How to Save Money on Your Wedding

Let’s talk about saving money in places that don’t affect your wedding day directly. Weddings in general are expensive! But there are ways you can save money without skimping on the things that matter – like the aesthetics of your wedding! Here are the top three ways to save money when planning your wedding:

The Invitations

I’ll be straight up with you – you don't need to be sending so much stuff through the mail. Yes, we love the USPS and yes we want to see it thrive, but at the same time, don’t waste your money. We’re well into the digital era, which means you can send digital invitations and not have it be a big deal. And if someone gets their feathers ruffled because you chose to send them a digital invite rather than a paper invite, maybe they shouldn’t be invited anyway!

So we chose to prioritize the printed product that everyone loves – the save-the-dates. These are the things that people put on their fridges and actually care about because they’re usually a bit more aesthetically pleasing. To save on costs, we chose not to order printed invitations. Instead, we put the phrase “please RSVP on our wedding website” on the back of our save-the-date, and listed our site directly below it. This way, people can RSVP now, rather than later, and it makes our lives planning easier. 

As an aside (and I don’t get any kickbacks from this), Minted will print all of your addresses on the envelopes for you so you don't have to write them by hand. You can also have them print your return address, but it was a bigger chunk of change to do that, so we ordered a stamp with our names and return address on it. From there, we just hand-stamped every envelope. In total, we saved about $500 by not ordering printed invitations for everyone.

We are, however, ordering a small handful of printed invitations for the older people in our families and for photo purposes, but that's it. The only people who will receive printed invitations from us in the mail will be grandparents because we know they’re expecting that. However, that's still going to save us quite a bit of money that we can use for our other vendors or our honeymoon!

If you’ve already ordered your save-the-dates and didn’t put that phrase on them, no problem! There’s a quick and easy solution that will still save you money, and it won’t require you to order printed invitations. Head on over to Vistaprint (again, no kickbacks, they’re just the cheapest with good quality), and order business cards. On one side, put another favorite photo of you two from your engagement session, and on the other side put text that says “please RSVP on our wedding website” with your site listed below it. Stuff that into your original envelope, and boom! Done!

The Favors

I’m sorry to say this, but your guests probably won't take your favors home with them. A lot of times, guests forget them after they’ve had a few drinks and boogied for a few hours, so don't go balls-to-the-wall and spend a whole lot of money on favors. Chances are you're going to end up with a lot of them after the wedding. If you get custom Koozies or plants or something, sure they’re super cute and personalized to you, but they're also expensive, and you're just going to be the one stuck with the leftovers. I'm not saying “don't do favors.” There are just ways to do it cheaper. For example, I had one couple who had little packets of mystery seeds. It had their names and their date on the paper packet, and it listed what it was going to grow into – either basil or rosemary. It not only felt really personal, but it wasn't as costly, and it was more environmentally friendly. If they had left over packets, they just ended up with extra herbs, so it was still something that they could use no matter what. 

The Bar

Okay hear me out! Your guests will remember the experience they had rather than the drinks they drank or the food they ate. After pounding a few White Claws, your guests won’t be able to tell the difference between well liquor and premium liquor. They will, however, remember the rocking dance party your DJ or live band created. You don’t need to spend all the money in the world to do a premium open bar when just beer or wine will suffice! If anything, you can cover the baseline, and your guests can pay for their own upgrades if they really want the fancy stuff.

Above all, consider what is going to create a good experience for you and your guests and focus on that! Personally, I believe in focusing on experiences over things because that’s what you’ll truly remember, and that’s what will make for more incredible photos – which are what you’ll have to hold onto after the day is done. Saving money is definitely necessary when planning a wedding, so you know that if you book with me for 7 or more hours, you get my Big Day Bible to help you through it, which has a whole extra page full of tips on other ways to save!