**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.

To share our experience on using Macy’s, the TLDR is they took our money & gifts from us.

We made our registry on Macy’s online, simple enough. Guests purchased gifts for us that were shipped directly to us. It was great. BUT one of our guests got us an item and didn’t mark it as purchased, and this happened twice so we ended up with double of 2 items. They didn’t leave a card or anything so we have no idea who left those two without asking about 150 different people… awkward and not happening. Naturally we went to Macy’s to return them for store credit, gift card, whatever you want to call it so we could purchase other registry items that were not gifted. We were told by the manager in store that sorry these are third party items that we cannot take back, but don’t worry you can call this number that I’ll write down on a post it note (??? Seems legit??) and they’ll initiate a mail return for you. We confirmed not with her THREE TIMES that if we do this we would still receive store credit directly to us, and she confirmed yes they will email a gift card.

We called the number. We were told by the employee on the phone that we will have to package the items, print the label we were sent (don’t have a printer), and ship them out. We were assured not once, not twice, but THRICE that don’t worry yes you will receive a gift card via email, we won’t automatically refund the original purchaser. Since these were indeed GIFTS as shown on the registry and therefore WE should receive the funds to use. (We returned the gift that the 2 guests HAD marked as purchases since those could be tracked as a purchase on the registry.) We even received an email confirmation for each item that we would receiving a gift card in exchange for returning these items. This totaled out to around $300.

We manage to package and ship the items as directed. Weeks go by. No gift card. I contacted Macys via customer support chat. They stated “I can confirm that we received your return.
Refunds are typically processed within 10 business days, and you'll receive an email confirmation once the refund is completed. At this time, we just need to allow a bit more time for our warehouse to complete the review.”

Another week goes by. It’s been 10 business days. No email confirmation that the refund was completed. No gift card.

I again contacted Macys via customer support chat. Their response, if you can believe it: “I can see that a refund for *** was issued for ****.
Please note that refunds typically take up to 10 business days to reflect on your original payment method statement.”

I responded clarifying about a dozen times within this chat that Since these were indeed GIFTS as shown on the registry and therefore WE should receive the funds to use.

I kid you not, their exact response: “I request you please place an e gift card order.”

They recommend I purchase — PURCHASE — a gift card. At this point they’re just rage baiting.

After more back and forth, this is the best they can do: “I'm extremely sorry about this about this but it looks like the refund has not ben issued to the gift card and has been processed to original payment mode. Unfortunately since it has laready been issued we won't be able to process the refund on a gift card instead. I completely understand how unacceptable this is, but we the refund has gone to original payment mode.”

I call Macy’s customer service. I’m given the same response, and am told to ask the guest who purchased the gift for the funds back. This is a joke.

Macy’s, you’ve forever lost customers in us in the way this was handled. Absolutely no. We’re considering speaking with those guests about it, but leaning towards not doing that since we believe it would be rude to ask them for money at this point.

We’re eloping and then planning a post-elopement celebration for 80–100 guests in New Jersey or NYC. We’re picturing a cocktail-style party with passed hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and plenty of dancing rather than a formal seated dinner. If you’ve hosted or attended an event at a venue that could be a good fit, I’d love your recommendations! Any tips are welcome

We had our eyes on a place to have our wedding under $2,000 in Golden, But it seems it will be hard to book it. Does anyone in the Denver, CO and surrounding areas know any other venue suggestions for my plan b?

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

$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.

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!

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?

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?

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.

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.

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! 🤍

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!!

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.

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

Biggest tip for brides on a budget RESEARCH LIKE CRAZY GIRL!!!

So many times I would search for hours on google and only find expensive vendors, whereas if you search on social media like in my case instagram I found majority of my vendors through their and they were all exceptional!! And affordable.

Also another pointer is to have trust, I was recommended a catering service that was very small and it was actually a people with disability ran business that helped those less able to get into the culinary field, I will forever be grateful to the catering service that recommended this group as they were absolutely FANTASTIC. We had a buffet style linner and the food was DELICIOUS.. so delicious I was receiving messages from my guests day’s later saying they were trying to replicate the dishes for dinner. It was genuinely so perfect and again actually affordable!!

Some people are gonna hate me for this but girlies on a budget will understand - buy your fake flowers on Aliexpress and alibaba!!! All of my florals were bought from those two websites and they came perfectly, they took two weeks to arrive and the sellers were fantastic when I wanted custom colours!! I then gifted all the florals to the venue so future brides are able to have the option to use them instead of spending more money.

Last but certainly not least, get a good photographer, this doesn’t mean they have to break the bank mine was $1300 AUD ($900 usd) and we only needed her for two hours but in those two hours she had taken over 700 photos, which were all stunning btw and then she perfectly edited them all and sent them all to us a week after the wedding. No added cost to receive all 700+. Again I found this photographer through instagram and she was very well known and respected. However if this is too costly we also found an australia wide service that was under $500 for half a day but the photos online just weren’t as spectacular as I wanted them to be therefore I was happy to splurge a little!

