First and foremost congratulations on your engagement! What an exciting time for you and your spouse to have. There is so planning to do and things to make decisions on but i wanted to give you some tips to save money on your wedding and put that money towards your honeymoon. I just wanted to give the biggest tip of all is to breath! Take in this special season of planning and enjoy your engagement. Before you know it this time flies by.
Also some of these topics may be controversial. So i decided to share what has worked for me and my fiance in the planning process. So take what you want from this blog and share what you think i may have missed!
Don’t do favours
So like i said this could be controversial. We aren’t doing wedding favours. Personally I don’t think any of our guest will want to keep anything that has our wedding date and names on it. (I mean why would they ?) And i find that as a wedding photographer; tons of guest forget to grab the wedding favours at the end of the night. Not because they don’t want them. But because your wedding was such a great time they totally forget to pick one up on the way out. I see if time and time again that come the end of the night tons of expensive favours are left behind sadly, and ultimatly thrown out.
We aren’t doing a wedding cake
Now this one is mainly on me, but I’m not a sweets kind of girl. I don’t like a lot of sugar and the cake cutting doesn’t really mean that much to me. So we cut the cake from our budget. We are however doing a cupcake tower with a small square cake on the top. I find cupcakes are 1) So much more budget friendly. You can order 3-4 flavours vs 1-2 you would with a wedding cake, and personally cupcakes are so much easier to eat instead of committing to a large slice of cake. The quotes we got at first for the wedding cakes were crazy (not that i don’t respect the hard work that goes into them) But for a cake that i probably wont be eating anythings; it didn’t make sense to me at all. So we went with cupcakes – And i cant wait to share how good these cupcakes will be with my sister in laws mom making them.
Fake florals – All day everyday
Now i do see on Tik Tok how crazy the price of florals can be. I was shookth – haha I really wanted to use that word. But seriously it was crazy! i got quoted $18K for just my centre pieces. and i only have 4 sets of harvest tables. I was stunned! (Also let me add that i have no disrespect for florists at all. Considering im the type of girl that cant grow grass i totally realized how much work it is to grow florals and source them for such a big day!) I Just didn’t think it would be that big of a price tag. SO i went with fake florals. Majority of them i actually sourced myself from Facebook market place – A huge amazing resource and amazon. http://amazon.com I think spent a total of $250 for everything that i needed to make my centre pieces simple but elegant. We will be using https://www.costco.ca/wedding-event-flowers.html for our bouquets. One of my amazing clients had a great idea and did a sip and bouquet party and her bridesmaids come over and put together their own bouquets. (Thanks Sarah) So we will be doing that about 2 days prior to my wedding.
Gurrrl DIY where you can
I luckily have a Cricut machine and have been using it for everything! My table number, my welcome sign, bubble sign, seating mirror. All of the things. If you have one USE IT! You can make so many things custom without paying the custom price for it. Homemade Christmas Gifts Is another artical that i wrote and it has an idea for Christmas using your Cricut. I will also be DIYing my fans for my guests, the bridal parties personalized gifts as well as my gifts to my in laws. So if you have ideas and what things more custom please do it yourself and use that darn Cricut so you can save money on your wedding (Super each to learn too)
Honeymoon- Doesn’t have to be the day after your wedding
Okay so this one is another one that we decided on. It doesn’t mean that if you go the day after your wedding you’re in the wrong. Thats not it. My Fiancee and I decided on 2 things when we were looking at big ticket things during wedding planning 1. We knew we wanted to get married in June. Not too hot or too cold. We also wanted to do a family cruise with everyone that could make it. Rene and I love cruising but if you’ve seen the prices, it’s priceyyyyyyy so we wanted to book our honeymoon 6 months after our wedding to put that money and time aside and plan that out amazingly. (We are paying our deposit January 2025 and a year later we will be sailing on the cruise. That gives us time to save money without the stress of saving money for our wedding as well as getting discounts throughout the year.
Use discount sites
There is no shame- i mean at least i have none haha- in using discount sites for things. Shein, Ali Express have been huge for me. You can buy in bulk and get great discounts with certain things and its easy to sell other items you don’t need to another bride or party planner! I have bought the following from Shein: Floating candles, cheese cloth table runners, silk pjs, fake florals, foam sticks and tape for my invitations. Such a great amount of things on that site; just keep in mind that the long possible shipping time.
I truly hope that helps any bride to be that is reading this blog. Your wedding day should be just that yours. Take everyone opionion with a grain of salt, and please remember to enjoy this planning process. Take a moment or two to truly lay back and enjoy that it means to be engaged but you can do that and save money on your wedding too! Happy planning!
Check Out my other blogs
Valentines Date Ideas 2024
8 fun things to do in Toronto and Durham Region
Wedding day Photography in Durham Region
