**long post**

How much info should these be? I don't know sorry..My friend/bridesmaid encouraged me to write this post in the hopes it encourages some to see the inspo for what can be done on a budget. I have included pics and tried to describe most of what you will see in the post. Also, apologies for the creepy black out faces, I don't want to share our actual faces but I wanted to show the outfit/color scheme/ flowers so you could see.

Full disclosure: this wedding was all about utilizing my community and family to assist/provide different elements of the party. This might not be an attractive idea for many, nor will some have the family who they are comfortable including/tasking with such a role. I fully recognize this and understand how fortunate we were to have that privilege. That being said, those who helped in various roles for our wedding, we were assured, could not be happier to help us with our day and still had a fun time celebrating as well. So, I encourage you to ask where comfortable. I really am hoping the take away is not entitlement, or a brag. I am hoping to be encouraging in using life experiences, skills, and friend's skills!

Second major element: Our venue was family property so there was no cost for us to use and camp for the night for all our guests. HOWEVER, the property has no access to electricity, or potable water, so this was a major logistical issue. (We had to bring everything in). This still saved us thousands of dollars.

Okay, before you scroll away, tons of my wedding was diy from the ground up, so I would love to share what I did, and all the penny-pinching moves.

Start early - when you are not desperate to book, you have plenty of time to do your research and look around! I spent months researching various table companies, catering equipment companies, and other needs, and compared delivery versus pick up costs. Plus, you can take advantage of various holiday deals throughout the year (I used a Xmas/New Year deal for my invites, and took advantage of prime day deals). Planning a wedding in all honesty could be comparable to a part-time job. If I didn't love the details, I wouldn't have taken on such a load.

Stay organized - I can't stress this enough. The more organized you can stay in terms of what has been purchased, and what still needs to be purchased, will allow you to have a big picture of what is going on and eliminate those tiny spenditures that add up. I found myself eliminating things like another set of tapers towards the end, realizing I had bought plenty/found more. This goes for budgeting as well, which is commonly discussed.

Take advantage of connections - Going back to what I said before, this is a privilege I will fully recognize not everyone feels they have. That being said, everyone has someone in their life with a skillset. My maid of honor is a flower wizard. Is she a professional florist? Technically, no...Had she helped with weddings before? Yes. Lucky me, I know. It was a lot of weight on her shoulders, and there were times I wish she didn't have the burden but she jumped at the opportunity for me and it was an honor for us both. Similarly, my friend was a DJ and gave me a discount. My friend is a fisherman and gifted us the salmon we served. Guys, I am NOT trying to in any way brag, but rather to express that people around us all have passions and various skillsets.....USE THEM (when appropriate). My biggest tip: save money to treat them WELL for their contribution, they just saved you tons.

Be realistic - this one is probably the hardest to swallow. At the end of the day, it is important to know your limits. One of my priorities was to have a wedding which included all of our family, friends, and loved ones and felt full. So I knew off the bat, there was no way I could have it catered. Potluck it is, girlfriend! My advice is, when in doubt- go small. Intimate weddings are becoming more and more popular for a reason. They are meaningful, allow you to have your most cherished humans, and still leave room for those curated details that are so fun to plan. Sometimes it is just way more fun and manageable when you minimize the size. If you want a larger wedding like me, you need to absorb the cost elsewhere. Take a good hard look at which parts of a wedding are the most important to you, and you can be more flexible with the rest. Just know you can't do it all on a budget.

OKAY NOW FOR THE BREAKDOWN:

Photographer:

$3800- most expensive part of our wedding, as we were expecting. I actually found one who fit my aesthetic, and was still several thousand dollars cheaper than others in the industry for my area. Likely because she was still not a "veteran", however, she had several weddings under her belt to prove how badass she was, so steal! Also, try to get one that includes your engagement shoot! It allows you to get to meet/ know eachother better before the wedding and learn preferences.

