Tips and Ways to Save on Weddings?

HYX on 23/11/2017 - 14:13
Last edited 29/11/2017 - 13:00

Hello OzBer's

I'm in the process of planning my wedding and I'd like to get any ideas from your experience on how to save on costs.

My budget is as little as I can spend on top of the venue (minimum spend is close to 20k), without compromising too much on quality. I've got to adhere to the minimum spend (seems I can't negotiate this), but I'd like to find out any tips I can ask for in terms of add-ons and things to bargain for (and how to bargain for).

Would be great if you could share how much you spent on your wedding and when it was.
Please exclude the cost of rings.
You can fill in the below or even just a one liner stating no. of guests and rough total cost.

Reception:
No. of Guests:
Ceremony:
Photography:
Videography:
Flowers:
Hair & Makeup:
Dress/suit:
Bridal party:
Cake:

Recommendations are more than welcome.

Thanks in advance!

Update:

Thanks for all those who took the time to give advice and share your experience! Much appreciated.
One of the most common advice was to find a venue with a lower minimum spend. After asking 20 venues in Sydney, the lowest minimum spend I came across for a Sunday evening was 9k (similar on a Friday evening), with most venues being 12k–15k. Average per head cost being $145–$165.
Let me know if you know of alternative venues that have a lower minimum spend/per head cost in Sydney.
Thanks again!

General Discussion

Comments

  • [Deactivated] on 26/11/2017 - 04:04
    +7

    Got married at the city council

    <$400.

    <15 guests.

    It is just a wedding. Don't let society convince you that it is something that needs a banquet with fancy decorations.

  • charliechunks on 26/11/2017 - 05:13
    +1

    Booking lunch rather than hiring out the whole venue saved us $16k. It meant we got to have it at a venue that we wouldn't have dreamed of paying the min $20k for. We kept it small (30 ppl) and I bought my dress second hand. It was $8k new and I paid $1.8k. You can def get cheaper but just make sure you get what you like😁

  • slow on 26/11/2017 - 06:22
    +8

    Weddings don't have to follow the prescribed format. We had about 35 close family and friends. Registry office, and then to a nice small Italian restaurant that we had booked out, until late. Everyone had a great time, and we loved the fact it was relaxed and informal rather that the stuffy occasions that weddings often are.

    To the people suggesting fiji etc. I once got invited to one of these and it really pissed me off that we were expected to spend thousands on flights and accommodation and take annual leave to go to a wedding. I know many of the other invitees and even their family felt the same

  • syousef on 26/11/2017 - 07:29
    -1

    As the groom you do get some say about the wedding. If you think it's yours to plan though, you're dreaming.

    You've already chosen the cost of your wedding when you popped the question. I hope you chose a woman who has some common sense regarding living within her means.

  • misspep on 26/11/2017 - 08:24
    +2

    We got married in April this year for about 23K. Excluding honeymoon.

    Number of people: 120.
    Chose a venue that allowed us to use the grounds for the ceremony for free. Had the cake, decor, DJ, MC, reception 3 course meal and a bunch of other stuff included as part of the package. Was about $120 a head. Did upgrade the cake to a second tier for about $200.
    Had invites made on Etsy. About $300.
    Wedding programs made on Optimal Print on sale at like $80.
    No menu print outs.
    Guestbook - bought off EBay.
    Photos/wishing well/other decor - DIY, mostly done through Office Works.
    Bridal party was only one bridesmaid and one groomsman so less to pay for.
    Wedding dress bought overseas when in China for $290 although I spent a lot of time looking on www.stillwhite.com.au and there are so many gorgeous dresses there if you’re ok with secondhand (meaning used once)!
    Bought a second reception dress for $300 from a local designer shop.
    Suit was half price from MJ Bale at DFO, about $400.
    No videography - that’s expensive.
    Photography was through a friend and therefore mate’s rates but they are pretty good! Check out Birds of Paradise on FB, they also did a prewedding photo shoot for us.
    No car, my brother drove me.
    Celebrant was a family friend so only about $350.
    Hair and makeup was $500 (again, only two people to do).
    Flowers about $400, I did them myself, had a local green grocer supply flowers direct from the Sydney flower market and my auntie/Mum/myself did them the night before.
    Bonbonierres were from China at about $1 per piece when we were overseas prior; maybe look on EBay or even the Wish app.
    Photo booth was $500 but I waited for a 20% off sale and only hired it for 3 hours.
    Bought rings in Hong Kong for $700, pretty sweet deal.

  • Aceboy884 on 26/11/2017 - 08:30

    And I thought the op was asking for advice how to save money

    All the examples are close to $10K

  • BanannaMan on 26/11/2017 - 08:44

    We were on a tight budget so no Church or large affair just celebrant & local restaurant.

    Reception: $8500
    No. of Guests: 80
    Ceremony: $300
    Photography: $650 (average photos)
    Videography: $0
    Flowers: $50 (only bride flowers)
    Hair & Makeup: $600
    Dress/suit: $500
    Bridal party: - didn't have one
    Cake: $400

    If you really want to save money, celebrant & Bbq like my brother did
    Spend the money on honey moon

  • [Deactivated] on 26/11/2017 - 10:09
    +3

    I love topics about weddings or marriage, it always bring out the miserable losers/divorcees.

  • Soluble on 26/11/2017 - 11:54
    +4

    Was already heading to USA for 4 weeks. Planned a wedding in Vegas(misus didn't know) proposed on day 1 got married on day 3. Grand canyon ranch wedding including helicopter ride $3500. Purchased suits there for me and a mate $400. Misus found a wedding dress for $400. Added in a 2 hour limousine photo shoot around Vegas for $250. Total cost $4550. They also gave us a $5 bottle of bubbly.

    • hashtagbargain on 26/11/2017 - 12:05

      Smart move, what happens in vegas stays in vegas!

  • Fizzydrink on 26/11/2017 - 12:03
    +1

    don't do it on a sat or sun.. Fri is heaps cheaper. During the week even more so.. for us a fri was $80 a head, sat was 150..

    don't use the term 'wedding' when booking

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 13:00

      Fridays are around the same as Sundays from what I've come across.
      Eventually you'll have to tell them it's a wedding right? A bit hard to lie about the occasion if asked by the venue haha

  • AustriaBargain on 26/11/2017 - 13:28
    +1

    Bowling alley.

  • 2jzzzz on 26/11/2017 - 13:34
    +1

    Reception: $5500 (Buffet, high end meals with unlimited beer, wine and cider @ $60/head) also with 2 nights in their best Honeymoon Suite (Hotel in Cairns).
    No. of Guests: 90 I think
    Ceremony: $100 donation to priest
    Photography: $2500 (Seriously, spend some money here for one with previous good work who spends time editing)
    Videography: $0, meh, didn't want.
    Flowers: They were very nice fakes, cost around $200 and self arranged
    Hair & Makeup: $500 for 5 bridemaids and bride
    Dress/suit: $400 tailored suit, $700 "Deb" dress to size
    Bridal party: $500 for 5 dresses (sized and and make to order) and shoes
    Cake: $150 from local cake maker
    Invitations $400 incl $1 stamps there and one on their RSVP envelope
    Cars: $300 for 3 cars for the day (1 x black merc and 2 V8 Comoodores, all hired through local car hire for logistics only (AVIS)

    TOTAL - $11,250ish.

    Didn't feel like a cheap wedding, we had everything exactly as we wanted. Helped the reception was relatively cheap per head for what we got. The hotel also catered a massive/extravagent wog wedding just over the rad the same night. Meant we had all the fancy imported Italian goods for no extra cost.

    THEN honeymoon in Greece for 4 weeks on money saved. Ahh the $600/night room in Santorini was bliss.

  • hotstuff on 26/11/2017 - 16:52
    +1

    Tips..

    I had 250+ guest at the reception. Mind you it was Asian wedding so we got money bags and made the money back if you can say that.

