If you’re in the process of planning a wedding, you know how expensive it can be. Here’s a few tips and tricks we learned to try to cut down on those costs:
1. Family and Friends in the wedding industry. If there is ever a time to call in on favors from family and friends, this is it. If you have family and friends in the wedding business, I highly recommend you use those connections. First of all, you want vendors you can trust. Second, wedding vendors cost a fortune, so getting that friends and family discount can save a lot of money. We were lucky enough to have a friend of a friend who is a wedding photographer, a cousin who does wedding flowers, a friend who bakes wedding cakes, which resulted in a few hundred dollars saved.
2. Ebay. I was shocked to find that a simple veil with a little bit of beading cost more than $100 at my local wedding shop. I went on Ebay and found equally gorgeous veils coming out of China for about $10-20. I ended up with a beautiful veil that I still like to look at and it cost me $18. I bought it from a reputable buyer on Ebay and it was here within 2 weeks. I also used Ebay for my tiara and flower hair accessories.
3. Groupon/Google/Living Social/Etc. There are so many deal sites out there right now, where you can get $50 of merchandise for $25, etc. We were able to get deals from wedding favor online websites and photo sites, saving us a lot of money on printing photos and also getting wedding accessories like the place card holders and gifts for the wedding party.
4. DIY projects. If you have a lot of DIY projects like we did, consider using this wholesale source Papermart. We found ribbons, containers for wedding favors, gift bags, etc, all for very low prices on this site.
5. BevMo 5 cents sale. If you are supplying your own alcohol, consider BevMo’s 5 cent sale, where on select wines you select one bottle and get the second for 5 cents. It saved us hundreds. Luckily our wedding took place during their large yearly sale where many of their wines were part of the deal. In addition, if you sign up for their wedding site, you can arrange to have a tasting in store of the wines you are interested in.
