Where to save money — florals, photog, entertainment?

Hi ! You can start with the Save The Date and Invitations - you can do them yourself on Canva, and at least the save the dates, you can send them by e-mail for ex. And then you can do a lot of stuff in this website : menus, seating plan, programms, etc.

Favors, if you want to do them, you can do them by yourself - like home made candles, soaps...

Decorations don't mean only flowers. You can have lovely centrepieces without real flowers - candles, wood, plants... everything is possible !

View Quoted Comment I’ve seen the candle centerpieces and definitely want to try that!! I’m going to try thrifting some deco too, including the whole sweetheart table lol. Some of my favorite furniture in life was thrifted and refurbished by my parents, so I have faith we can pull it off well enough. Also never thought of doing the save the dates on canva, thank you for that!!

If you are not dancers then have the background music with mingling. You don’t need a dj or mc. They basically only announce dinner and then dancing but those do flow naturally on their own. Cut back on florals but your pictures are all you have at the end of the day besides memories. Focus on the guest experience: good food, drinks your guests don’t pay for and entertainment plus photos.


If you need to save money, then cut out favors, ceremony programs (unless it is a religious or cultural ceremony guests need to follow), photo booths, signage, champagne, anything you know your guests will not partake in.
For save the dates, do like your parents and grandparents did by calling people 6 months before the wedding to let them know.

I did a Thursday mid week wedding with 48 people and saved almost $20k. The venue I found had an all inclusive package (officiant, dj, flowers, photographer, plated dinner, cake and 4 hour open beer & wine for $10k). I ordered templates off of Etsy and printed all my invites/posters/programs thru staples. And I skipped on the extras no one would care about (like $2k for string lights in a tent) and spent it on a day after party/wedding weekend instead!

Figure out the top 3 things that are important to you/your partner. Spend more on those items and less on others. For example, I didn't care about invitations at all so I found a diy kit at michaels and saved hundreds over having them printed/going a different route. Also shop sales, especially black Friday if you can.

We are cutting back on photography! A local gal I went to high school with is doing our pics for $900 for 8 hours and travel. We liked her edited photos online too. To put that in reference two experienced photographers quoted us $2,300-3,200 for 4-6 hours. FH and I talk a lot about how yes, it will be nice to have thousands of pictures of family, etc. but honestly we will have 3-4 pictures hanging in our room and a scrapbook we will probably look at 2-3 times a year. MOH went to school to be a florist so we are ordering Costco flowers (I’ve read good reviews, anyone can buy them!) and going to do a bridal luncheon the day before to make our bouquets. I’m not that picky about how they look so it will be fun! Doing pasta buffet to lower food cost.

Keep the 3 or 4 things you really want and trim down the rest. Save money on favors and cut those out entirely. Liquor is expensive maybe do just beer and wine. Buffet or family style is typically cheaper than a plated dinner. You can save thousands by getting married on a Thursday, friday, or Sunday.

Choose 3 areas that are you top priorities for both of you. For us that was food, DJ, and photographer. Those were the areas we focused on first and got good quality vendors for. You can still look for discounts on those areas, but keep in the back of your mind that if you want to splurge, splurge in your priority areas.


For DJ, it depends on the type of vibe you want. We want everyone to have a good time and to be dancing most of it, that’s why we focused on DJ. But I went to a wedding once where they just did Spotify, and they wanted something more low key, which is totally fine!
You can definitely cut costs on any stationery. I’m doing Save the dates from Walgreens, they ALWAYS have a coupon code on photo stuff. Or you could skip save the dates. You can make your own invites or most online options also have coupon codes. Shutterfly, Walgreens, simply to impress, etc.
You can minimize flowers by using bouquets as decor for the reception and cutting out boutonnières.
Also, our venue and a lot of our vendors are giving us deals for a Friday. Some people have already complained to us, but it’s saving us hundreds of dollars, so it’s worth it for us.
Hope some of this helps! Good luck!

View Quoted Comment Yes, the thrift store can be your best friend. I found so many vases for 50 cents that I'm using as centerpieces. We spray painted them gold.


I also agree with emailing the save the dates. We did that too through a website and it even kept track of who opened the email.
For flowers, check out sola flowers, which are made from wood, or someone who does wooden flowers. It's so much cheaper than real flowers.
Check facebook marketplace or local fb wedding groups. People are eager to sell their items post wedding.

Everyone has things that are more important to them, so you need to decide what is important to you. For example, photography was very important to me, so I wasn't willing to cheap out on that. I've known too many people who have and got screwed, so we went with a more well-known photographer and forked out the money. Our DJ happened to come with the photographer, and he was cheaper already, but they bundled for us and saved us some money. Bundle if you can!