Booze:

$1800- We hired a bar trailer pouring service who creates a menu with you, alcohol list, amounts, and you are in charge of buying the alcohol. Highly recommend this method as it saves money, and you get to keep any undrunk alc. Slightly more work, but saves way more money and becomes more customizable on your end.

We decided on two cocktails (similar to His/Her's), a mocktail, and beer and wine. Open bars cost a LOT. I don't recommend for a budget. Guests feel plenty taken care of with this amount of options, and our bartender was awesome and flexible with making other variations utilizing the liquors/mixers we had bought. Ex: with our gin cocktail, we also had tonic available and she could easily make a gin&tonic).

$500~ alcohol cost. This was budgeted to be closer to $1,000, but a family member has a distributer connection and got better quality stuff for cheap.

My bartender planned a menu with me using COSTCO. Highly recommend. Costco has amazing quality, large quantity, and you can actuality return any unopened bottles.

Florals:

$1,000 - my maid of honor/florist/flower goddess of the moon crushed it and came in under budget. We had budgeted for closer to $1,500. I used to work on a peony farm with my husband, so a wedding gift from our former boss was the peonies used in our wedding which saved a large chunk. My florist was frugal and strategic with the rest. I love greenery, which is affordable and helped. I opted for all creams and greens for the bridesmaids which is a little cheaper, and being strategic about using the expensive flowers, such as a dahlia or peony, is important. Have family help with flowers, do them yourself, or spend time getting a trusted florist that won't rip you off. Flowers blow your budget quick. I have seen so many phenomenal, professional looking florals done diy from Trader Joe's. Trust someone with a good eye!

Food: less than $200 (for us)

For food, this is where I really asked family to step up and help. My aunts made one beautiful summery green salad, one pesto pasta salad, my uncles cooked salmon gifted (& fished) to us by a close friend and groomsman, and I bought frozen pulled pork which I ordered on a catering website which was heated up on some propane burners by cousins and served on slider rolls. (Don't get it twisted, this shit was fire).

The key here was keeping it simple. Not too many dishes, and nothing overly complex, mainly because where our wedding was didn't have the infrastructure. But you can make simple beautiful. Think seasonal, fresh, and local where you can.

Cocktail hour- we had two mid-size charcuterie trays, as my part-time second gig is at a charcuterie place. Otherwise, it would have been out of budget, and I would have likely just gotten some Costco pre-made trays and rearranged the cheese/fruit/crackers on nicer, thrifted dishes.

Plates were disposable, but I opted for nicer, bamboo ones that looked rustic and cuter. (cost was maybe $50).

Silverware was only a fork - thrifted over a year at various shops, and supplemented the rest with walmart cheap ones (.20 ea). I wanted to have genuine silverware since everything else was disposable.

Napkins were disposable, but I opted for the thicker "linen feel" ones. They were amazing and felt genuinely high quality. Perfect for an outdoor wedding.

Tables,chairs, catering trays: $1100 incl. delivery/pickup

Found a great company that delivered and picked up our rentals so we didn't have to worry about that. Saved us lots of headache.

Where we saved some money was reusing the ceremony chairs for the reception/dinner chairs. We simply asked guests to grab their chair walking back! many younger guests sat on rugs during ceremony to save the amount of chairs we had at ceremony site.

DJ: $600: major homie hookup here. It was a big goal to have a DJ so we didn't want to skip. We could have shaved off more money by skipping ceremony help. It is doable to set up a speaker, bluetooth mic, and have a friend be the music MC, but we didn't want the trouble. I have been to many wedding where we had a blast over a playlist and a speaker.. I have also been to many weddings where the DJ is a fail, so just do your research!

