for deals on DJs and photogs. We're also searching for venues that will allow us to bring our own alcohol, which saves a ton!

Otherwise, lots and lots of DIY! Invites, all decorations, all bridal party gifts, all bridal jewelry and accessories, etc.

@Future Mrs. Smith. I am in Wisconsin. The caterer is a small family owned business. They have two resurants and a banquet hall in out town. By using their catering out, picking it up ourselves, and having a buffet dinner we got a great deal. It includes bread, salad, pasta, two veggie options, and two meat options. Plus, we eat at their restaurant often and have been to a few events they have catered so we know it's good

We are saving money by having the venue right here on our back lawn. It's a very large space bordered by trees and a pond. And since we are down south, September will still be a warm month.

I am DIYing as much as I can - bouquets, centerpieces, the arch. DIL is making the invites. So our money is going for catering, photography and a tent rental.

I got my dress at Davids Bridal - $800 dress on sale for $399 and about twice a year they have their $99 sale.

To cut down on catering costs, have an early afternoon wedding/reception. That way you can get by on cake, beverages and maybe think about a candy bar that could double as your favors.

Hang in there - as my favorite comedian says dig in and "git er done!"

^ What Linda said lol. We are also having our ceremony and reception at FIL's house. We originally had a venue picked but we saved 1k by having it at thier house instead. Also my FFIL is going to cater for us so he's going to make the food for us and we're having an ipod playlist and LOTS of DIY's!

We are saving money on our venue (tent cost $800) and bringing in all local foods and flowers. We also found a reasonably priced photographer.

Totally leaning on my friends and family for their talents (friends playing the ceremony music as they are professional musicians...and good ones!, aunts decorating and doing flowers, grandmother donating her yard and house, no cost for our own stay as we can stay at family property). We are also doing an ipod reception (I know, I know terrible of me as a musician), and as much DIY as possible!

I'm not sure what all we're exactly doing, but the invites will be done by hand, the caterer has done work for my family before and is very reasonable, the ceremony is at our home church, reception at my parents, and we'll be making the favors and all decorations. It's crazy how fast the budget can go away!

For sister's and my wedding we have a very budget. We had to find a venue where we could have the ceremony and reception.

For my sister's the made all the food and stuck to heavy horderves. It was a lot of work. For my wedding we are going with a local restaurant that caters. You can get a lot of food with out spending a ton of money. There is also silverware that is plastic that looks real. We rolled the up in napkins and tied them with a small ribbon. If you really would like alcohol at the you wedding I would stay away from liquor, that is going to drive you price up more. Instead you can have beer, wine, and champagne. If you don't have it all be aware that there might be someone invited that is going to find someway to have alcohol there.

We are getting the flowers from Costco. You can get good deals on flowers there and they are beautiful.

For our invitations we picked out the paper we wanted and my mother did them on her computer and printed them off.

I saved money on my wedding by not having a bridal party, and keeping the guest list to a minimum. We only invited our family and a few very close friends. I also saved on photography because we did something very different. We couldn't afford to pay for a professional to spend hours following us around at the wedding (Packages were all too high), so instead, after the wedding, we paid for an engagement/wedding session in a professional studio. We both dressed in our wedding attire and did a few shots, and then did some casual photos, too. It was much less expensive this way, and we were very happy with it. We also had the disposable cameras for guests to shoot, and my Dad and SIL are both excellent photographers who helped complete our album with some beautiful photos of the reception and ceremony.

We saved money by first setting our priorities. Above everything else, our guests’ enjoyment was the single most important priority for us.

We had a DW wedding weekend. Since the B&B is small, we were only able to invite a select few. Also, there was no venue charge at all.

We had a welcome dinner on Fri, however, we brought all of the stuff from Philly from a local Italian market. We served on paper products.

We would never consider a dry, cash bar or limited bar. However, we were able to buy our booze from Total Wine. They have great prices.

We had an Italian buffet for our reception dinner. We did pay a DOC & caterer & rented china/flatware and glassware.

I made all of my Italian pastries for the pastry table & bought all candy for the candy buffet on sale

Our DJ is a friend. We paid for his gas & accommodations.

All décor was DIY. Welcome bags and favor boxes were DIY. Native things from VT to put in each were a bit of a splurge.

This was not our 1st wedding, so photos or videos were not a priority. My DIL has an eye for candids, & she shot our wedding.

We printed our own invites.

My dress was a BM dress from AA. DH wore a suit.

Our final cost, excluding rings and day of jewelry, but including our mini-moon to Mexico was $12,500. For two nights of partying that was not bad at all.

We're saving money on the things people usually spend the most on: venue, DJ, photography, and alcohol.

We were going to have the wedding at a fire hall, which was boring but would have only cost around $600. We found a much nicer, unique venue, the Agricultural Museum, that rents out their vintage church and exhibit halls for under $500. I LOVE it!

DJ: My sister is a DJ and offered to do this for us for free. She assured me that she could make a playlist and have it rolling, so she won't miss out on any of the festivities. I may see if I can have someone from her company come to fill in during photography though.

Photography: I have a friend that does photography on the side from his regular job, he quoted me $600 -$800 (don't know time frame yet).

Alcohol: You only need a permit to SELL alcohol at events, if you are hosting and it is free, you don't need a permit here in DE. So we are providing all of our own alcohol. Not sure what the price will be yet, but we're stockpiling!

Also, my dress was only $160.

We are saving money on invites, I got blanks at the craft store (with a 40% off coupon!) and will be printing them myself, I'm making my own centerpieces, ordering the supplies online using floating candles and submerged flowers and 12 tables will cost under $200, I've done my own favors for under $1 each. I was going to make my own bouquets, but realized I really wanted to try to find a fresh flower option. With a small bridal party (me, MOH and one bridesmaid) it was fairly affordable. I have priced out our bouquets, all the boutonnieres and even a toss bouquet for under $300 by using the floral dept at the grocery store. (No really, they do wedding flowers and their work is gorgeous!) We found a friend of a friend who is doing our DJing for 30% of the typical cost. FH is a chef, and the restaurant he works for also owns a hotel, they are giving us 25% off our reception. Oh, and it's a cash bar...most of our guests don't drink so I didn't see this as a big issue.