    We spent about $20K and the reception paid back the wedding. Thou we still did stuff on the cheap. We had ceremony at MT Annam and the celebrant was about $300, I think it was 300+ buck to hire out two areas. Photography and video was about $8K which was the most expensive, photos and video were from 5am-10:30pm. Car hire was another $800. Same with flowers about $700. We hired suits so it was bit cheaper $300(4 grooms). the girls dress were pretty easy. We got them at a retailer in Westfield and turn out great did look cheap. Make up was about $700 for 5 ladies. DJ was a friend and he was tops so he did it on the cheap. Plus little bits and bobs. Invitation were included in the package of the reception. So without the wishing well. We would of paid about $20k for everything including the reception.

    I think that's about it.

    I say draw a budget out, call around till you can find everything in your budgets don't be dishearten if you get a quote that is much higher. Ask what can you do with say this taken out. Book it 18 months - 2 years in advance to get a save money if you need to. Also don't stress on the wedding day. You mates will look after you.

  • Winni2017 on 26/11/2017 - 16:59
    +2

    Hi

    I planned all my wedding by myself with my partner then, husband now.
    I recommend get on to excel or spreadsheet first..
    List all your requirements. The very first thing is your budget. How much you are welling to spend and stick to it.
    Then book venue, date, wedding dress, church if is a church wedding, photographer and videographer.

    Venue we went is in Melbourne, we liked old mansions and building so we went to a a lot in Melbourne then picked the top 10. Then pick the price of the venue according to your budget.

    Your church can be any where you like and they will mostly work around you.

    Wedding dress, I recommend buy online! It's cheaper from the shops. As long as you go. To. The shops and do all the trialling of the dress, even. If you might not like it still try coz they will look different when you have it on. Book in advance to the shops so they the shop assistant will be attentive to you.

    Once you know the style you want, measure yourself and go online and pick that beautiful wedding dress you have dreamed of. The online stores and customise to your size. I always suggest lace dress because you don't need to worry too much of your weight when the lace can adjust to your size.

    Photography and videography is very important so that you can have it for the rest of your life. Always go there to have look at the profolio so you know what type of style the photographer and videographer will do. Discuss with your partner what kind of style you would like. Remember to get the highlights they are so good when showing your friends and family the wedding and not needing to watch the whole long speech.

    The next is your bridesmaid dress, think about your theme what you would like them to be in. If you like maybe chose something that they can wear again to another venue. Also the dress can be brought online, if not shops like forever new, portmans etch will have something.

    Invitations and bombomiers can be easily done by yourself if you like or can buy online too, my little company called alifetimewedding on Facebook specialise in wedding bombomiers and table number cards. You are welcome to check it out.

    Make up was done by a lady name aimmey google her she is fantastic but a bit on the price end however she does wonderful job

    Flowers we brought artificial flowers for all apart from the guest table. Artificial flowers are cheaper them real flowers and you can keep them forever! I still have mine and I've being married for 3 yrs. If you are good DIV then I suggest doing it yourself is cheaper. Also try find wholesale flowers they will be cheaper too.

    Don't forget cars if you need on, we only hired one bridal car coz I only had two brides maid and we were not thar into cars so the grooms man was happy to be in their own car. I suggest of a big group go with a like a limo i think it will work out cheaper then am old classic car for two..

    Anywya that I think covers the basic. I love planning wedding, if you need more help pls email me at [email protected] glad to help out!! All the best and congratulations!

    Win

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 13:33

      Thanks for the details and tips! Can you let me know where you got your flowers from? I'd like to look into fake flowers as an option :)

      • Winni2017 on 28/11/2017 - 05:48

        Hi I actually found mine on ebay the business name is called forevermore flower. She is located on Victoria but I am sure she does ship out other places. I only got her contacts at the moment she does have a website. Just email her and I am sure she will send you her profile. Trust me her work is beautiful
        https://www.truelocal.com.au/business/forevermore-flowers/au…

    • Agret on 27/11/2017 - 23:12

      I live in Melbourne can you dig out the list of your top 10 mansion venues?

      • Winni2017 on 28/11/2017 - 05:51

        Butleigh Wootton (1) sorry this is my venue but no longer open any more.

        The willows (2)

        The strand (3)

        The berth (4)

        Pelican Landing (5)

        The Terrance (6)

        International (7)

        Ballara Reception (8)

        Quat Quatta (9)

        The Anchorage (10)

        Werribee mansion (11)

        They are not all mansion but we try to find the mansion types that suited us.

        You might also like the cold stream Yarra it's stunning too!

        Hope it helps. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

  • AkiraSaito on 26/11/2017 - 17:47
    +2

    Get your wedding gown and suit made to measure as early as possible, at least 6 month before your wedding

    Make them one size smaller than where you currently are now. Best motivation to lose fat.

    I had my suit made online with iTailor for about $500 and they are better than my $1200 boss off-the-rack suit in almost every way.

    My wife had her gown made to order to replicate a $20K designer dress at a cost of $1,200. And she was astonishingly beautiful on that day.

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 13:37

      Thanks, do you know what the place where the dress was made is called?

  • Illian on 26/11/2017 - 17:52
    +1

    Come on guys, the 'don't do it' joke is as old as the hills, my eyes have almost rolled out of my head. I can't believe how much money a lot of you are talking about here, over 20k? Dang. My husband and I had our wedding at the court, just to get the document, we'll wait a few years for the ceremony when we can actually afford it, and even then it's going to be a small private affair, won't be near 20k, the biggest expense will be the air tickets if we do it somewhere picturesque overseas. Luckily one thing we can save on is photography as my Husband is friends with a couple world-renowned professional photographers both in the fashion and wildlife/travel worlds and they'll do it for free, only need a couple good shots and they're guests anyway.

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 18:37

      My eyes are with you, lol

  • DKC on 26/11/2017 - 18:29
    +1

    Wedding cars:
    Specialist wedding car hire are always more expensive.
    I hired 1x Audi A6 and 2x Audi A4 from Europcar with Entertainment Book discount vouchers.

  • Dreamcast on 26/11/2017 - 18:30
    +1

    You have to adhere to a minimum spend. Have to?? Like really???…..

    Get married, but don't have a wedding. Do something small with the family. Dinner, etc.

    A. Marriage is more than one day. All the stress and financial loss ain't worth it.

    B. No matter what you do, you will never appease both sides of the family, nor guests. Someone will always have something bad to say.

    Can you update your original post as to why you have a minimum spend? If it's a directive from your fiance, run. If it's from the in laws, tell them to get stuffed.

    This is half the reason I won't get married. All the wedding expectations culturally, it's just ridiculous.

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 13:41

      The minimum spend is from the venue, which I also wasn't aware of prior to getting quotes from different places. I'm looking at ones with a less minimum spend now.

  • iversonjack on 26/11/2017 - 20:16
    +1

    Hire friends for wedding photography, videography, cake etc. And invite them to reception and advise them not to prepare any presents. Assuming they are somewhat good at those things :-)

  • blergmonkeys on 26/11/2017 - 20:46
    +3

    My wife and I didnt want a big wedding so we held it on a wednesday, invited close people we really wanted 2 months ahead and people we didn't want 2 weeks ahead. We had a 25 person wedding in a small but beautiful restaurant in the rainforest and an afterparty in a villa a friend lent us. Cost $5k all up with unlimited booze, food and a raucous good time for everyone involved..

    Likely not your use case but just thought I'd throw it out there that you don't need these insane, lavish weddings. We took the money we saved and went travelling around the world that year, going to over 20 different countries across 5 different trips.

  • rentonc on 26/11/2017 - 22:00

    For cars we hired a couple of white Ford Fairlanes from Hertz. Driven by relatives, they were perfect and I think the total was less than $100 at the time about ten years ago.

  • Donaldhump on 26/11/2017 - 23:02
    +1

    Why not use the money on a sick holiday.

  • JKM on 26/11/2017 - 23:13
    +2

    My biggest piece of advice is to not spend a lot of money on invitations, because a lot of people just throw them away anyway! There are a lot of online options out there, that offer a full suite such as invitation, envelope, gift card and RVSP card with nice paper and designs.
    I also suggest going for a smaller size invite because if you're mailing them, the bigger and heavier the invitation, the more it will cost!
    Congratulations on your wedding and all the best to you both.

