Low budget weddings, what did you do? Ideas please

We may go the traditional route yet and shell out some money but I would rather not.

We're having a pretty traditional wedding for under $5000 with about the same amount of guests. We are doing a lot of stuff myself and not falling for bridal upcharges. I thrifted my dress for $40. We didn't tell the caterer that it is a wedding, this saves us $500 and only lost us their cake, slightly fancier plates, and some lemonade. DIY Decor so far isn't going to total more than $100. We're having a friend get an officiant's licence online (about $40). We're buying our own desserts. We rented a lovely venue that normally doesn't do weddings for under $1200 for a chapel and banquet hall from 3pm to midnight. No DJ. I scheduled everything tightly so no cocktail hour. Limited alcohol. Got an amateur photographer off of facebook marketplace for $200 for four hours.

We were also on a tight budget and are planning our wedding for about 110 guests also, give or take a few. We chose a country club local to us, they include A LOT with their package and our ceremony fee is waived and they gave us a huge discount off of our food and beverage total for choosing an off season date. We are spending more than 5K total but also have had a 2+ year engagement, that way we have been chipping away at our balance and making small payments over the last year or so..


If you decide to take a “traditional” route then check prices for off season dates, our venue considers off season NOV-MAR.. look at Friday’s, or Sunday’s as Saturday's are most popular AKA more expensive.
Decide your necessities and eliminate every thing else, we’re doing a lot of DIY stuff. We’re spending a fraction of what most of our friends have for weddings and I feel very happy with the route we took! It will be perfect no matter what you decide.

The reception is were you spend most of the money on a wedding so even to me it wouldn't make sense to have a ceremony first then a reception later on. Also, it is considered rude to expect your guests to pay for or provide food for your wedding. If you want to have a wedding reception then you need to properly host your guests which means that you provide all of the food and drinks rather than doing a potluck.

We have 100 guests with a $5k budget. Found a hall with ceremony and reception space for $750 . Doing BBQ drop off catering from a local family business that’s running around $550. DJ is a good friend who DJs on the side.. he’s charging us $500. Slashed my photography package in half so we’re only doing 4 hours for $850. A lot of DIY decor and what not. My FHs dad is going to officiate so that saved a ton too. You can still be traditional if you want and think outside the box. Look at venues in parks, museums, community halls, etc. Keep your vendors to local family businesses- they will appreciate your business and don’t have as High of a price tag. Good luck!

View Quoted Comment The fact that you didn't tell your caterer that they are providing food for a wedding is completely wrong. If they find out they could definitely sue you because that is breaching your contract. I would never recommend lying to a vendor because it can and likely will come back to bite you in the butt.

Thanks guys, I don't know why I didn't think of going local for some of this stuff (duh!) I am definitely going to look deeper into it now. My Best friend DJ's on the side so I get my DJ for free ^_^ but that is about as far as I got lol.

View Quoted Comment If I don't want/ need the trappings of the bridal package and either way they just drop off and pick up their buffet and get paid why am I paying $7 a person extra for the same food just because the reason for the catering, that they won't be there for, is slightly different. That's entrapment and bridal upsell at is finest. I also read my contact and nowhere does it mention anything about my event only that we have to let the caterers in early and have a table available.

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We want an intimate ceremony, and want to celebrate with extended family and friends later..... So yeah. That's a personal decision.

View Quoted Comment I totally get that. I was just saying that for the money aspect that most of the money that you spend will be spent on the reception rather than the ceremony. I know we had talked about having a smaller ceremony and then immediately following would be the reception, but I didn't want to exclude people from our ceremony. Our friends and family would have been very hurt that they were only invited to the reception and didn't get to see the actual wedding. I imagine some people would have choosen not to attend the reception if they weren't invited to the ceremony too. However, it is definitely a personal decision. Just know that you might offend some people. I know my husband's aunt was really hurt when she wasn't invited to his sister's wedding. His sister wanted a really small wedding and didn't want to invite really anyone out of state and the aunt lives in Florida and the wedding was in New Jersey. They were married two years ago and the aunt still holds a grudge against my sister-in-law. Hopefully your friends and family are more understanding.

