MemberHello Hive!
The economy is picking up a bit; however, many brides-to-be are still on a budget. I know I had to cut back on a lot of things, and I am just curious if you had to cut back on things as well. What did you skip, cut back on, or went with a less desirable but lower cost item to make budget? More importantly, did you regret your decision?
Thanks!
MemberI’m cutting back on my venue (free), dress (remade vintage dress), food (doing a dessert/cocktail reception), not doing Out of Town bags, and a lot more. I have a lot of friendors to thank for my low budget!
MemberOf your choices listed I selected dress, decor, videographer, and favors. A videographer just wasn’t worth the cost to me. We did end up getting one for free (it was a trial relationship with my planner) which was great and I do love my video, but I still wouldn’t have paid for it. Decor is an easy one to cut back. If you book a venue that is beautiful in the first place you don’t need additional decor. So that will save you time and money. The only thing we added to my venues (church and reception) were flowers and candles. Nobody cares about the favors really so we went simple. Just small chocolates at each place setting. The one I think most people wouldn’t agree with me on is the dress. But I was NOT willing to spend a fortune on my dress. It’s really not difficult to find a beautiful dress that you will love that is a reasonable price. My dress and veil together were under $900 and I LOVED the way I looked in them. I simply could not justify spending thousands of dollars on something I will wear for a few hours at the expense of something that would improve my guests experience like an open bar or passed appetizers during cocktail hour. It would REALLY annoy me if I knew the bride was wearing a $5,000 dress while I was paying for my drink at the bar.
I didn’t answer the second part of your question. I don’t regret anything that we cut back on! Not even a little bit. My guests were happy and well taken care of and I had a blast so there wasn’t a thing to complain about.
BeeWe actually made a list of things that and put them in order of importance. Flowers were so unimportant to me that I almost forgot to put them on the list so we did very minimal things. We used non-floral asile decor, my girls carried parasols, the guys didn’t want boutineers…. Well you get the idea. The only flowers we really had was my bouquet, a few flowers in these huge vase things at the front of the ceremony and simple drown gladilous for the reception table. Worked great!
Things I am glad we didn’t skimp on are photography, videography, food, DJ and location.
Memberbasically cut back on everything except for venues and photography. we picked our top choice for our photographer which was the most important thing to us. our venues were also our first picks, but neither were too expensive.
I am cutting back on everything else though. no cake, no favors, no out of town giftbags, i am doing my own makeup, my sister is doing my hair, and we whittled our menu down to only $15 a person.
Memberlol um.. EVERYTHING! There probably is not one aspect of the wedding that I would not spend more on if we had a bigger budget. I guess the biggest sacrifices though were probably flowers (not having any except bouquets and bouts) and dj (not having one, going ipod route).
Member
MemberWe skimped on or skipped:
out-of-town bags (skipped)
favors (homemade cookies, super cheap)
transportation (rented an SUV instead of a limo)
videographer (my uncle)
decor (used what was free with the hall and that’s it)
No regrets!
MemberWe cut out transportation and video due to money. We might end up adding transportation at the end up though depending on what we have left.
I also decided to DIY most of my flowers since my flowers are rather simple. We also found a photographer that doesn’t make us buy pictures. Instead we pay for her time and she gives us a CD with all images so we can print later. I am in love with this and it ended up saving us so much money!
The topic ‘Reducing’ is closed to new replies.