Trade for services

I have a suggestion. How about your husband do work, get paid for it, then use that $$ to pay for the wedding?

All I can think of is the show Barter kings. Honestly I will be 100% surprised if you have luck with planning a wedding finding people to trade for their services. I think your budget and what your looking for is unrealistic.

Maybe I might be wrong, but if this is both your second time, just do something in your backyard (if room is possible) gather a few friends and just have some alcoholic beverages with a few snacks and celebrate after you had left the courthouse. Because it may can happen with that budget but highly doubt it with y'all living in Miami. And I don't think people will barter services for goods.

I find it pretty unrealistic that you plan to trade for services for your wedding. If you only plan on spending $1,500 you'll probably have to down grade quite a bit.

You don't. You pay for your wedding like anything else in life, or you save up until you can afford one. If neither of those options suits you, you can always elope. A wedding is not a necessity. I am embarrassed for you that you would contact professional vendors and suggest such a thing.

You save money until you have the wedding you can afford or elope. No one is going to barter with you!

If I contacted a vendor that seemed so broke they needed enough mechanical services to cover their $2-3,000 fee, I would think they probably weren't very responsible or talented.

I would be flabbergasted if someone approached me at work (event coordinator) and offered a trade for services. I would NEVER accept and I am also in a big city - Chicago.

Good luck.

I can't fathom doing this. There are brides on here with that budget and they scaled back on things - host a dinner for your closest friends or family, elope and stay somewhere nice as a treat, I don't know. But I would never approach someone and say "how about instead of paying you, we fix your car." Most people I know have relationships built with trusted mechanics anyway; I know that I have an affordable mechanic who does great work and if I was a vendor, I'd be so offended if someone asked me to do that.

I wouldn't be offended. I understand the idea of it. Once upon a time trading for services was a very common thing and it can still be found among people who do work like your seamstress. My FSIL 's husband who owns his own business has been known to accept trade instead of cash for his services. Unfortunately you very likely will not find that type of barter with a professional business especially at that price.

Edit spelling.

Check your area for a barter exchange group. Your fiance is "A" and needs the services of "B" but "B" doesn't need the services of "A." However, "B" needs the services of "C" and "C" needs the services of "A." So, it all works out.

This can bite you in the butt. FH and I technically did this for our photographer. He said he'd do our engagement shoot and give us a discount on wedding photos if we agree to be the models for his portfolio (he is introducing a new type of photo shoot and needed example pictures for clients). We agreed and it's been 8 months since we've done the shoot and we haven't received our pictures, we assume it's because he doesn't feel like we paid him so we are last priority. I think if there isn't a money exchange in vendors they feel that they didn't gain anything.

Thanks for the input. The idea would not have crossed my mind, had I not been told by my friend who recently married, whose parents owned a contracting firm. They did almost their entire wedding for trade, and it was amazing and beautiful. They do a number of repairs (roof, plumbing, flooring, etc.) so I know it was easier to come by bartering by being in the business. And to Snarky, we do work and get paid for that. But earning enough extra to put away for everything is not as easy. Miami is an expensive city to live in. If someone needs the service we could provide, I would think it better to barter.

Didn't seem like a bad idea. We are doing most things ourselves, or family. My cousin is a pastry chef and making the wedding pie (we hate cake), I'm making the boutineer and bouquet (we are not having a bridal party), my good friend and ladies from my Bible study group are helping with the decor and the light finger foods and drinks. We thought about eloping. But we really want a public display of our love and commitment to each other.

If your FH does the work without getting paid in cash, will you still be able to pay your normal bills?

If you can't save $2k for a photographer how will you get by without that $2k of income? Multiply that by every service you barter for. Just something to keep in mind. As an alternative, you can look for vendors on Thumbtack. I have heard you can get good deals there. www.thumbtack.com

Well, here's the problem as I see it: $2,000 is a really good price for photography. If you DO manage to find a photographer that will trade for services, they'll want AT LEAST that amount of value worth of services.

So let's say your husband generally earns 30 bucks an hour as a mechanic. Is he willing to do 70 hours of work to "pay" for the photographer? Why not just do 70 hours of work for whoever and then use that money to pay the photographer?

Do any photographers even NEED seventy hours of mechanic work?

I mean, I'm all for bartering if you can do it, but I think you need to compromise and realize that not every single vendor is going to be possible to do this for.

Because of the way Purplekitten described the problem, I think that maybe the barter exchange group that Nancy T explained could be a good idea. I know bartering works for small stuff- for example, I am tutoring a friend of mine in math, in exchange for her coloring my daughter's hair. She's a hairdresser and I used to teach. So that worked out well. $2000 worth of photography services, on the other hand, is going to be difficult to trade for.

You could try craigslist?

But really I agree with PK here, getting someone to barter for a cake or something inexpensive is going to be easier than a photographer.

If budget is that tight ask a family friend to take pictures, that may be your best bet.

Or maybe a newer photographer that is trying to build their portfolio.