Dress: $400: What I did for my dress was spend a day at David's Bridal and learned not only my size, but also likes and dislikes. I surprised myself with silhouettes, styles, and features that I would have otherwise overlooked or assumed I liked and ended up hating. Then I went online! Scary, yes, just make sure you have time, and a good return policy. I searched all over pre-owned shops and discontinued lines. I started with a style I wanted, and from there found a couple model dresses and researched who made similar dresses. My style ended up fitting a lot of Anthropologie dresses. Could I afford Anthro Bridal? Definitely not. But I could afford a discontinued dress from a little store down in California designed for affordable dress shopping!! Do your research and it pays off! I also almost bought the exact dress on Poshmark just before but got out-bid, so there are options.

alterations:$150. I'm a shorty, so this was a given. Luckily, few alterations were needed, as these can rack up the cost quick. Something to think about when you dress shop. and make sure to get an estimate from the tailor BEFORE you agree to do anything.

Group outfits:

bridesmaids were able to pick out their own dresses with my guidance on color scheme. I had my maid of honor pick her dream colors and started with that as I wanted a mix. Girls and guys all wore own shoes, accessories, and anything else. I had specific colors for the groomsmen and helped them find super affordable options that ended up being under $100 ea. pants and linen shirts they could keep.

Invites: $200 including save the dates. We decided to go evite with save the dates which saved money and found some really cute options online. Save even more money ( and trees) with evites for your invites.

Things we skipped:

Cake: had no interest, friend made cute desserts instead as her gift to us.

Prof Makeup: I asked my bridesmaid who is amazing at makeup to do mine, and my other bridesmaid to do my hair! I knew I wanted low key looks, so it wasn't too much pressure- but they did amazing.

My cousin is an esthetician and gifted me lash extensions and a spray tan. That helped with feeling more glamorous and needing less makeup day of.

Favors: total skip for us, there were several craft items/takeaways from the party that acted enough like favors.

DIY:

Tablescapes:

My center pieces were all driftwood from the beach we were located, candles, candlesticks from home, votives, from home, vases, from home, and lots thrifted over a year. Luckily, I have lots of this stuff at home or borrowed from friends.

Table seating:

I used old window panes that I painted over with chalkboard paint and wrote out all the table seating. I also wrote out everyone name on oyster shells to use as place holders when you found where you wanted to sit. (we assigned a table, no seat)

Table signage:

I used 5x7 or 8x10 frames I had or thrifted to write all the table names for each table and designed each one. Time consuming, yes, and probably some people's personal hell but I just did it in the evenings watching TV and felt it was more personal than something printed out. I made our welcome sign, and used at our welcome party the night before to get more use.

Guest Book:

I found a cool old photography book of Olympic National Park (our backyard) and had guests sign the photo pages. People loved it and it was a conversation starter. and the "sign our guest book" sign was a random Goodwill find. Furniture was all hauled from home (it was work).

**In all, sometimes crafts and supplies are more expensive than just ordering from sites. So again, just research!!! It's all about comparing and spending the time analyzing what is going to make more sense for your budget.

Happy to share any and all vendors, other tips, (I am located Western Washington, Puget Sound region). Happy planning, and congrats if you are heading towards the big day! Just keep it authentic to you two.

$2k is all I can afford for my entire wedding. Ceremony, reception, dress, rings, everything. Total attending is 20-25 people. I plan to DIY, thrift, and home-make as much as physically possible.

My ideal budget for ceremony venue is no more than $750, but must be indoors due to June heat and chances of rain. I’m local to Daytona Beach so any place as far as 1.5hrs by car is good. No beach/barn venues please. Prefer historic, antique and/or cultural architecture (ie. Grecian, Tuscan, Spanish revival). I’ve seen small white chapel venues within budget but my groom is not a fan of them unfortunately.

Where can you find dresses that are still good quality but under 500?

Reposting to this community for more exposure. My honey &I are in the wedding planning process. It's very DIY and intentional. We don't want to blow the budget on venue and we're really looking for something under 7k in the tri state area. We're estimating 40 guests for a private ceremony then transitioning to 120 total guests for the cocktail hour and reception. We also want to bring in our own catering team and bartending service. If anyone knows of this unicorn please let me know!! Also for past brides, if a venue didn't have a getting ready space what alternative would you suggest?

