Hey all
I'm getting married next year and boy oh boy are the costs starting to add up. Have already chosen the caterers, reception (small ballroom for 200ppl) and photographers. Just wanting to know what the Ozbargain community did to save money on their weddings? Did you cut out bonbonnieres? Buy your dress online?
Any tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
From my experience it is possible if you are the bride, but not if you are the groom!
Unless you are both on board to save some costs, it is very hard because any attempts to save can be construed as ruining the 'perfect' day..
Some areas that you probably can save are cars, photographer, DJ/band if you have some friends willing to pitch in.
Sorry, that comment comes across as sexist. I guess what I mean is that a traditional wedding is invested with a huge amount of significance for women, with a vast industry pushing for 'no-expense-spared' as the way to have a happy day on them from a very young age. There are magazines, photo spreads of celebrity marriages and everything else trying to convince them that a fancy wedding is critical.
I found that many friends who are very level headed nonetheless got caught up in the process and ended up spending alot of money.
It's really hard to overcome all this societal conditioning to have a wedding that will make you both happy with no regard to what the marketing/sales/industry says.
I agree with this. An extreme example is the dress - the prices are crazy for something that you will wear once, just because it resembles what people imaging to be a perfect wedding dress. Anything that doesn't match that typical description can cost an order of magnitude less, while still being very nice.
Having said that, usually the biggest cost is the venue/catering. For me this was 2/3rds of total costs including everthing (rings, presents for helpers, stamps, stationary).
Yes I agree, often the dresses instore would start at about $2500 which in my opinion is still very expensive for something I'll wear for about 8 hours!
And yes I forgot to add 200 people is quite small … for an Asian wedding that is…
Thanks for the tips so far :)
I got my dress off the rack for $550.
Shop called the red carpet in Ashburton, VIC. Not sure if they are still there though.
Few tips, second hand wedding dress(we are selling ours now). We had our reception at our fav restaurant, only cost 1200.(60 people)
Used plastic flowers, that way we can keep the flowers - 6 years later we still have ours.
Married at a nice park.Few obvious issues with this, but we were lucky all the way.
No professional photographer - reach out to your friends and family, chances are there are a few people within your 200 that have decent cameras and some skill, then assign 4 or so as the official photographers.
Invite less ppl? do you really need 200? don't let family bully you into inviting extended relatives, the people you don't want to invite probably don't want to come either.
don't even bother with fancy cars. unless your a car fanatic, its entirely silly, photos with a car? why is that important, ditch it.
All of the ideas hinge on what is important to both you and your partner.
A wedding is a day, Marriage is for life. It would be silly to spend outside your means for the sake of doing things how your "supposed to", or meeting the pride or expectations of other people who aren't getting married.
Also, anyone not giving a significant amount of money to you, does not get input into how the wedding is done.
Just a note on not inviting people you don't want to:
I understand, particularly for asian weddings, this can cause great stress particularly on your (or your partner's) parents, who are likely to cop the blame.
Not to say don't take this advice, but probably best to make sure your immediate family at least can live with this.
On the plus side, an asian wedding gives you a great excuse to avoid the big anglo traditions and it isn't considered rude to ask for money as a present (rule of thumb as I understand it is asian guests should cover roughly their portion of the reception costs, a bit more if they are close).
EDIT:
Also, anyone not giving a significant amount of money to you, does not get input into how the wedding is done.
Sorry, don't agree with this either. If your family and freinds aren't happy on the day you wont be either. I think it is important to ask key people what they expect/want, and try to meet this if you can. Particularly if this is a mixed culture wedding you will likely need to explain that compromises will need to be made so not all expectations will be met.
Yep you're right Bruce the tradition is usually for guests to give money to cover the cost of the food rather than gifts.
And yes we've cut down the list quite significantly and have actually only invited immediate family and friends which we have kept in contact with within the last 6 months. The only guests who have +1's are those who are in long term relationships and we must know them!
Great tips - especially like the car one! In the end neither of us really have any knowledge or passion about cars so to have a couple of photos with one does seem pretty pointless!
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. May it bring you many years of happiness together, blessed with good fortune, health and prosperity…and bargains of course.
With the cars, it's not just about taking photos with them, it's the wow factor… Part of you being spoilt…part also being able to arrive in style (Why do people hire stretch limos for their year 12 formals - same reason).
An alternative to hiring a chauffeur driven limo could be hiring a luxury car for the day and getting one of your friends or family to drive for you.
You can also use something like serviceseeking.com.au and ask for quotes from suitable companies. You might be surprised.
All the best.
My number one tip, call in favours and ask around for help and services from friends of friends.
We had 70 people at our wedding and including my wife's dress it came to around $3k. The dress was the most expensive part.
How we kept out cost down:
We just went to a wedding of our friends in the US, this is very similar to the way they did it.
We like some of the others arrived a few days early, helped make the decoration, flower arrangements set up the hall, in the evening we pitched in made dinner had a bbq and enjoyed each others company.