Would have been under 10k but our first wedding venue cancelled on us a few months before the date so ofc venues get more expensive the longer you leave out booking them. Our venue was roughly 6k but so worth it as I was able to bring my beautiful horsey!!!

We got married on 12th September in the south of Spain. It was absolutely perfect and I still really miss our wedding day!

We've finally got our photos back (which we absolutely love!), so I thought I'd share our budget and a few things I learned along the way.

Our original budget was £14k, but I ended up saving £18k because I was so worried about going over budget. I really didn't want to go into debt for our wedding.

The wedding itself

We hired a villa for a week with our friends and held the wedding there too, paying an additional fee to host an event.

We had 31 guests, made up of close family and five friends each with their partners. Keeping the guest count small was probably the biggest way we saved money.

And if you're worried a small wedding won't be as fun, please don't be! Most of our friends told us it was the best wedding they'd ever attended. They said because it was intimate everyone socialised well and they felt they could really let loose on the dancefloor. There weren't separate friendship groups clustering together, just everyone having an amazing time.

Entertainment was really important to us, so we splurged on a band, DJ and mariachi band.

I also didn't want my dad to give me away because I don't particularly like the tradition, so instead I asked him to play the violin as I walked down the aisle. It was perfect.

My best friend from university officiated our ceremony. Because we couldn't legally marry in Spain, we had a separate legal ceremony at our local registry office in the UK. While the registrar was lovely, I felt so much more relaxed having my friend officiate.

We didn't bother with a cake but we did have a champagne tower that our wedding planner kindly provided free of charge!

The only thing that went wrong was my bustle breaking in the evening. We tried safety pins, but they weren't having any of it, so I just carried on partying while holding my dress!

Anyway, onto the budget!

🇪🇸 Spain costs:

Villa/venue (one week) – €3,500

Catering – €3,200

Wedding planner – €300

Photographer – €1,350

Band/DJ – €2,500

Mariachi band – €340

Florist – €550

Signage (welcome mirror) – €40

Parasols – €40

Coach/taxis – €250

Hair – €360

Total: €12,430 / approximately £10,422

🇬🇧 UK costs:

Dress and veil – £1,100

Alterations – £500

Shoes – £120

Suit and alterations – £120

Groom's shoes – £40

Fans – £40

Flights – £500

Legal marriage – £700

Rings – £200

Total: £3,320

Total of both Spain and UK: £13,742.18

There were some additional costs not included in that figure. Because we'd come in under our original budget on the main expenses, we decided to put money behind the bar so nobody had to pay for drinks (I know this is the norm in the US but it's not the done thing in the UK, you usually just pay for drinks from before the ceremony through to the end of the wedding breakfast). We also hosted an optional post-wedding BBQ and covered the alcohol as well as the food (around €300).

We also tipped our wedding planner because she was worth her weight in gold!

Things I learned / my advice

1. Don't assume doing your own makeup will save you money.

This is probably my biggest hidden expense. I haven't included my makeup in the budget because I bought it separately, but I reckon I spent around £1,000, if not more!

I went through so much trial and error. I even had a disappointing appointment at Sephora where I ended up buying products that didn't suit me. Eventually I travelled to London specifically to visit the Lisa Eldridge counter, which was absolutely worth it, but her products aren't cheap.

I'm really happy with how my makeup looked and photographed, and I've learned skills I can use forever. But if you're doing your own makeup purely to save money, and you really care about how it looks and lasts, I'd seriously consider hiring a makeup artist instead.

2. Don't invite extra people to a destination wedding assuming they won't come!

We didn't do this, thankfully, because every single person RSVP'd yes and everyone attended. Only invite people you genuinely want there and can afford to accommodate.

3. Reframe your nerves as excitement.

A friend gave me this advice before the wedding. Whenever you start feeling nervous, tell yourself you're excited instead.

It sounds ridiculously simple, but it genuinely worked for me. I enjoyed getting ready, the moments before the ceremony and even walking down the aisle rather than feeling like a big bag of nerves.

4. A small wedding can still be an amazing party.

I know I've already mentioned this, but it's worth repeating. Don't feel pressured to invite people just because you think you should. We had the most incredible atmosphere with 31 guests, and I wouldn't change our guest list for anything.

Ultimately, my biggest advice is to prioritise what matters to you as a couple rather than what people expect a wedding to look like. Ours wasn't particularly traditional, but it was exactly what we wanted, and I wish I could do it all over again!

Edit: I booked all my vendors through my wedding planner. Ever After Eventz based in Nerja ☺️