Weddingbee boards

Instead of a rehearsal dinner, I had a rehearsal lunch.  $12 per person and included soup, entree, beverage and a dessert.  It was a plated meal too. 

Made my own bm  hydrangeas bouquets, hyrdrangeas centerpieces

Bought stuff off craigslist

Checked out Davids Bridal clearance and sale websites and told my bm about them.  My sister bought a $80 dress in my color, while the other bridesmaids bought dresses for $150.

Bought my dress at a sample sale.  $100 for my dress.

Bought placecards that doubles as favors on ebay.

Got a brother of a gm to do our photos.  He does weddings on the side.  $400

Hired a sister of a bm to be my DOC  $120.

Bought my hydrangeas from a discount flower shop.  Flowers cost me $80.  All of those flowers made 17 floral centerpieces, 8 bm bouquets and random decorations.

Husband went to art school and drew the drawing on our invitations. I got white wedding invitations for $6 for 50 invitations.  I added vellum and ribbon to it to dress it up.  My invitations cost me about $0.50 each to make.

Oh our first venue, was nice but it was really expensive for alcohol.  $30 per person extra for wine and beer.  We cancelled and lost our deposit but found a reception site and got an outside caterer that supplied us with bartenders and allowed us to bring alcohol.  We spent about $900 in alcohol and it was more than enough for 130 people.  We had about 7 kinds of beer and bottles and bottles of different type of liquor.

Let see... $3,900 for a open bar or $900 for alcohol. 

I posted a few photos of my wedding.  Definitely did not look cheap.

http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/my-wedding-photos-diy-038-planned-mostly-by-me

I love saving money... and especially for a wedding that we were mostly paying for.

What did you do to save money on your wedding?

(Well I hope this helps out fellow brides.)