Weddingbee boards

Sorry everyone.  I had problems with the text in this post.

These are things that i am doing for my wedding that saved me tons of money.

1.  Location:  I got quotes from tons of venues and went back to them with what I can really afford.  Luckily some of the places were willing to work with my budget.  Which, by the way, was a lot less then what they quoted me.  Then from there I just picked the location I liked the best.

 Also, if you have your wedding on a friday or sunday you will save a ton and venues are willing to work with you more on prices on these less popular days. 

2. Food, if your like me and having a ton of out of town guests, dinner is a must.  I was able to get that cost down a lot my working with the venue on alternate choices. Even though my wedding wont begin till 6p.m. I felt obligated to serve dinner, especially since a ton of guests will have traveled a long way, I felt they deserved a dinner.  :)

If you have an evening wedding and reception (after dinner) you can get away with just some drinks and snack type foods. 

3.  Flowers.  Flowers for me are beautiful and an important part of the wedding.  At the same time I have seen tons of beautiful arrangements that are made of silk flowers or just greenery.  I am buying my flowers in bulk (real flowers) online and making my own bouquets and corsages.  Plus I will have extra stems to put in vases in various areas around the ceremony location.  I am spending less then $300 for all the flowers.  

I also purchased some silk flowers on afloral.com for my centerpieces for less then $10 per table. 

 4. Music: I am sure you have heard about the ipod idea.  I was at a wedding that had this and it was very nice.  However I was feeling to stressed about the idea of something going wrong, so i decided on a DJ.  I checked the classifieds and found a great DJ for a very decent price. 

I looked every where, online, wedding websites etc...

Another idea is for your ceremony music, try to find music students who would like to make some extra cash.  Try searching online or putting a add in a local classifieds.  Who knows someone might be out there willing to play at your event for your budget.

 5.  Invitations.  I bought my invitations at a local craft store for more then 50% off.  They are really cute and I am using my own ribbons to make then even cuter.  I am printing them myself.  It was a kit so it came with everything you will need including rsvp cards.  They ended up costing 40 cents per invite... great deal!  Just keep your eyes open for sales and you can always tweak and customize things to match your style and colors.

I realize you have probably heard all of this before, but I thought that maybe someone might find this helpful.  

Good luck to all the brides!