Ideas on cutting costs

Your budget for these things honestly doesn’t seem outrageous so I’m not sure what you could cut. Do you already have your additional cost things like the clothes? You could save a lot of money in that category while still looking very nice.

The biggest thing I did to save money for my much smaller wedding was wait for sales and stack coupons. Took advantage to email sign up offers and rewards cards. Every bit of savings helps. Also to only make an online purchase if there was free shipping, this meant waiting for free shipping days or waiting until I needed to buy enough stuff to qualify. Lastly I bought things months in advance because the cheapest things take the longest to ship.

For clothes, my dress was a floor sample of an expensive gown. It was damaged, my seamstress literally only charged me $10 to fix the tulle. I got a 4k gown for under a thousand and my seamstress is making it look like new! Always be open to slightly damaged things, they can be repaired.

If you need help with cost savings in specific categories let me know, I’ve combed the Internet for deals.

I’m trying to stick to a $5k budget for 60ish guests. Like Yam, I bought a discontinued sample gown that I got during the National Bridal Sales Event, originally I think $2500 and I got it for $200. It has a few loose threads but is otherwise in great condition just needs typical alterations I’d need with any gown: hem, bustle, and brought in around my waist a bit. For decor we will DIY a lot, borrow things we can, and scour thrift stores. We are skipping favors, doing minimal flowers that we’ll get wholesale and DIY, and doing a small cake just to cut and cupcakes for guests (which my MOH and I will make). It sounds like you’ve got your major expenses, I’d just watch the little things because they add up fast and focus on what is a priority to you. The food trucks sound awesome! Happy planning!

You can always try to cut out decor to make it more simplified. I realized that people may not notice all these details as much aha

You could try to DIY some of the games like Jenna and cornhole if you don’t already have them.

I received a $500 dollar quote for 6 hrs of photography from an app called snappr which links you with photographers. https://www.snappr.co/

The 1k for photography is definitely something you can cut. Find a photographer that charges by the hour.

I got my wedding gown from Poshmark. It's a sample dress and cost $300 when it would be well over $1000 otherwise.

Decorations can be simple diy. I'm doing all my own flowers, centerpieces, tables etc. Thrift stores, Facebook marketplace, etc are winners! There are always former bride's eager to sell the stuff they no longer need.

If you are renting tablecloths it may be cheaper to buy them online than rent. Also since the food is more casual with food trucks traditional flatware probably isn't necessary. Heavy duty plastic silver colored flatware may also be a cost cutting solution.
You may not need such a large cake. Not everyone eats it and having speciality ice cream to boot only 50-60 may eat it. Or you get a small cake for cutting and serve sheet cake to the guests. Would save $100-200 easy right there.

View Quoted Comment Or choose one: the ice cream truck or cake. No need for both if you’re on a tight budget.

Does the catering budget also include insurance and bartenders? Those are so important for DIY bars since the liability is squarely on you as the host because the venue has nothing to do with your bar.

You can cut the cake or ice cream
you don’t need table clothes
buy your dress of rack.
Renting suits
Etsy has reasonable priced gift it does not have to be huge
ypu can find cheaper photographer
no inserts for invites RSVP online

If you’re wanting to cut costs, I would reconsider the $5300 for food trucks. We had a wedding for $8500 total. Here’s a breakdown of the major costs
$1950 venue
$1200 pizza
$200 cakes
$700 dress and alterations
$1675 photographers (2 for 10 hours)
$150 shoes
$200 gifts for bridal party
$70 makeup
$150 officiant
$100 hair/makeup helper
$120 florals (14 DIY bouquets)

there were of course other costs we had but those are the major ones I can think of at the moment. We had no alcohol and did DIY flowers and photo booth.

Thank you for your responses everyone and sorry for the delay in responding! I appreciate all the help and insight. I was able to cut about $800 off my budget via your suggestions. I decided I will be making my own wedding cake (a "naked" angel food cake with whipped cream and berries- which will probably only cost me $50 if that for 4 tiers on a cascading plate). I have a friend who is a justice of the peace and offered to do our ceremony pro-bono. Her husband is a photographer and is asking friends to see if he could get a good deal for us, but 1k is still considered extremely inexpensive here in CT. I also decided that I will be doing DIY pinwheel decorations and centerpieces and cutting out floral arrangements all together.

The biggest thing I am considering now is the catering, and whether I need 2 food trucks or if 1 will suffice. I have read that the wait can be extremely long if you only have 1 food truck for over 50 people so that is a concern. I know I wouldn't have as much concern about people waiting with -just- the pizza truck but at least one person attending is lactose intolerant and some people in my family have stated they don't much like pizza, so I wanted options to be available. We are food-loving, nerdy gamers so having lots of awesome food is definitely reflective of us as well. However, cutting one of the food trucks would save me 2k.