Low budget help/suggestions

Hey!

We are actually trying to do the same thing down in SE GA. Instead of a vendor, we actually went with and AirBnB! It sits on 125 acres and has plenty of space to house our bridal party for the week for setting up and taking down. It's a lot cheaper than renting out an actual vendor. Hope this helps!

Can't give you any vendors recommendations, but you can save some money by not hiring a photographer to shoot the ceremony and just have a bride and groom photo shoot instead. The guest will be taking photos anyway, so you create a cloud that would be available for everyone attending and everyone could drop their photos in there. You can make a slideshow with these photos later using Smartshow 3d or a similar program if you want to!

My wedding totaled around $7500. I did all the flowers DIY (artificial from Walmart -- our engagement ended up being 2 years thanks to CoVID, so I had plenty of time to make everything). I had a spreadsheet of dozens of vendors in my area, and compared the prices down to the penny and picked the ones that would be the most cost-effective for us. We did the same thing for Venues, too.

Hi there! I tend to be very pragmatic... and for me planning mine, I chose to not go with a DJ, photography, traditional separate space for the ceremony, dance floor, or much in the way of decor. A big part of this is because most people don't really look back at this wedding photos all that often, no one a month after the wedding cares about the decor or table settings usually, the memories are made from the experiences and people enjoying their time.

This means for my partner and me, dancing is not the jam because my partner and I don't really care to dance much and with or without a dance floor, people will dance. Our priorities are to have everyone enjoying themselves and socializing together. I am go pretty minimalist on everything except the food. The ceremony will be ridiculously short, right where everyone decides to sit for the receptions. We will just run a playlist through kareoke speakers so we have mic's for speaches, the only decor is some flower arrangments for the tables and it's a cash bar. Simple sweet and but still elegant.

Cheapest flower option you don't have to DIY - solawoodflowers.com

Venues - I do reccomend an AirBnB but take into account rentals and catering and insurance in the price. Sometimes that can blow the savings on the venue out of the water. We searched until we found a restaurant that had a beautiful view we loved, came with quality food, housed the people we wanted and this way we skipped on catering, the rentals, the decor other than some flowers. Our ceremony will be held in the same room as the reception, a quick 10 minute max of exchanging vows infront of everyone, no table resets or anything just immediately into the appetizers and music. This worked well for us and the food and beverage minimum for 6 hours is 6k. It also allowed for a cash bar that our guests could drink on their own dime. Another option if the weather is great is to get a permit for a park and have an outdoor wedding. You will potentially still have the rental and catering costs but you can cut out most everything else depending on the time of the year! It just depends on how formal you would like your event because the more formal it gets, the more expensive it will too.

Decor - this will depend on the venue but so many have restrictions that stands to hold up back drops need to be thought about. I preferred with having a view and just ordered a few floral center pieces for the tables to have some decor.

Photography - we are using one of the digital disposable camera apps where our guests scan a code and it uploads any pictures they make and as part of entertainment there are challenge cards stashed around that will have picture ideas to take to win the challenge essentially. I also have a few friends with very nice camera's that will bring those to take some more formal shots.

Entertainment - we are doing challenge cards as mentioned, this includes things like icebreakers because very few people will know eachother at the wedding, some of the challenge cards will be things like a truth or dare, others will be like take a picture with someone with red shoes kind of thing. There will also be games at the tables... minitaure travel games will be stashed at each table like battle ship, connect 4 and others as well.

Music - we are buying two karaoke speakers that will link together. This allows for loud enough music at the even and two microphones for any speaches. When there are no speaches, we will have a playlist going.

Food - we are doing buffet style food as that is cheaper and I've always hated the plated food at weddings. My food is always cold and somehow never what I RSVP'd with. This allows for everyone to get the food they want to eat and enjoy it. We will have passed and buffet style appetizers and then a last hour of a hold you over item (we are doing sliders for the last hour)

Dress - I love vintage style dresses. I have a favorite seamstress on etsy that custom makes vintage patterned clothing. I reached out to them and they have agreed to make the cut I want in the satin fabric they have for another dress on their site. It's also custom made to my measurements. Her dresses run under $400 across the board which is perfect. I also have no interest in full legth, train or veil personally. I want to be able to dye the dress and wear it to work regularly (business formal dress) and I found this as the solution and love what is being made!

I hope this helps inspire ideas and can help you.

Hello, I'm getting married next October too and also trying to keep our budget under control. I found our venue through our local parks department. I thought that they just had pavilion rentals but they also have several other historic buildings and different venues that you can rent as well. In the city next to us you can rent any pavilion completely for free if you are a resident of that town so maybe check out your local parks and recreation department if you need a venue.