    • anastasiastarz on 27/11/2017 - 08:37
      +1

      No bigger than letter size I'd say. Do have physical invites for those who aren't online though.
      We did online invites, though mailed out paper ones to offline friends, and grandparents.

  • Yttrium on 26/11/2017 - 23:26

    buy 10% of a house instead of throwing a lavish party.

  • IIGnomeII on 26/11/2017 - 23:34
    +1

    Married at the end of last year, south coast.

    No. of Guests: 110
    Ceremony: ~$2,500
    Reception: ~$16,000
    Photography: $2,900
    Videography: n/a
    Flowers: ~$600
    Hair & Makeup: ~$2,000
    Dress/suit: ~$4,500
    Bridal party: ~$2,500 (4 each side and a flower girl)
    Cake: Included in reception fee
    Total: ~$31k

    On top of that we had a bunch of things like the celebrant, location fees, chair and arch rental, string trio for the ceremony etc that added on another $3-4k

    While not a cheap wedding but cheaper than a lot of people that I know here are my tips.
    1) Get out of your city by at least a couple of hours drive and you can save thousands on venue hire for receptions.
    2) Flowers can be a rip off but see if you can get the company doing them to re-use flowers at your ceremony at the reception so your not wasting money
    3) One thing most people will a agree on is don't skimp on your photographer. Unless you know someone that does it professionally and you are happy with the style I would pay the money for someone.
    4) We didn't worry with a videographer, in my opinion no one watches their wedding video enough to justify the cost. Family with video cameras are more than enough to capture the day, again IMO.
    5) Cars can be borrowed from a rental company or just use family members or friends cars if they drive something nice
    6) I bought a suit that I could re-use for work rather than renting
    7) look at RSL's/Golf Clubs and see what their wedding packages are like. Some will only allow you to buy alcohol they provide while other places will be happy for you to supply your own.

    Best of luck!

  • Starlight8 on 27/11/2017 - 00:02
    +1

    My wedding was expensive but I saved by calling in 101 favours and also bargaining!

    I heard if you pick winter the wedding will be much cheaper as its low season. Also perhaps finding a reception that includes cake and dj as a package will save you a bit :)

    An easy way to save $900 minimum is to get your friend/friends to be your MC :)

    All the best x

  • Lumens on 27/11/2017 - 01:27

    I love it when people say they got their friend or someone learning wedding photography to cover their wedding. Even a professional landscape photographer doesn’t cut it - they’re totally different genres that don’t overlap at all apart fro being able to turn the camera on (settings are totally different).

    Learning how to work with light, posing, choosing the right composition, focal lengths and then getting emotion take years of practice.

    Some of you may not value photography but it’s the one thing you may regret in years gone by when the money is well forgotten, especially years down the track when family members die or you want to show your kids when they’ve grown up.

  • harley on 27/11/2017 - 01:29
    +1

    Married in 2016. Approx 10k inc wedding bands.

    Reception: 4k for 50 people. 3 course meal, unlimited booze. Inc decorations, chapel, finger food & booze while photo taken on venue. Price approx. 75 pp for lunch and off peak season (beautiful Autumn leaves).

    Ceremony: Free. Friend is a celebrant.

    Photography: 1000 from serviceseek. Lady was a professional photographer just moving into weddings and wanted to build a portfolio. Also came with a photo booth which was heaps fun. Loved the photos.

    Videography: didn't have one bc let's face it, probably will watch it once & maybe the grand kids will find it dusty at the back of a drawer somewhere. We just had a friend set up a camera to record the ceremony.

    Flowers: 200 for roses and baby breath. Bought at wholesale market and made them with mum (bonding experience). For my sis' wedding, instead of the hassle of going to the market in the morning, i went to a local grocer who also sell flowers cheap and asked them to go to the market & buy for us in bulk. Very minimal markup.

    Hair & Makeup: 0 for hair, as kept it natural. 0 for makeup as we did our own. (I did try out a few makeup artists for around 100 but they did not compare to our own skills).

    Dress/suit: Dress free as a friend had a closing down bridal shop. Got to pick from a bunch. Lucky. Suit, $300 CK from Myers.

    Bridal party: 2 Bridesmaids, dress & shoes were on sell from forever new = $150 (currently 20% off storewide). 2 Groomsmen, bought own clothes.

    Cake: Free. Have a friend who makes occasion cakes.

    Invitations: photo print outs from Big W. 3 pages each. So approx. $50.

    Bonbonniers: sale and pepper shaker lovebirds from EBay, $60.

    Car: used own.

    Honeymoon: 1000 including flights & accommodation at a resort.

    Wishing well: guests basically paid for our receptions.

    Also salary packaged the reception and honeymoon cost.

  • sparkanum on 27/11/2017 - 06:58
    +2

    All up it was about $12k including the ceremony, reception, rings, etc. Both venues were in Pymble (Sydney) in 2011.

    We decided to spend money on the stuff that was important to us and ignored the rest. So our expenses were pretty lumpy; some things (the dress, the venues) we spent a lot on to get the specific thing we wanted, and others we did ourselves or not at all.

    That'd be my advice for keeping the cost within your budget; ignore people and sites that want to tell you what you have to have at a wedding and what it should cost. If you don't care or don't like it, just don't do it. Pick the awesome parts, do those, and throw the traditional stuff away.

    That goes for guests as well; our invite list was kept to our closest friends and family. Noone was on that list because we thought it'd make someone else upset if they weren't, or because it seemed like we had to, or because of some familial obligation. Not just to keep the cost down but to ensure that there'd be no awkward conversations with people you haven't spent a lot of time with, no forced mingling or chit chat, etc. I know not everyone has this luxury for various reasons, but if you do have the option I couldn't recommend it enough.

    And don't listen to all these sad sacks suggesting not to have a wedding and save the money. I haven't regretted a cent I spent on the day, because it was one of the best of my life. But that's probably helped by having stuck to our budget and only done/paid for the things we really wanted.

    Hope this helps, and good luck for your big day!

    Reception: $6k ish. That's for the venue, food, booze, a DJ, some bombonieres we made, shuttle bus for the guests so they could get sloshed, invite cards we made at home, etc. We spent big on the venue because we really wanted a fancy sit down dinner and a lot of boozing.

    No. of Guests: About 40

    Ceremony: $1200, including decorations and officiant and all that. Includes about $300 for a guitarist to play for the ceremony. It was at a little church in Sydney.

    Photography: Family member (and a guest) was a wedding photographer, so did it for free. We spent about $300 on a thank you gift and accommodation for them over the wedding weekend.

    Videography: Family member did it for free (pay back for doing their wedding!). We bought them a $100 gift as a thank you.

    Flowers: $325. Mainly the bouquet, but also boutonnieres for us and family. Ceremony and reception flowers were included in their respective fees.

    Hair & Makeup: $200 ish. Mainly to buy make up so her sister could do it for her (she doesn't wear make up usually). I cut my own hair.

    Dress/suit: Dress $1500 with shoes and alterations. Wife had something very specific in mind so we were prepared to spend whatever it ended up costing for this one. She still pulls it out and wears it around the house every so often because she loved it so much. Suit hire $230.

    Bridal party: $500. We had a best man and a maid of honor. We'd set aside $250 for each of them to cover their expenses (suit hire, dresses, etc) on the day, but for the bridesmaid the dress she and my wife wanted ended up being found in target or something crazy like that, so was hilariously cheap ($10?). So about half this was just paid as a gift to say thanks for all their respective help.

    Cake: $70. Got a couple of our favourite cheesecake shop mud cakes to make the tiers, then decorated ourselves. Maid of honor made cake toppers as a hobby, which we still have on display in our living room. I think we ended up slipping her husband a couple hundred for those because she was refusing to take cash.

    • HYX on 27/11/2017 - 18:36
      +1

      Thanks for your post! I find your insights helpful and reassuring as it's important to be in the right mindset when trying to plan something of this significance :)
      Sad sacks - lol

    • [Deactivated] on 28/11/2017 - 10:45
      -1

      would be a really good post if not for the sad sacks comment. It is not needed. I could argue you are a sad sack for cutting your own hair.

