Wedding Planning in College? Budget tips?

I agree with all of what the girls have suggested on here so far. My husband and I spent no more than 8k on our intimate backyard wedding. This is what we did to save:
-95% of our flowers were fake (I ordered corsages, bouquets, boutonnieres, and a big flower display for our arch on Amazon by Ling's moments) - real flowers cost A LOT lol
-We opted out of a DJ (they cost a lot too so we designated two people to handle our playlists)
-We had my husband's other cousin officiate us
-I really wanted a videographer, but it was way over our limit and I didn't like any of the work that I saw from recommendations in my area (so we just had family and friends record for us lol)
-If you can't afford to pay for your girls hair and makeup, that is totally fine! I didn't have the funds, but my parents offered to pay that portion since my husband and I were funding our wedding ourselves so that was very nice of them.
-I did a lot of DIY for my wedding (centerpieces especially)
-We kept our guest list LOW (48 guests in total and said no kids)

Few things to consider:
-Lulus, Birdy Grey, and Azazie are great places for bridesmaids dresses (just PLEASE read the reviews because some of them may be a size smaller or bigger) - if your girls are comfortable buying their dresses too then you can discuss that with them, or come up with a compromise
-Keep your party favors simple and small (from all the weddings I have been to I honestly don't remember a lot of the party favors that I took home, I may not even have some of those anymore lol)
-Weekdays and Sundays are usually cheaper for venues because it is less common (especially during the day)
-Limo or transportation service isn't really necessary (if you designate someone to drive then you should be good)
-Start looking now as it is cyber Monday for some wedding deals (like invitations, placement cards, gifts, etc)
-Decide if you want a bachelorette party and a wedding/bridal shower (as these cost a bit too)

As for the vendors not responding to you I would suggest calling them because it is wedding season right now and they may be super busy. So texts and emails may get lost and pushed back. But if you call, they just may be able to call you back. Just make sure to give them a time frame of when it is best to call you.

Good luck!!

Like someone said below, the best way to keep wedding costs down is to keep a small guest list. Simply, the more people you have to invite, the more everything else will end up costing. Food is one of the larger expenses in wedding planning, so feeding 100 people will obviously cost a lot more than feeding 50.

There are plenty of other ways to save money as well, which starts with shopping around. There will be cheaper options for pretty much everything that you are going to be planning. For example, wedding stationery can get pretty expensive if you go to certain places, which is why I’m thankful that I found MagnetStreet when I was shopping around, because it ended up being a few hundred dollars cheaper than my first choice: https://www.magnetstreet.com/wedding-invitations. They often have great sales running, so if you are able to wait for a deal, that’s a great way to shave a few dollars off of your budget.

With all this being said though, you definitely don’t want to cheap out on certain things, because you will regret it in the end. When we got married, I ended up settling for a cheaper venue, and if I could go back in time, I definitely wouldn’t have done that.