Most people tend not to associate the word “wedding” with “affordable.” There is a great reason for this. Most weddings tend to be incredibly expensive and cause significant stress to the bride, groom, and their families.
It doesn’t have to be that way, however. Sure, there are many expensive traditions involved in a wedding, but there are also financially sound alternatives. There are quite a few ways for creative people to have an amazing wedding at a cost that doesn’t put parents into financial crisis mode.
Here are five hacks for an affordable, yet still incredible, wedding.
1. Buy Used
Since weddings are a one-time event, many weddings end up with everything sitting in storage or sold on a site like Craigslist. Even if you don’t usually like to buy things used, there are many wedding supplies that have literally only been used once, for a few hours, in their entire life. This is true for everything from wedding dresses to decorations. You can get essentially brand new stuff at nearly half the cost.
2. Never Mention the Word “Wedding”
This is not in person, but in search engines. Yes, a little known fact about many companies is that when they know something is for a wedding, the price magically doubles. This is true for just about everything. Wedding dresses, honeymoon travel, reception halls, photographers, and even flowers all have a habit of doing this. That means you need to change the way you look for things. You need to use an incognito window in your browser, especially when looking for flights. This is because some sites will save your cookies and know information about you. They can use this to charge higher prices. It also means instead of typing things into Google, you need to go straight to the sites. For example, you could type this wedding dress site’s URL directly into your browser and avoid going through a search engine. This can dramatically drop your cost in just about every category of your wedding.
3. Look at Prices First
If you choose a date for your wedding first, and then start looking for venues and plane tickets, you may find yourself severely disappointed in the dates you chose. Often, plane tickets can change price by hundreds of dollars in just a few days. The same goes for venues, hotels, and other items. If you instead look around for the cheapest dates to fly, stay in hotels, and use reception halls, then you will be able to save a significant amount of money just by having your wedding a day or two earlier.
4. Watch the Extras
Oftentimes when planning a wedding, the bride and groom will say yes to seemingly inexpensive extras. Perhaps it is paying for a hairdresser, or giving everyone some kind of Save the Date. Maybe your photographer has a bonus video option. All of these will seem inexpensive at first, but when they start to add up, you will suddenly realize that you are paying thousands of dollars more for all of the extras combined.
5. Rent
One of the biggest hassles and expenses of weddings is purchasing materials like wedding dresses, tablecloths, flowers, and more. Because these items typically only get used one time per wedding, they can be used many times over and still look brand new. Renting as much as you can will save you the hassle of having to buy everything yourself, as well as the hassle of figuring out what to do with everything after the wedding. Additionally, it saves significant money, with the average wedding dress costing over $1,000.
Final thoughts
Many brides report that one thing they wished they would have done on their wedding day is stress less. Let the little things go. It is okay if something happens and your hair isn’t perfect. If a small rip shows up in your wedding dress, it can be fixed. If it suddenly starts to rain, chances are it will be a good memory in just a few months. If someone cannot show up because of unforeseen circumstances, then you will likely get over it as soon as the wedding is over. Don’t let stress ruin what should be one of the best days of your life.