      • sparkanum on 28/11/2017 - 10:54
        +2

        Argue away! I cut my own hair primarily to avoid the minute amount of social interaction with hairdressers and to save a few bucks, so I am definitely a sad sack for doing that.

        Telling people who are excited about celebrating something important to them that doesn't affect you whatsoever is similarly a sad sackable offence.

  • lunartemis on 27/11/2017 - 07:28
    +1

    Ours was around $5-6k back in 2003 with around 50 guests.
    Reception - $1600 (all you can eat buffet at a fine dining Japanese restaurant
    Ceremony- $0 (I was a member of the church)
    Photography $200 (done by our friend and we just paid for printung)
    Dress/suit - $1500 (made by our friend)
    Flower - $120 (provided by our friend florist)
    Cake - $50 (made by family friends)
    Musicians - $0 (school friends choir)
    Gifts for guest - $500
    Stationery - $120 (printed and made ourselves)

    What's most important is everyone had a great,stress free day and we are still happily married.

    Some people take up loans to pay for their weddings and still paying back the loan after they get divorced…

    • Hogg on 28/11/2017 - 11:36

      May I know which Japanese restaurant?

      • lunartemis on 28/11/2017 - 14:19

        A place in Brisbane called Oyama (used to be in Sunny bank but moved to the valley)

        • Hogg on 28/11/2017 - 15:13

          Dang was hoping it was a place in Sydney.

  • thriftybunny on 27/11/2017 - 08:01
    +1

    Just a few tips to save $
    Lunch reception is cheaper than dinner
    Sunday is cheaper than Saturday (weekdays even cheaper obviously)
    Winter cheapest
    You can negotiate, if not the price ask for free meals for crew, or free centrepieces or upgraded meal options etc lots of venues have free decorations anyway.
    You can rent a designer wedding dress for a fraction of the cost, Google it if you are interested
    DIY everything you can, invites, place cards, decorations etc

    I'm not sure about the don't tell people it's for a wedding bit, I feel like most small businesses catch on…

    Google "light in the box" it has lots of quality but cheap wedding goodies from China

    Ask for money as gift on your wedding invite - pretty sure this is really common now. It's called a wedding wishing well.

    Lastly, don't go cheap on photography…

    Good luck!

  • Ace Ventura on 27/11/2017 - 08:19
    +2

    My wife and I got married at some local gardens, really nice spot, had to pay $150 to secure the area the for the date.
    Reception at a heritage hotels function centre, wasnt overly expensive, think we ran at about $50 per head, plus $1500 for the room.

    We bought all our decorations online, only a few hundred dollars. We did glass bowls with pebbles and floating candles, then some wrought iron candelabras.

    I restore old holdens, as do my father and brother, so we used our own cars. On the way to the reception we got pulled over by the boys in blue for a "random stop" ended up getting some great shots of them pretending to arrest us.

    MIL is a dress maker so all dresses covered for the cost of materials, think the MIL may have even paid for the materials.

    Wife made up invites from scrapbooking stuff.

    Celebrant was only a few hundred, she got sick the day before and organised a replacement for us, she then refunded the full amount as she couldn't do the job herself.

    We put a note in our invitations saying no gifts but there will be a wishing well if anyone wanted to contribute to the honey moon. Was surprised how much we were gifted in cash.

    I work in hotel management, the company gifted me ten nights in my choice of hotels, after sussing out availability we had the first half of the honey moon covered, toured from hotel to hotel in our 2 door LX, with "just married" scrawled across the back window, got lots of attention and waves.

    All in all we spent about 10k and got everything we wanted really.

    • HYX on 28/11/2017 - 09:05

      Thanks for the info!
      What's the process of doing the ceremony at the local park? Council approval? Also how was the cost and logistics of furniture and decorations?

      • emiii on 28/11/2017 - 15:00
        +1

        You need to contact the local council of that park. You may need to pay for a permit depending on the number of guests at your ceremony and if you serve food, you may need to pay for litter bins. There were also a list of rules with the park we chose eg no use of PA system, no confetti, poppers or streamers. All our vendors at the park needed public liability insurance and copies had to be sent to council.

        The white fold-out chairs I think you can hire for about $5-6 per chair. More fancy ones cost more of course.

      • Ace Ventura on 28/11/2017 - 20:00

        We contacted the land caretakers, which was central highlands water, they maintain gardens around a reservoir. They just charged us $150. No weddings to take place without their consent to ensure no one else was there, but it is public space so people can walk nearby, but most people would see whats going on and avoid.

        We didnt use any furniture, just a card table with a white cloth over it for the signing. Guests all stood.

  • pegaxs on 27/11/2017 - 08:34
    +2

    Biggest money saver is to cut down on guests. It’s supposed to be a special day to be shared with close friends and family. The rest of the people there don’t really care and only just want to skip the wedding ceremony and get to the free alcohol and free food.

    The only people inviting enormous amounts of guests and spending a min of $20k are people who have a “look at me” requirement. It’s money better spent making your new life together more comfortable, like, say a house deposit.

    I find the smaller weddings to be a much more personal affair. Large weddings just feel like a piss up day at the races. No one cares, it’s all about the free booze and so many people don’t know each other, so they just stand around in small pocket groups of their own kind.

    • anastasiastarz on 27/11/2017 - 08:40
      +2

      In some circles weddings are competitions on who can do it bigger and better. It's hard not to get swept up in it all. But just remembered it's YOUR day. Do what you want, you don't need to follow trends or avoid anything others say are overdone. Too many things are done to please others, but that won't make you happy.

    • HYX on 28/11/2017 - 09:07

      I agree, I also find smaller weddings more personal and enjoyable

  • anastasiastarz on 27/11/2017 - 08:48
    +1

    Lots of great tips here. I'm an events planner. I need specific questions to answer though.

    We're not married yet, recently changed venues though the first two things you need to book is the venue and photographer (especially if they're well known). Our wedding isn't a budget one (we are building our venue - no it's not a house, though it only fits 20-25 people max, and it's only for the ceremony). Our reception is going to be a Victoria era ball with a midnight garden theme (I specialize in themed weddings & parties) and we're having musicians. We're going to have 50 - 200 people (though I'm only inviting about 10 people, as he's the social one). How are we going to reduce costs? I'm a huge fan of diy (he's worried it might be a craft expo) and will be doing all the stationary. Mainly emailing them out, text reminders, though for offliners we'll mail out invites I'm making.

  • irajohn90 on 27/11/2017 - 10:04
    +2

    We had our wedding overseas in the Boracay, Philippines (beach wedding). Guests paid for their trip (airfares and accommodation) but we didn't ask for gifts. Only those closest to us attended, which is a good thing in a way, rather then paying for guests you only see every few years.

    We hired a well-known planner to organise pretty much everything and we still spent half the amount compared to a wedding in Australia.

  • bocca on 27/11/2017 - 10:23

    Hello, it just come down to how much you want to go with, or go without. =D

    We had 60 guests for $11.5k, but ended up breaking even!

    Wedding = Ozbargained

    -Had ceremony and reception at same venue (saved money on transport and venue hire)
    -Had it on Friday night (20% cheaper vs sat)
    -Had it in winter (way cheaper, 10-20%)
    -Kept the guest-list right down to essentials only
    -Got our friends do to videography and photography: up and coming in the industry so it was (super cheap, about 90% off industry rate [I.R])
    -got a 'mini' bouquet of flowers for the bride and single roses for bridesmaides (about 80% off IR)
    -sourced the cheapest celebrant from gumtree (about 30% off IR)
    -borrowed a friends wedding dress (saved 2-10k!!!)
    -got a friend to do makeup and hair (about 90% off IR)
    - no kitchen tea (saved $2-10k)
    - got bridesmaides dresses from ASOS with student discount (20%) and paid in british pounds (another 40% off) [saved around $1k vs IR]
    - got groomsmens ties from ebay for $2 each. looked great

    We asked for no physical gifts, but guests could contribute to a 'honeymoon fund'.
    Ended up getting all the money back because we have awesome friends and family.

