A Budget Friendly Wedding For Two Love Birds Straight Out Of College

My fiance and I are fortunate to be on the same page when it comes to money- we're both big savers.  We want a beautiful wedding of our dreams, and for us, that means being smart with our money!  We've got hopes of buying a house and paying off college loans, so we wanted to make sure we could keep those dreams intact while still getting the wedding we both wanted.  With our wedding coming up at the end of this month, everything is coming together great!  We're expecting about 130 guests on a budget of about $10,000.  Here's the secrets to our budget friendly wedding:

Invitations:  We lucked out in this department because my fiance's father works for a printing company.  I designed all the invitations, RSVP's, and direction cards myself and we had them printed on regular white cardstock at the printing company.  Some bright green paper, pink ribbon, and a couple hours of assembling and our invitations were cute, budget friendly, and ready for the mail!  Like I said, we lucked out because my fiance's father works for a printing company, but even without that connection, the only fees would be for the paper itself, a couple spools of ribbon, and simple printing that could even be done on your own home printer if you wanted to!

The Ceremony & Reception Site:  We got exactly what we wanted AND got a deal on it!  We met in college and live near the college still, so we decided to have our ceremony in the chapel on campus.  It means a lot to us to pay tribute to the place we met on our wedding day!  Since we're both alumni of the college, we got a nice discount on it.  We decided to also have the reception at the college because a) they have a space available for receptions that happens to be directly across the sidewalk from the chapel- (so easy for guests!) b) the space was large enough for the number of people we expect at our wedding (about 130), and c) we got another discount there for being alumni!

Catering:  Because we chose to have our wedding on the college campus, we did not have a catering option- we had to use the catering service the college uses.  The up side of this was that they had many different options and a decent price range to choose from as well.  They were also very willing to work with us and our budget. Many catering companies jack up their prices for weddings, but because this one was standardized for all types of college events, we got a pretty decent deal.

The Dress:  I tried on a few dresses at bridal salons with my mom and my sister and got an idea of the shape of dress I liked and that looked good on me, but I kept running into a problem.  Being budget-wise is always on my mind, and I just couldn't justify spending hundreds of dollars on a dress I would only wear for one day- I know, it sounds like bridal blasphemy, but it's true.  To me, my perfect dress was one that I loved AND that was reasonably priced for something I would only wear once.  I consulted a few resources and did some internet searching and in the end I was able to order a brand-new custom made wedding dress online that I absolutely love for less than $300-including shipping and handling.  It can be done ladies!!  Mission accomplished!

(picture these shoes in white instead of yellow!)

Shoes:  I'm quite tall and the thought of wearing heels on my wedding day just wasn't appealing.  I knew I wanted sandals and found cute white ones that were just dressy enough for my liking for just $12.

Attendants:  After consulting our wonderful groomsmen and bridesmaids, we decided that rather than buy them a gift as a thank you for standing in our wedding, we would purchase their dresses and tuxes for them.  How in the world could we afford this in our budget wedding you ask?  Well, we had a discount at the tux place from a wedding expo we attended that helped bring that cost down.  I shopped around for bridesmaid dresses and realized that I wasn't really liking anything that was categorized under 'bridesmaid dress' so I started just looking for cute pink dresses and found ones that both I and my bridesmaids all loved for just $40 a piece.  I handmade some green earrings and bracelets for my ladies also with some craft store bought beads and jewelry making supplies I already own.

Flowers:  After doing some research on budget friendly options, I felt that using fake flowers was my best option.  I chose to go with fake flowers not only because they were more budget friendly, but because I was also going to arrange them myself (with the help of my family) and because I knew that this was something I could completely check off my list months before the wedding instead of a week or a few days before.  My fiance, sister, and I headed into the craft store and picked all the flowers we needed for boutinneres, bouquets, corsages, and 20 table arrangements.  We got all of our flowers chosen and ordered in store and at 50% off of all floral stems- spent less than $300.

Favors:  We decided to do a candy buffet with bags that guests could fill and take home as their favor.  Simple paper bags with a sticker with our wedding date on the front are cute, easy, and cheap.  We bought candy in bulk and I came across a stroke of luck when I stumbled upon 6 beautiful apothecary jars at a chain super store in my area for just $30.

Entertainment:  I do a lot of event planning for my job, so this came in very handy in this department.  A DJ I work with very often throughout the year comes with rave reviews and I asked if she would be willing to do my wedding.  Because we work together so often, she gave us a very much appreciated discount!

Photography:  We had my sister (who is working on a photography degree) take our engagement photos and they turned out great!  She is standing in our wedding though, so we couldn't repeat that same process for the wedding.  We decided we only needed someone to take photos at our wedding- we didn't need edits or prints since we're fortunate to have multiple family members who can edit photos.  We put out a wanted ad for a photographer that could fit into our budget and found one who has wedding photography experience, took specific wedding photography classes, and is looking to build her portfolio.  She agreed to give us rights to all the pictures she takes and take pictures for 10 hours during our wedding day for $325.

The wedding hasn't happened yet, but it's coming together great!  We've been able to stay within our budget AND continue to save up for a house.  With the budget so low, we won't need to worry about wedding insurance either.  We've done a considerable amount of DIY, but the great thing about the DIY projects we chose was that they were things we could do ahead of time and not have to stress about now as the wedding quickly approaches!  Now we're just tying up a few loose ends and we're both excited to be married and celebrate with all of our family and friends!