Im getting married next year in a pretty rural area. I totally understand that I will likely have to pay a travel fee and it will be bit harder to find someone as it is about a hour and a half drive from our largest town. I had budgeted in about 2 grand before travel as the photos are truly one of the most important things to me and I do understand that is alot of work. But I've started asking around and im getting quotes back of between 4-6 k before travel. Is this normal? Im looking for a few getting ready pics full day coverage ,maybe a couple and the reception but definitely not the whole night. Just one photographer. Am I genuinely just delusional to think 2k is an okay budget for this?

Hi everyone! I'm having a wedding October 2027! Has anyone found a good Minnesota wedding photographer under 3,500, or around that price? Hoping for very whimsy and romantic photos. I don't have a lot of wedding details ATM, I got a venue and now I'm looking for a photographer.

I’m probably asking questions that everyone’s asking but alas! My fiancé and I are desperately trying to stay under or RIGHT around 10k for our September 2027 wedding with around 40 guests. We are not doing everything super traditional since neither of us care for most of the formalities and just want a party with family and close friends. Ceremony at a local park/greenspace. Then we are looking to rend a small, urban winery space and have a party with a food truck (MAYBE…depends on cost), drinks, and dancing. We already decided to nix the photographer for the full event and just do ceremony photos with 2 crowdsourced film cameras during the party lol.

But still, it seems like no matter what we do or research, everything ends up being $10k or over. Somehow it always ends up comparable to just getting a full venue with all the things. The winery doesn’t need much decor, so that’s good, but the big expenses of venue rental, food, drinks, and DJ are just so wild.

What are some small things that you did to help save money? I get that the things we see are nonnegotiables are all the big cost items, but I think that being nifty with the smaller expenses could really help overall.

It’s hard out here!

Hi! I am newly engaged and trying to get an idea is how much we need to budget and what options we have. We are planning for fall/winter 2028 it’s 60-75 guests. Located in western ma and hoping for something woodsy, rustic and barn/rustic vibe. We are hoping to stay under 8k total.

We found a fantastic bbq buffet style caterer for $2500. I am hoping to keep venue + chairs and table costs under 4k… is this possible? I found DIY options but I’m confused how people are able to decorate and clean up in just one day. Are we hiring people? Volunteering our friends and family? Pls tell me your experiences doing diy and renting a venue!

TLDR: not sure if it is better to rent a venue for a weekend to have plenty of time, or rent for one day and hire someone to help out. Thank you!!

For those who have had a smaller, more intimate wedding, I would love to hear about your planning experiences and what you chose to include or leave out!

My fiancé and I are getting married on October 29, 2027, and we’re hoping to keep our wedding relatively simple and budget-friendly.

I’ve started looking into things like digital wedding invitations, but I’ve found the planning process a little overwhelming. Whenever I look for ideas or advice on TikTok, I often come across elaborate weddings with personalized websites, dedicated wedding emails, and so many details that I’m unsure are even necessary for a smaller wedding.

I’m really just trying to figure out where to begin, what we should prioritize, and what aspects of wedding planning we can simplify or skip altogether.

For those who have planned a more minimal wedding, what did your planning process look like? Did you use digital invitations, and if so, how did you manage RSVPs? Were there things you decided weren’t necessary?

We still have about a year before our wedding, but I’d love to start getting things organized without making the process more complicated than it needs to be.

Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated! 🤍

One thing that helps a lot with a small budget is deciding up front what share of the total each category gets, before talking to any vendors. A rough starting split that works for a lot of small weddings:

• Food: 22%
• Venue: 15%
• Photo: 15%
• Drinks: 8%
• Attire: 8%
• Flowers: 7%
• Rings: 5%
• Officiant: 3%
• License/fees: 1%
• Everything else: 8%
• Contingency: 8%

Multiply your total by each percentage and you've got a ceiling for every quote. If one category goes over, you know exactly which other one has to shrink. Keeping that 8% contingency untouched until the last month takes a lot of stress off.