  • babecake on 27/11/2017 - 10:35
    +1

    Some money saving tips:

    1. Venue - Get married during the Off peak season - Winter is always cheaper than summer. However, if you do want a summer wedding, the Saturday before xmas is negotiable. They will probably throw in decorations for the table to close the deal

    2. Buy a DIY printable template for your invitation (about $15) and print them at work :). Thick paper is about $17 for 100 sheets at Officeworks and you can fit 2 invitations per sheet.

    3. Wedding dress - I actually had 2. One was custom made and I bought a second hand one off ebay one week before the wedding for $100. The second hand one was just as nice as my custom made dress

    4. Photographer - you could consider using a student photographer who is trying to expand their portfolio.

    5. Thank you gifts - I got personalised soy candles that doubled up as guest placecards for the tables for $4.50 each

  • Jikx on 27/11/2017 - 11:48
    +3

    Lots of good tips here, I'll just add a few:

    Have a "fake" cake - one made mostly of stryofoam, covered in icing, with only one segment soft for cutting. Then have a separate cake that's already cut. Much cheap, and WAY tastier too as you don't have that bland typical wedding cake that needs to hold it's shape.

    Own flowers / decoration - we bought heaps of $2 potted plants from bunnings, covered the plastic container up with crinkled brown butchers paper with a tied cotton knot. Told guests to take them home with them! Hipster. Cheap.

    Suits - bought a standard suit that I still wear to other peoples weddings.

    Music - Spotify!

  • ialam99 on 27/11/2017 - 12:12

    the cheapest option is slip a $100 To a limo driver and tell him to keep the bride and groom occupied while you use their booked venue

  • gavincato on 27/11/2017 - 12:32
    +2

    Wedding photographer here.

    Don't get fake flowers. I die a little each time I see them.

    Regarding wedding photography, assuming good shots are important - get a really good shooter for only 6hrs or so, rather than an average or crap one for 10-12hrs.

    You should be able to get a good shooter for 6hrs for around 3000. You will def find cheaper, but I'm sticking to the quality bit.

  • beliael on 27/11/2017 - 12:42
    +2

    We wanted to save as much money and spend it on our honeymoon instead of the wedding day.

    We had about 45 guests and it set us back around $5k. My tips:

    1. Get married on a day that isn't Saturday or you'll be paying a premium on venue. We got married on Friday.

    2. Don't buy a wedding cake, they're expensive. We ended up ordering two big ricotta cakes from Pasticceria Papa (our fav) and said it was for a family gathering. One was displayed as our wedding cake at reception and the other was kept in the kitchen until dessert time.

    3. I hired my wedding dress, though it was through a connection my mum found in the Chinese papers. It meant that I didn't have to buy a dress nor store it (I just gave it back the next day). I think I paid $140 to hire a dress for the day and that included steam cleaning costs. The down side is that there wasn't a huge selection of dresses and they can't alter it.

    4. Alternative to hiring a dress - buy a non-wedding dress. If you want want, there're plenty of nice white dresses you can wear as a wedding dress. Look in Myer, Review, Forever 21, shops that sell prom dresses etc. You can get away with paying <$300 for a lovely dress.

    5. Figure out with your partner what are the "must haves" of your wedding, and out of the "must haves" what are the "must haves" aspects of the thing (e.g. if you must have a cake, does it have to be a certain size etc). You'll quickly realise what is optional for you, so you can either pick up optional things at an opportune sale or skip entirely. For example, neither my husband nor I are flower people so we didn't have flowers at all.

    The biggest money saver is probably limiting the number of guests. The more guests you have, the fewer venue options you have and if you want to feed guests properly, they're about $100/head at least.

  • DarthAntz on 27/11/2017 - 12:50
    +1

    Congratulations and good luck in reaching your goals in wedding planning. Expensive weddings dont guarantee a successful marriage, for example Salim Mejur. Do a wedding that proves you and your partner can work together and compromise.

    Im getting married in Hokkaido next month. These are approximate costs in AUD.

    Wedding certification at town hall - $5 (420yen) Got legally married 2 months ago.

    Wedding ceremony at temple, in hired tradition dress, packaged with reception (incl food) at adjoining hall with 20 guests - $3500 (30万円）

    Wedding party with 15-20 friends, at a restaurant we fully booked, set menu and all you can drink 飲み放題 - $1200 (10万円）

    Photography - Retired uncle with expensive camera, 10 Japanese women in their 20s, with iphones - free
    Photos are important to us, so we will probably get additional photos long after the wedding, anywhere. probably $500 shoot in a studio.

    Honeymoon in Otaru is about $700 for two nights. We will also honeymoon in Australia during our holidays.

    Will have an Australian wedding, food only at the family home i grew up in, and catering for that will be no more than $1200.

    Definitely aiming for sub $5k for a wedding. Wife and I are more interested in spending money on a honeymoon and time not working than blasting money on one day. We'll make the money back with bursaries from wedding guests, as we wont use a registry and live remotely so dont want to ship or send gifts separately. then we'll double/triple that money putting it in bitcoin cash between now and November next year.

  • MetaphorOZB on 27/11/2017 - 13:06
    +1

    Total cost was about $10,000. Most of the cost was down to which venue you use, how it is catered and how many guests you invite.

    Reception: yes - cocktail type (open bar for 4 hours and finger food
    No. of Guests: 50
    Ceremony: at same venue as reception
    Photography: yes - professional and purchased the digital photos only with no extra prints/books etc. made
    Videography: no
    Flowers: yes - found someone cheap and reliable on Gumtree
    Hair & Makeup: Yes - as above
    Dress/suit: dress made in China as a replica of designer dress - cost $300. Bought suit from ASOS on sale - cost about $100
    Bridal party: 8 in total - each bought their own suit/dress, we only asked that they wear a particular colour
    Cake: yes - nothing fancy but suitable for 50 people - cost a few hundred

  • Gowrie29 on 27/11/2017 - 13:30
    +1

    Forgot to mention the day of the week you have it on can have a massive impact on the cost as well. Especially for minimum spends and per head costs from the venue. Midweek was cheaper.

    We did our on a Friday from 11-5. Everyone loved the idea of a long weekend and having Saturday and then Sunday free.

  • Payne on 27/11/2017 - 13:32
    +1

    Simple. Do what YOU want, not what everybody else expects.

    My wife and I had a totally awesome wedding and honeymoon for about $9k total.

    Rule for guests: If you haven't been in touch with them for the last 6-12 months, they probably aren't friends or family that you're close too. So no wedding for them. Too bad, so sad :)

    Oh, and this is interesting too: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/13/living/wedding-expenses-st…

  • gas720 on 27/11/2017 - 13:47
    +1

    Best thing to do is Elope :-)
    but if you are against it,

    i have heard that you can get Projectors and you can Project flowers around the Venue instead of spending thousands on lots of flowers!

  • Watsonega on 27/11/2017 - 15:46
    +1

    We got married earlier this year and even though we had a budget we ended up going over by about $5K.

    Reception:$15000 for venue, food and drink. approx $145/head.
    No. of Guests:110 invited, 95 showed up
    Ceremony: as above
    Photography:$2K
    Videography:$0. personally… a waste of money. They can be absolutely beautiful but lets be honest you arnt going to watch it enough to warrent the cost
    Flowers:under $2K
    Hair & Makeup:for a bridal party of 4 inc bride + brides mum about $500 inc their travel. As around at local hairdressers and see if they do weddings.
    Dress/suit:dress $2.5k, my suit $<350 from connor.
    Car: $1000 for limo and my sister lent me a mustang for free. If you know anyone with a nice car just ask for a lend.
    Cake:$250 cost price for knowing someone

    We by no means were going for crazy and on a budget of $25K landed around the $30K mark in the end. Not cheap but we had a 2 year engagement and saved it all up.
    DO NOT GO INTO DEBT FOR A WEDDING. Theres nothing worst than paying off debt while your partner leaves you as is the case with a friend of mine.

    p.s. whereever possible do NOT mention its a wedding. insta 25% price hike. mainly cakes for this factor though

  • GetOffMyUnicorn on 27/11/2017 - 16:01
    +1

    I hope you have wonderful marriage full of joy. Marrying that special someone is the best thing in the world.