View Quoted Comment That's totally fine if you don't want those things, but it is still wrong not to tell them the type of event they are catering. By lying to them, you are breaking your contract therefore if they discover this they could refuse to provide the service or sue you for breach of contract.

View Quoted Comment Why does it matter what type of event I'm having? If anyone can give a real reason catering a wedding reception is different from a sweet 16 or anniversary party then I'll gladly tell them and pay the extra but forcing me to buy a package I don't want just because the guests will be in slightly nicer clothes is ridiculous. They didn't ask so I'm not lying or telling.

I'm right there with you. I want my wedding to cost as little as possible but have the look like I spent a lot of money. I originally budget for 5k as well but through the process of planning my wedding I realized that 5k for me just wasn't going to cut it. So I made a new budget of 10k but I'm still hoping to stay under 10k. For me it's a lot of money for one day. We have 2 years to plan so what I've been doing is looking around Amazon, dollar tree and Walmart for a lot of the decorations. I've found really nice looking but cheap wedding favors on Amazon. And I made centerpieces from stuff at dollar tree. I got lucky cause my parents are paying for my cake and my brother is paying for the photography.

Consider reserving a private room in a restaurant. If you can negotiate a deal with a restaurant where it’s $25 per person for food (which is actually what we paid per person for our rehearsal dinner, so I know it’s possible lol), you’d still have a couple thousand left in your budget for everything else.

I pulled off an under $5k wedding (including honeymoon!), so it can be done. We were married on the beach with the reception at a pavilion at the beach. You could look for a state or city park, botanical gardens, etc., for a similar cost savings. We did bbq catering, splurging on a server for an extra hour to help with clean up. Centerpieces were DIY with supplies from Oriental Trading & Michaels. We skipped bouts and corsages, just bouquets for me & my BMs. No tuxes for the guys, just khakis & white button downs. I got my dress from DB for $500 (not included in budget total) and used a seamstress off thumbtack for alterations. Found my officiant there too, for about a third of what the WW vendors were listing for. I got a 4 hour photography package, which was plenty of coverage.
You can have a lovely, inexpensive wedding. You just have to hunt and sea

*hunt and search a little more.

Please provide food for your guests that you're hosting at your event. Consider having a brunch or a cake & punch reception; that will definitely save a good amount on food.

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Oh man, that's insane. that was the reason for my post more than anything, seeing how other people pulled it off, how they did it and peoples reactions to however they did it. That is something I will certainly take into consideration. I wanted to hear both good and bad experiences.

We are on a pretty rigid budget as well. My godfather is the DJ and my auntie is our photographer. Major savings there. They are refusing payment so we're getting them gifts. We're having a grocery store cake for guests and a single tier rosette cake for cutting pictures. Alcohol is being provided by my FMIL. No glassware or China, everything plastic. Easy on the wallets. Our venue was the single biggest vendor cost being $1600 which includes tables, chairs, staff set up/tear down, insurance, etc. The venue is a community centre. Our rings combined were 60 dollars from Amazon. My dress is completely nontraditional. I bought it from Asos for 158 dollars. Our officiant is 300 dollars. It was the best price we could fine for a good person to marry us. Our favours were purchased by my MOH (cute mason jars) If she hadn't offered to buy them, we would have kept favours out completely. Food trays (Chinese/Caribbean running no more than 650 dollars). Our major savings were the DJ and Photographer. We needed them both and I was lucky that I knew two people who are very experienced.

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Thanks! That's always awesome when you know people. my best friend offered to be our DJ and FH grandpa is going to marry us, he's a preacher. Our catering and photographer will be our biggest expense $ Good to see other like-minded brides on here