Paying for Wedding talk

My fiancé and I are paying for it ourselves. We are putting a little to side each check but we are putting the big items on the credit card. Also, we asked for money for the engagement party instead of gifts to help pay for the wedding. We created a registry for household items for people that rather give a gift. We just got an house also. We have arranged our budget to cost less on decor by doing diy items but moved money to the food &venue. We hired a family member who is a photographer to do our pictures as a fraction of cost. Just some ideas to save but hope it helps.

If you don't have a venue set yet, look at some "all-inclusive" places. I know initial numbers can look scary, but if for example it includes 2 nights with a minimum number of 40 people staying in 20 rooms, 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners, and additional decorations that actually comes down a lot. Your guests would be staying on site and them paying for their rooms would actually pay down some/all of the venue's budget, so you would just be paying for the extras (ie: guests not staying on site, flowers, dj, photographer, and cake). It's how my FH and I are looking because we also are on a tight budget, student loans, and somewhat large families.

We live in an expensive area in California right on the beach, so although we are lucky to live here, we DO NOT have much to save. Almost everything goes to bills. We don't want to use CC or a loan, and still want to contribute to have Life Savings in case something happens like medical or car needs work, etc. SO, we are having a long engagement. Putting away $500/month towards wedding in addition to $500 to Life Savings IS challenging for us but doable. Cut expenses on going out to eat, be frugal about everyday expenses(no Starbucks, shopping, we even changed our cable subscription to basic cable, cut our grocery bill by carefully curating meals to what's on sale). Every time I have a few $1's or a $5 i put it in the wedding jar. Every few months I deposit the wedding jar and it definitely adds up! Having a long engagement helped because when we booked our venue, that locked in our rate before rates went up for the following year. We are having a destination wedding at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. Our budget was originally $8000, but I'll be happy if we keep it under $10k for the entire thing (including wedding dress, shoes, invitations, etc.). The resort we chose has a package that includes basic everything for up to 30 people -Your guest list is MUCH larger, but heat me out -(chairs tables, food, open bar, white tablecloths/napkins, selection of flower arrangements, DJ, set up/breakdown all included) for just under $5000. (They had smaller packages that did not include DJ, had less flowers, and skipped the beach permit) Any additional guest after that is $80. This narrows your guest list a lot because we found that we could invite just about everyone, without having anyone upset, but it is their responsibility to purchase flight and book hotel, and not everyone can afford that.

We are buying the materials for our custom rings wholesale, and having a friend who is a jeweler make them for a great price.

I found my shoes gently used on Mercari, and I've found some options for dresses on Poshmark. Also, a great way to save on the dress is by searching for dresses that don't inherently say "wedding". Look in the "special occasion section, or Prom.
Skip the wedding favors, or do a cute thank you card (can have them made on shutterfly or other site for cheap) you can place at each seat. Or a little sachet of dried flower petals, guests can throw them as biodegradeable confetti, or keep them as a linen sachet.
We did our Save The Dates, and Invitations in one shot, that directed guest to our website to RSVP and look into details. This saved us HUNDREDS On wedding invitations.
Hope this helps!!

Also, this is YOUR day as a couple. Don't let anyone else invite extra guests unless they are paying their way.
You can also make it adults only, or no +1's.

To have extra income, try picking up part-time work. It's easier to save money if you dont have time to spend it.

We are ja ya longer engagement period to save. We don’t want to go in debt take out loans or charge anything. We are getting married 7-22-22. We are both working overtime and I’m starting a second career for more income.

We started by having the hard talk with family asking if they can help, and if yes, then how much do they think they could help. My mom said she would buy my dress plus other little things here and there. My dad & step mom offered to buy the photographer. My in laws offered a lump sum plus paying for rehearsal dinner. Next I looked at our expenses for the previous 3 months or so. How much can we save easily, and how much can we save if we work really hard at budgeting? FH and I agreed on a $ amount to save each month and we have stuck to it. Once we totaled how much family is helping, plus how much savings per month times how many months, we had a budget! Once it was set I did lots of research on literally everything to stay within that budget. So far so good! If we are getting close to going over budget I will probably buy 1 less keg for the bar or cut back on appetizers/mid night snack budget.

I decided to put the honeymoon on my credit card. I wanted to have a little extra cash cushion just in case. I have a pretty good interest rate and rewards on this card. This charge is also not even close to maxing out my card (which I definitely didn't want to do). Any extra spending money I have leftover each month goes to pay down my card and paying it off will be #1 priority after the wedding. Also any extra money we have acquired (such as tax returns) has either gone in to savings or to our credit cards.

Hope this helps some! Good luck