    • HYX on 28/11/2017 - 09:22
      +1

      Thank you!

  • viperxz on 27/11/2017 - 16:23
    +2

    Some tips to save money:

    1. Skip the cake (no one cares any more) I haven't seen a cake cutting ceremony in the last 3 weddings I've been too. If you want just get a normal cake and cut / serve that.
    2. Go unconventional for your wedding dress, my wife picked up this amazing sequined dress when overseas, it wasn't a "wedding dress" so it only cost a fraction of what a wedding dress would have.
    3. Get your flowers from the Flower Markets on the morning of/morning before (depends on the type of flowers) and do your own bouquet. YouTube is your best friend. It's easy and the results are amazing.
    4. Reception and wedding in the same place, saves on transport, hiring a fancy car, makes things easier for you and your guests.
    5. Find somewhere which will let you throw a wedding at a private house rather than hiring a hall.
    6. Consider a canapes style reception over sit down reception. As long as you have plenty of food and space for your guests to sit down/mingle, it means you don't need table hire. This worked for us, as we wanted a more laid back reception (more like a party than a stuffy sit down dinner).
    7. Get a friend to DJ (or leave it open as a free for all), hire/borrow some good speakers and with Google Play Music/Spotify and you are all set to go.
    8. Keep the guest list small - somewhere along the lines you pay by the head, hence less people = cheaper wedding. Also beware of break points for guest numbers with venues and try negotiate a per guest cost if you go slightly over (e.g. 0-30, 30-50, 50-100)
    9. One best man, one bridesmaid then get the bridesmaid/best man to pick a dress/suit they already have. Saves on buying matching dresses / hiring matching suits.

    We had around 35 guests and came in well, well under 20k (I think it might have even been under $10k, as we had the honeymoon and wedding rings in the budget). How much you can save will depend on the missus and the parents and whether there are any preconceived ideas the wedding needs to live up to.

    I recall seeing a very large expensive wedding, then talking to the groom after. They wanted a small wedding, however their parents had to invite all of their (the parent's) friends who had invited them to their children's weddings in the past, then on top of that, as an only grand child the wedding it had to have all of this grandeur to satisfy the grand parents. That was all well and good, but guess who got stuck with the bill.

  • rgr on 27/11/2017 - 16:50
    +1

    look at all this exhaustive list of shit to prep for, weddings are just a lot of work - holy shit

  • knk on 27/11/2017 - 16:56
    +1

    My wife did most of the shopping around but one thing I'll say is - Find out what they want to charge you and then beat them down She had no shame (good on her) and just bargained with absolutely everyone. Paying market rates would have meant we spent 40k instead of 30k. That's all inclusive, Limo, flowers, dress and the list goes on lol.

    This was 3 months ago 130 guests at a very nice venue 30 minutes out of Melbourne. Won't say exactly where lol.

  • quiteguy on 27/11/2017 - 17:43

    A prenup can save thousands of dollars.. (Don't kill me.. just thinking out loud..)

  • Doveman87 on 27/11/2017 - 17:56
    +1

    We just had wedding a couple of weeks ago we got Venue, Reception, mezze platters prior to reception, 3 Course alt drop reception, cake cut, 5.5hr open bar (premium beers, red, white and sparking wine) = 11K (we paid on a per person basis for 80 people) at a winery in Perth. We seem to get venues throwing deals at us as we had a short engagement (6 months) and they wanted a wedding booked in otherwise they would have closed for the day.

    Once we paid for all things including, dresses, suits, flowers, photographer and other misc items we got it to just under $20K.

    We got some freebies from friends celebrant (close friend), cake and had a friend film the wedding (don't pay for a videographer)

  • ssyl9 on 27/11/2017 - 17:57
    +1

    Got married last month on the 15th on Oct

    Reception: 3k venue hire + 6k cocktail reception
    No. of Guests: 93
    Ceremony: $750
    The above is included in the 10k min spend for the venue

    The Celebrant: $500 (make sure to get one that does everything in the ceremony for you so the only thing you need to do is say I do)

    Photography: 4k (chinese traditional ceremonies apply so we had very long hours of photography needed.. roughly 10 hours so the additional costs add up)
    Videography: 3k (Friends in malaysia to do it including pay/air ticket/accommodation followed us whole day was more than worth the money as normal aussie one will only do 5hrs for like 3k)
    Flowers: 2k
    Hair & Makeup: 2k
    Dress/suit: Dress rented from Taiwan for a week $950 Suit: bought from Taiwan $550
    Bridal party: 400 in total including dresses and shirts/bowties (bought from Malaysia)
    Cake: 500
    Invitation cards: $200 (designed ourself and send to a Taiwan printing company to letter press costs around $2 per card for 100 cards and they gave us 20 more…. if in Australia it will cost min $10 per card)

    Prewedding photo shoot in Taiwan: 2k

    All up within 25k

    You venue seems to have a very high min spend…. might want to reconsider it unless you cannot give that up

    Ways to save money

    1. cocktail reception: If you are already over the min spend, a cocktail reception eliminates a lot of the furniture hiring (only a portion is needed so people have some place to sit) as well as you don't need to stress on sitting plans). The cocktail menu is much cheaper, and people can mingle while eating. It will feel like you have lots to eat due to variety and people will be full. We had 10 cocktail dishes and people are full after the 8th. It was around avg $5 a dish per person only.

    2. Do/buy anything u can overseas. Buy it on Taobao(china ebay) or even book a flight to go Malaysia/etc to get stuff. It is like 1/4 to 1/10 cheaper to do things there than here.

  • rt1111 on 27/11/2017 - 18:21
    +1

    My tip: all the flowers and food and aesthetic BS etc aren't that important.
    The things that make a great wedding:
    1. People you like genuinely and who care for both of you
    2. No stress so you both enjoy it - that means both of you don't worry about the details because the people you invite love you and don't care
    3. Lots of booze so people can have a good time
    4. A venue that won't kick you out prematurely

    Easy

  • viperxz on 27/11/2017 - 18:28

    We designed the invites ourselves using a photo as the background, then got them printed at the photo kiosk at Big W. 4c per invite.

  • Psul2006 on 27/11/2017 - 19:27

    First and foremost ask for a discount with all vendors. You will be surprised how many are willing to drop their price purely by asking. Tell the vendors how much you really want to use them but say you can't afford their price. Also offer to pay cash. We got 10% off our venue by paying cash.

    Second thing is we used an American company for all stationary called Shutterfly they were soooo much cheaper compared to what we could get done in Aus.

    Lastly as mentioned by others the easiest way to reduce cost is by reducing guests. Try to think of people who will be in your lives in the future rather than trying to hold onto old friends who you have lost touch with. There have been a few people who I haven't seen since my wedding 1 and a half years ago.

  • Tuttle on 27/11/2017 - 20:06
    +2

    Just got married last weekend. Well under 20k. Had a ceremony at a venue in the bush for $2k (included parking, toilets, 20 chairs for oldies, stage for ceremony, plus private access for just our wedding party), and then reception at a ballroom at a grand hotel, fully catered. 106 people in total. Plus live 4 member rock band.
    Ceremony: $2000 venue hire, plus $150 arch hire. About $10 in Ali express fake ivy & flowers, plus real flowers and ivy picked by mum and her old ladies crew. Celebrant $600
    Reception: $10200- giant ballroom at grand old hotel. Fully catered, included a upgraded drinks package for 5.5hrs, approx 8 staff. Food was hot and cold snacks pre sit down, alternating entree, and alternating main. Dessert was our cake (only went through bottom tier for all 106). Having worked weddings for 6 years in the past, can I just say how thankful the women were that our two mains were crumed lamb cutlets and steaks (and of course any other dietary reqs). I had so many chics come and say thank you, as they, like I had seen in the past, always ended up with either the fish, or the chicken, as the men would always get, or swap into the red meat option.
    No. of Guests: 106
    Photography: semi-pro mate, he was happy to do it for free for a feed and drink (I told him no issues putting he camera down once the formalities were out of the way at reception, so planned them to be done early)
    Videography: same as above, mate loves his videotography, he took amazing videos, all for the love of the art, and the love of us :)
    Flowers: bridal party girls (4 + bride) paid approx $300 for their local, natural flowers, the arch, table and everything else decorations at reception was all free, picked up by mum and her gang on way down to the wedding from the wild. Looked amazing! Getting married in spring always help this.
    Hair & Makeup: missus found a girl local who did the girls plus the missus' mum for $600
    Dress/suit: missus got her dress off etsy for $250. My suit was $70 for jacket and $60 for pants off ASOS when on 50% off sale (bright royal blue, looked Schmick). My boys all in same suits (jet black version) for same price (they were happy to pay about 100 for a good looking tux suit they got to keep instead of rent ((they picked up $20 Kmart slim black dinner pants)))
    Bridal party: no idea, but the girls were happy to buy their dresses to help out,
    Cake: you guessed it, a mate pulled this off! 3 tier ripper, was 100% legit wedding cake perfect! Cost was about $50 for ingredients.

