5 ways to : Save money on your wedding

Weddings are expensive, that's no secret, but there are so may ways you can keep costs down. Brendan and I were married in April this year after starting dating in 2007 and being engaged for just over a year. I had so many grand plans for the big day, like the venue we first looked at that was a third of what our whole day cost just in venue hire!  Safe to say we didn't use that venue. Moral of the story is that grand plans aside you have to be able to afford it and since we payed for the day ourselves, we needed to find a way to still have the perfect day that didn't bankrupt us!

1) Don' be afraid to ask your friends and family for help. You'll be surprised how many are so willing.  I had my friends drying petals for me from the day we got engaged.  My little brother's new girlfriend is a trained florist and was more than happy to put together all the flowers for the day,  my mum spent many nights cutting of paper hearts that lined our aisle, a lovely friend did my hair and make up.You get the idea. Find out what your friends love to do or are good at and use them!

2) Op shopping, Thirft shopping, Flea markets. Whatever you call them they are a brilliant resource. I found so many of the decorative items at our local op shop and collected them over the months. Crystal bud vases, photo frames, jars and bottles. All were so cheap and it was just a matter of buying them as they came up and storing them until the big day.

3) DIY as much as you can. The hessian table runners I was looking at buying were more expensive then the huge roll of hessian and lace I bought to make our own.It took time but saved us so much money. Instead of having flowers down the aisle we spent months cutting out paper hearts and gluing them onto sticks. This was probably my least favourite job of the wedding prep but it was so worth it, the final outcome was striking. If you have the time making your decorations will save you a large amount of money.

4)Decide what is important to you. I fell in love with the first dress I tried on but it was $3500, there was no way that fit into our budget. As I thought about it more I realised that I was going to wear the dress for less than 8 hours but look at the photos for the rest of my life, So I choose a similar dress but much cheaper and used the extra money to hire a brilliant photographer. Now I have the most breathtaking photos to remind me of the day an you can't tell that my dress didn't cost me a small fortune. I knew having a videographer was very important to me so we cut costs on things like the invites and the cake.


5) Favours. To be honest I've never understood these. Guest should want to be part of your special day and if you are paying for dinner and have the bar tab covered then that in itself is a favour. Since a lot of our guests travelled and paid for their own accommodation at the venue I felt that I did need to do something, so I got our wedding photos made into magnets from Magnapix and sent one out with each thank you card.

Here's a selection of the magnets I had printed. Of course I got a set for our fridge

There are many more ways to save on your big day but these are the ways that helped the hubby and I afford the best day of our lives!