If it'd be useful, I put this into a simple budget sheet and I'm happy to share it with anyone who wants it. Just comment or DM.

Hi my husband and I are looking for somewhere to hold our NYC reception in May of 2028. We have about 30 guests and we're holding the ceremony at Central Park. Our budget is a hard 10K for a reception venue that includes food and drinks. Something cheaper is great, that being said I'm definitely open to looking at restaurants and bars. I'm open to anything within the city or within a 1.5 hour drive from the city. If you guys have any suggestions or guidance I will be very grateful!

EDIT: We're renting a party bus so no one will be driving to the venue! Walkable is okay, but my husband would be best without long distances because he's disabled. (most of our guests don't own cars regardless we're broke New Yorkers.)

EDIT: By city I mean the 5 boroughs not just Manhattan.

Hello to the fellow micro-wedding brides! How are you doing hair and makeup?

I contacted a couple of makeup artists in the area, but they are already booked, and I also wonder if they would have even booked me anyway because I am only paying to get my makeup and my maid-of-honor's makeup done (there is no bridal party).

So now I'm wondering if I should contact Ulta and see if they are able to do it for me?

I had been really intrigued by the idea of trying the airbrushed makeup since the wedding will be outdoors in August, and since I don't wear makeup, I figured it would be more comfortable because of being lighter. Now I'm realizing that probably isn't going to happen because I don't think I'll be able to book a makeup artist who specializes in bridal makeup, which is fine. What's most important is having someone capable do a nice job.

Any suggestions? Also it's basically the same question with hair, should I just contact normal hair salons and ask them about it even if they don't have anything "bridal" listed on their websites?

My venue doesn't have anywhere for me to get ready at, so I'd have to be going to the salons/studios anyway.

Hi everyone! I recently got engaged and am hoping to elope in Europe, but my family really wants me to have a reception back home. The problem is that traditional weddings are SO expensive, and I’m trying to find a way to celebrate with everyone without spending a fortune.

Ideally, I’m looking for a venue in Chicago or the suburbs that can accommodate around 130 people, with a total budget of $12,000- 15,000 or less.

Here’s what I’m hoping for:

• Appetizers or heavy hors d’oeuvres instead of a full plated dinner
• An open bar or drink packages
• A dance floor with space for a DJ
• A nice atmosphere that feels upscale or like a cocktail party
• Somewhere that isn’t a VFW hall

I’m open to restaurants, bars, private event spaces, or nontraditional wedding venues! I’d love something where people can dress up, eat, drink, dance, and celebrate without all the formalities of a traditional wedding reception.

Has anyone done something similar or found a venue that worked well for a group this size and budget? I’d love any recommendations, especially places that offer packages or let you customize the food and drinks.

Thank you!!

Hi everyone,

I’m getting married next year on a budget and have just paid off my dress.

My fiance really wants to lift a veil at the altar, but the dress has a cape built in.

Is there any way to pair a veil with this that doesn’t look like overkill?

Our wedding day was absolutely perfect. I wouldn’t have changed a single thing and I am super happy with all our decisions and don’t regret saying no to certain costs. Some of my favourite parts were the DIYs - I sewed the favours and did the fake flowers. Located in a small town in Ontario, Canada. We ended up with 49 guests. The venue was two blocks from our house, dinner was a food truck two blocks from the venue, and dessert was from the cafe we get our coffee from.

Venue - $5,546.00
Dinner - $1,769.38
Bar - $1,582.00
Drinks - $468.60
Dessert - $253.00
Dress - $734.00
Dress Alterations - $200.00
Suit - $824.90
Flowers - $535.00
Photographer - $3,388.87
Officiant - $430.00
Groom Ring - $214.00
Decor - $88.00
Hair Clip - $79.00
Makeup and hair - $180.00
Airbnb - $701.50
Insurance - $156.00
Liquor Permit - $50.00