    So I reckon all up, it would have been about 16-17k (lashed out and got a proper rock band for $2k who were worth their weight in gold through the night).
    Saved a fortune by making my own fully automated green screen photobooth (+ disposable cameras around the room).

    If I had of got a DJ, would have brought the entire shebang down to about 15k, which while it's some decent coin, for a "once" off event, not too bad IMO, especially considering we had 104 of our friends and family there to party with us.
    And don't want to blow the old trombone, but quite a few reckoned it was up there with the best they'd seen.

    Edit: thought I might add, on top of the standard white table cloth standard setup at the reception, we forwent table numbers, and instead bought 11 40cm diameter round mirrors for table pieces. In the middle was a small vase with local flowers (free), surrounded by unique things from our lives. So one table had things we've picked up from our travels around the globe, another had dinosaurs due to our mutual childhood love on Jurassic park, another had lego (fake aliexpress lego) due to my love of it etc. then the table plan at the door had the tables, but instead of boring numbers, they had little icons/images of each theme, which they then had to go look for.

    • HYX on 29/11/2017 - 09:13

      Congrats to you both!
      What venue was it (if based in Sydney)? Feel free to PM me.

      • Tuttle on 30/11/2017 - 09:12
        +1

        Nah sorry mate, it was down the great ocean road in vicco
        - if anyone is looking at getting hitched down that way, I can't recommend the Lorne Grand Pacific Hotel enough!

  • nathan2137 on 27/11/2017 - 21:33

    I remember someone went to a department store to do makeup

  • jeka1103 on 27/11/2017 - 22:13
    +1

    Have you considered venues not in Sydney? My fiance and I were considering venues on Woolongong before we decided we wanted to elope. $20k minimum charge seems really excessive, our fave venue was City Beach Function Centre in Woolongong, which was around $120pp (from memory) for a Saturday and even cheaper for Sunday/Friday or a winter wedding. It's a beautiful waterfront venue and pretty much everything is included in the price such as cake, DJ and canapes. Alternatively, there was also the Lagoon Restaurant in Woolongong which was also lovely, but it did have a minimum charge which was based on your number of guests, it was going to be about $10k for us with 80 adult guests. There was also Panorama House which is a little bit out of the way but would have a spectacular night time view over Woolongong and the ocean, prices there started at about $80pp from memory. All three venues were great and if you want to cut your reception cost but still have something spectacular I recommend looking outside of Sydney.

    We haven't booked yet, we're looking to book for late 2018 or mid 2019 but our current projected costs for our elopement wedding are:

    Ceremony: $1400 (Port Douglas, St Mary by the Sea elopement package)
    No. of Guests: Us + 4 guests (parents/sibling)
    Small Dinner/Reception after ceremony: At the most $1000 for a nice restaurant
    Photography: Included in ceremony price
    Videography: Not going to bother, but could upgrade for $550
    Flowers: Roughly $200, going to go with a fake bouquet
    Hair & Makeup: $250
    Dress/suit: $500 each
    Bridal party: $0
    Cake: $150
    Flights/accommodation: $5000
    Rings: $500 each

    'Happily Ever After Party' at home a few weeks later for friends and family:
    Reception: $3000 for food ($20pp, woodfired pizza van), $1000 for drinks, $750 venue hire
    No. of Guests: 150
    Photography: Photo booth, $1000
    Decorations: $500
    Cake: Going to have a home made dessert buffet and ask friends and family to help out

    We've decided that if we were going to do a big traditional wedding we wanted to do it nicely but wouldn't be able to afford that. The cheapest we got it down to was about $25k for 80 guests. We also didn't want to cut costs and have something we didn't want for the sake of others who wanted us to have a traditional wedding. We also would have only had the budget for about 80 people at a traditional wedding, which would pretty much only be the people we would be obligated to invite and no friends. Given the low cost of catering at our after party we can include anyone and everyone in our wedding celebrations and not leave anyone out. We plan to be 100% open about our elopement and make the after party super casual, fun and memorable for everyone.

  • yummycoot on 28/11/2017 - 02:00

    watch this TV Show

  • borrisz0r on 28/11/2017 - 06:55
    +2

    I went to a close friend's wedding a few years back, I swear they doubled their money off it via gifts.

    Total people = ~60-70

    A close approximation of the costs:

    Venue - Free (Brides family were members of the club)
    Celebrant - $500
    Suit and Wedding Dress ~500 total
    No bridal party
    Family cars used for the arrival
    Flowers - ~250-300
    Music - Free (Brides brother was a DJ and had all the gear)
    Food - ~$250 MAX (BBQ + Salad style, they actually ran out of food, and not just a little… a whole table hadn't eaten and a few of us had to dash off and buy more)
    Booze - Maybe 1k (not 100% sure on this but a rough approximation, it was certainly not a piss-up)
    Cake $200 (done by a friend)
    Photography - $500 (done by a friend)
    Lolly Bar - A gift from a friend

    Total out about = 3.2-3.5k

    They went to crazy lengths to keep the costs down, e.g. only 2 bottles of wine were allowed out at a time, one red and one white, and the bar staff were under orders not to release more.

    Mates were ringed in to cook food and MC to save on costs.

    All in all, it is probably the worst wedding I've been to, but hey it was cheap that's for sure.

  • ericb on 28/11/2017 - 07:07
    +1

    Honeymoon - $50,000 With the money we saved on our 'one special day's spent on a honeymoon, We took some time off work and travelled before having kids.

    We focused on what mattered to us, booze, food, music and not having to cut people off the invite list. We would be happy as long as that was right, stuff like decorations and flowers didn't really bother us so we skimped on things that were not on our priority list…. and spent it on the honeymoon instead :).

    Reception: Afternoon tea with finger food.
    - Booze - $600 from Dan Murphy's (we choose the stuff we liked) and had heaps left over that we gave away to friends as thankyous.
    - Staff 4@ $25 per hour (3 for food and 1 for drinks) (some staff were a little lazy, so a couple more would have been nice)
    - Venue - $0 (a local historic hall owed me a favour, but the cost would have been about $250 anyway)
    - Food - $0 We asked some close friends that we knew that had a gift in the kitchen to make 40 serves of finger food as their wedding present to us. We already had all the toasters and crockery we needed. As it was a wedding present they really put the effort in and the food was so much better and more varied than anything we had seen offered by caterers for $1000's
    - Band - $600 - local keyboardist and drummer. (our venue was wired fro sound so we could have just plugged in an iPod.
    - Cake: Cake for cutting was made by a niece, for free as our gift as above, and then we purchased $150 of the same flavour cake from a local shop to serve to guests.
    No. of Guests: 140 (we invited everyone we wanted too as our costs were fairly fixed)
    Ceremony: $0, friends sung and played guitar, local church pastor did it for free.
    Photography: $500 - Friend did it, it was not worth it, We got better photos from our combined guests because We also asked my brother to bring a laptop and as people left he copied the photos from guests cameras (took about 2 mins) and put them on a USB for us. Also people had Facebook and drop box to load photos from phones.
    Videography: $0 - Although we ended up with a few great video's at key moments from people who brought their own go pros, phones and videocameras.
    Flowers: $200 - Went direct to a wholesale flower shop in geelong and a friend made the bouquet.
    Hair & Makeup: $0 - She has lovely hair that looked the bomb on our first date so I asked her to do the same for our wedding. $100
    Dress/suit: - $140 / $180 - Purchased and I wear the suit all the time.
    Bridal party: $0 - Didn't have one.
    Decorations: $100 - Cheap stuff bought online or borrowed from friends who had been married a month earlier.
    Cars: $0 - Borrowed from a brother.
    Bonbonaire - $15

  • Crow25 on 28/11/2017 - 07:38
    +1

    Look for places that don't usually do weddings. We had our ceremony at a rooftop bar that had a nice open space. We had our reception at a breakfast cafe that didn't usually open for dinner. We had 80-90 guests and spent $3k on the ceremony and $10k on the reception which included food and beverages.