People never remember the decorations at your wedding, so keep that in mind as you don't need to do a lot, especially if your venue is pretty all on its own. We are doing very minimal decor and only picked a few things important. For flowers, if you wanted to go fake, wait until the end of the season and hit up the craft stores, all of their seasonal florals will be on clearance. My friend did this and made about 10 centerpieces, her bouquet, 9 bridesmaids bouquets, and 6 boutonnieres for $200. Find a friend with a Cricut, they are miracle workers and will save you SO much money on decor. If you want real flowers, check out your local grocery store. Most of them with floral departments do a beautiful job at a fraction of the cost.

You can do a sheet cake and save money vs. a traditional wedding cake with tiers. Cakes can run $500+ if they aren't included with your venue, a sheet cake won't be nearly that much. You can order a small pretty cake for you to cut and save a ton of money.

If your group aren't big drinkers, do beer and wine only. Alcohol can get expensive at weddings.

I'm going with fake flowers, and the only flowers we are having are my bouquet and one for my MOH. The tables are going to have candles and that's it. We are going to get the candle holders on sale at somewhere like Hobby Lobby or Michaels. You can also save money by keeping the guest list down.

You should get the Budget Savvy Bride planner. It has tons of tips and budgeting tools to help you save. I got my copy on Amazon.

I've been to a couple weddings without a DJ/MC and they were fine. A hiccup or two here or there, but I would cut in this area before I'd cut something like photography. One of the weddings had a very small dancing room with speakers and the other wedding had amplifiers and a good sound system because the groom's nephews had a band. The DJ plays your songs, fills in gaps in your playlist, reads the mood of the crowd, helps guide your guests as MC, keeps your event moving along, and also provides equipment for projecting music, mics for your ceremony, and possible lighting. Most DJs in our area were $2000 and up but we found a pro for our event for under $1000 and that was worth it to us.

I would not skimp on photography, because that is the one vendor whose work is going to outlast the day itself. Food will get eaten, flowers will die, suit rentals get returned, hair and makeup undone at the end of the night, etc but the photographs will live on and they are how you will remember your wedding decades from now, and what you will have to look back on on your 20th anniversary or show your future kids one day.

I think this is also a bit hard to say because it depends on what you value. for instance i went to a wedding where they really valued the appearance/decor so they spent a fortune on that!

for me, i think i splurged on food because i really felt like THAT was something that guests were enjoying. and so i saved on decor because i guess i didn't really care that it wasn't all decked out.

I watched several videos on youtube from a wedding planner she has a great series of videos and a few of them discuss small budgets and places to cut money. The one I found most interesting were the favors. She had a bride who spent A LOT of time assembling mini succulents to put at each seat and at the end of the night when most of the guests were gone most of them remained on the tables.


We're planning to do a photo opp with sparklers and I decided that the sparklers could serve as the favor. At least if I have several left over I have grandkids who will use them!
If you definitely want to do favors keep them simple and inexpensive like small bags of chocolate hearts foil wrapped in your wedding colors with a simple thank you tag! A quick google search will take you to several websites where you can order them.

Well, it sounds like you're a planner, so you should feel good that this is one of your strengths. Take note of any other strengths that you and your partner may have. For example, saving and finding $ is my strength, DIY is not. After that, I suggest talking with your partner about your priorities for your money, or in other words, how you envision getting married. There are many planning resources here on Wedding Wire, books, etc for options. Pinterest is helpful creating an organizable mood board but can lead you down a hole. Same for Etsy. I agree with many above, in that we can only advise you so far as you two will have your own priorities. Try your best to discuss and negotiate a match, or that will cause problems between you. It's not always about saving money, but neither is spending it. best wishes, Bride!

Don’t skimp on photos, they’re your memories of the day. I would cut flowers if you need to, silk flowers are lovely and you don’t want to skimp on entertainment-that’s your party!

View Quoted Comment Are you talking about Jamie Wolfer? She’s the BEST!!

View Quoted Comment

Yes!!! At the time of my original replay, I couldn't remember her name. But I looked her back up this afternoon. I have learned so much from her!

Do not skimp on your pictures! One thing i did with my first and regretted it.

You can look for a band instead of a dj or a soloist just so you have some entertainment. They might be cheaper.

Real flowers are expensive and do not last all day. If you do fake Ling Moments (beautiful) you can still get the look with out spending alot. And she has discounts around holidays etc. Got mine all for $350.00 Then you can resell them on facebook marketplace if you like to get a return on your purchase.

Facebook marketplace alot of brides are selling their wedding stuff so look there as well.

Invites and other paper items such as seating, welcome sign etc i used etsy or zazzle. Zazzle will have discount codes on their website as well. oh and Staples too.