    Other ways we saved was not including things that we didn't care for. We are not dancers so we didn't have it. We had music on a Spotify playlist on an iPhone. Wedding cake was made by my friend who when we were drunk, he offered and I agreed for him to to make it for us - he did a stellar job! My wife did a lot of the calligraphy signage herself after taking a $50 class (she had a natural talent for it.)

    I don't think it was a cheap wedding, we spent between $25,000 and $35,000. The wife had a budget of $1,500 on the dress and ended up spending $4k. The photographer was another $4k. Celebrant was a trainee and a friend of my brothers.

  • pegaxs on 28/11/2017 - 10:08

    I am married, and my wedding was very simple. Got married at the old Treasury building in Melbourne, about 20 close friends and family. Everything included, flowers, dresses, hire car, celebrant, photography, reception etc etc was less than $5,000

    After reading over this thread, I am now convinced that weddings are mostly just a pissing competition on who can spend the most money, who has the most fake friends and who can complain about the most stress.

    If the start of your life requires you to go into massive debt to please a massive portion of people who just want free food and alcohol, then I hope the relationship is worth it. I get it, everyone wants to feel like a princess for a day, but is it worth spending the rest of your life thinking what you could have done with that $30,000+ if you could do it again?

    The irony of all this is I have a friend who is now divorced and is still paying for the wedding that they had. They borrowed close to $50k.

  • altman on 28/11/2017 - 10:17
    +1

    Print out wedding invites at work or depending on the wedding venue they might provide it for free if you haggle.

    Get bombonieres from Ali express (allow for shipping time).

  • Jayjay93 on 28/11/2017 - 10:32
    +1

    Got married 6 month ago in Koh Samui, so don't really have any tips here in Australia ;).

    But, some stuff where you can easily save money are decoration and small stuff to entertain your guests such as Photo booth stuff.

    We bought almost everything on Aliexpress.com, you need to order at least 2 months in advance as it's taking time to arrive.

    And if you need some idea about decoration, Pinterest is your best friend ;)

  • Zetrox2k on 28/11/2017 - 10:42
    +2

    So guessing you are after a more serious response… I'l give you a rundown on my costs, about 8 years ago, and ill give you a tip in the end.

    Reception: $18,000
    No. of Guests: 220
    Ceremony: $500
    Photography: $3,200
    Videography: $1,800
    Flowers: $750
    Hair & Makeup: $600
    Dress/suit: Dress Purchase $3,500 Suit Hire $200
    Bridal party: About $250 each; including dress and suit hire, as well as shoe purchase
    Cake: $600
    Limo: $1,100

    All up just under $34,000 that we could have put into our house deposit instead of having to rent for 7.5 years.

    We only went with it because parents had these grand wedding plans, and well, its the "greek thing to do". Parents invited every man and his dog, out of the 220 guests i probably havent seen 160 of them since.

    Be smart, if this is looking to be the way your wedding is heading, have your wedding overseas, and invite everyone. whoever gives a crap will make the effort to come, on their own expense. from there go off on your honeymoon and let your guests enjoy their holiday. Put the rest of the money on a house, or if you already have one, throw a lump sum on it. Interest rates are practically as low as they are gonna get, and will save you years on your mortgage.

    If you are ethnic, and have traditions to adhere to, still do the above, and when you come back, have a small church only ceremony to appease everyone.

    If my wife and i were to do it all again, 100% this is what we would have done.

  • Innately Incognito on 28/11/2017 - 12:23
    +1

    Our Melbourne wedding was inexpensive as we are/were focused on the Malaysian wedding. We negotiated with the venue to do less of a wedding package and more of a standard event package with a small room for the reception beforehand. It probably helped that I think the venue had recently changed management - but everything went really really well.

    It was a simple walk down the aisle, plus a two course meal and free flow drinks at a winery. We had friends take photos and video but they’re probably semi-professional. We did email and website invites, plus bonbonnieres and placecards ourselves (spray painted figurines).

    Got away with that one quite well priced for what we got - the second ‘main” wedding is a complete other story. Fortunately, overseas it’s a lot more bearable, plus culturally we get monetary gifts which should cover around half, based on friends’ experiences.

  • nurbsenvi on 28/11/2017 - 12:57
    -1

    Just don’t ffs tak tsk tsk
    We gotta stop this stupid cycle of agony for next generation.

  • vonc on 28/11/2017 - 15:27
    +2

    No. of Guests: 120
    Ceremony: 1200 venue hire, 1060 for chairs and stuff
    Photography: 1000 (asked a friend who has a side gig as a photographer. not worth it)
    Videography: none
    Flowers: 3 bouquets and 6 buttonholes = 460
    Hair & Makeup: 280 hair, 200 makeup (total price for 3)
    Dress/suit: dress 1500 and suit $300 BOSS at an outlet mall
    Bridal party: $120 for bridesmaid dresses from myer, $300 boss suits as per groom
    Cake: gift from a friend
    Reception: cocktail reception and heaps of booze at a bar (found one in the CBD that is usually closed on Saturday nights as it's in the office-district. had exclusive use of it, had great wine and ended up cosing $9k)

    total cost: about $20k and it was a fantastic night/day

    tips: keep the bridal party small. don't have cocktails at the reception! go to target and get some lanterns and buy some cheap fairylights to stick in them as decorations, rather than using flowers. don't go to bridal stores to find a wedding dress - i went to bridge rd, richmond (vic) and found a store that does ballgowns/b list brownlow gowns. my dress was as beautiful as my friend's $15k vera wang dress IMHO myer also has some great dresses if you're not after a meringue, and there are second hand wedding dresses available on several sites online

    congrats!

  • Tombf2g on 28/11/2017 - 15:31
    +1

    I had my wedding last weekend, here is my break down, it wasn't a cheap wedding as we wanted decent quality everything and also we had a viet tea ceremony in the morning as well as a normal ceremony in the afternoon. I can also say you can spend WAYYYY more then what we did, we said no to so many things and it was still expensive AF. Example our cake/celebrant/flowers was cheap as you can find without going to friends. I bought a video camera and got a friend to film as I am a video editor and didn't feel like paying $5-6k on someone else filming/editing it.

    It was an amazing day that I will remember forever, yes it was expensive but I loved it.

    reception for 130, 6 hour basic beer/wine package with 6 course aussie/chinese fusion meals $30,000

    photog $3,500

    limo (stretch bentley, it was rad) $3,500

    dj $1,200

    celebrant $800

    wedding dress $5000

    suits $1,500

    alcohol on wedding tables $1,000

    presents for grooms $500

    rings ($3850 tiffany for her $150 titanium ebay special for me), $4,000

    reception food test $1,500

    video camera $2,000

    costco food for tea ceremony $500

    invitations $500

    bonboneries $750

    cake $500

    make up $500

    flowers $500

    tea ceremony decorations $500

    photobooth $500

    = $58,750

    • krim on 28/11/2017 - 16:06

      Hi,

      Congrats on getting married.

      I assume you are in sydney? Do you mind to PM me or link to your celebrant, photobooth and flower suppliers.

      Cheers.

      • Tombf2g on 28/11/2017 - 17:12
        +1

        mine was melbourne sorry

    • Innately Incognito on 29/11/2017 - 11:27

      Isn't 3850 for the wedding band excessive? I'd imagine the engagement ring is much much more lol.

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