Then on the wedding day we got with other friends who had prepared the food, set out the hall, got the bar set up etc. Then got changed headed off to the ceremony
And it was great fun. We all pitched in even staying back to clean out the venue.
Best wedding I have ever been to as well (Except my own) we all felt part of it. BTW no presents just a great get together.
Friends are friends if they really care for you, the type size of the wedding shouldn't matter. If it does then piss them off… (Well thats a bit extreme but you know what I mean)
When my ex and I were young and had no spare money most of the above is what we did. Many years later people still mention that it's the best wedding they've ever been to. You don't have to spend big heaps of money that would probably be put to better use as a hefty downpayment on a house to make the day memorable.
Personally I'd highly recommend eloping - it's a lot cheaper and a whole lot less stress. lol
Best wishes OP!
I see that everyone is offering good ideas, but you'll note that many will of be of any use to the OP. They have already chosen a large $ percentage of their providers - reception and caterer.
OP, I must say I'm a little sad you waited this long to ask advice. I'm sure you could have saved heaps! And everyone would have had heaps of fun helping.
We had our Wedding with 90 guests and in total it cost us 15,000. We picked the venue we loved which required very little work to ensure class.
We had a DJ, my Mum made the cake a(which didn't work out that much cheaper than a cake shop) and we looked up new photographers who would work cheap / free. We did flowers through a country florist, and had a local florist but in our centrepieces in bulk (just bunches of flowers that my dad put in a case).
We did a Lolly Buffet and our name cards were the lolly boxes. It was a great success as it encouraged people to.mingle.
I found a great Dressmaker who made my dream straddle $500, and my bridesmaids for $100 each.
I had everything I wanted, and on a budget. Find what you want… Do not away from that. Just find a cheaper way to get it.
We had a DIY backyard wedding two and a bit weeks ago.
Cost about 6k excluding dress and rings.
Rings: bluenile.com
Invites: we borrowed the design from vistaprint.com. Used their "proof" which sends you a vector,based PDF. Opened it in Inkscape and we could edit it and print as many as we liked.
Decorations: Choose your color scheme then get everything from eBay and aliexpress. We had over 100 paper lanterns in various sizes (largest were the 18 inch ball lanterns). We lit them with 300 diffused LEDs which were each wrapped around a CR2032 battery with some electrical tape and hung inside the lantern with a rubber band. Look up "led throwies" for the concept. They last at least 24 hours at full brightness (up to a week in fact) so you can assemble them using a production line the night before. This came up amazing. In fact IMO it was the best wedding decorations I had seen, period. Brwsing aliexpress you can get anything you like in your color. Start ordering small samples of stuff now so that you can order in bulk one you decide on what you like. We still have the lanterns and LEDs so if you would be happy with a purple and white color scheme I can send them to you :-) likewise I can send our invites for a template.
Catering: With some help on the night we self catered using frozen food through the oven and pie warmers. We experimented with a lot of stuff but ad it turns out Coles ("you'll love" home brand) actually had the tastiest DIY food, such as arancini balls, Greek meatballs and Gyoza. Additionally we ordered some sushi platters and also cold meat platters from woolies. Btw all does and woolies purchases were made with gift cards for 5% off.
Dress: unfortunately the most emotional part, the money conscious groom can't control it, we spent about $1000.
Grog: Dan Murphy's with 5% gift card discount. if you do a backyard wedding you can get whatever you want really. We also hired a slushy machine which was a huge hit.
Others: we hired a marquee, tables, chairs, one warmer, table coverings. We also hired a mobile cool room which was delivered the night before and made things hugely simpler. I highly recommend it.
Costs were split 1/3 each way between us, my parents and my new wife's parents. I kept track of each and every expense using a google docs spreadsheet.
Photography was the wife's sister, professional photography us a huge expense that can be cut out IMO.
Weddings are tricky, some things you can skimp on others you can't. Basically, we tried and failed. Ended up doing it this way. Plan what you want, then locate the source for all those things. Ie wedding invites, we saw the really nice professional ones. They were charging $15 - 20 per invite. I then sourced where they got everything from, paper, prints, stationary, ribbons etc. Then put it together yourself, this ended up cost just under $2 not including labor (was labor intensive). Same technique for bonbons etc, make / put it together yourself.
Wedding dress and veils etc. Found the wedding dress design we wanted in the shops here. Located where they got their sources from, in our case the US. The shops will resell / rebadge wedding dresses brought from overseas and tailor them to fit here. Cost here 6k, brought for $300 + $300 adjustment fee here. This required lots of research and trolling through lots of websites and skype calls. Sneak pictures of the dress and key design points, it makes it easier to hunt down the same dress.
Jewellery, we had all tiffany stuff. Again visit the tiffany store, pick out the design that you want. Make sure you have all the measurements and designs all picked out. Then do not deviate from these decisions. Organise to have these same pieces picked up from american states that very low or no sales tax. We had relatives visit hawaii to pick up our jewellery, over 60k worth. Do not leave them in your luggage to bring back, mail the boxes and ribbons back and wear the jewellery on your person (or on a chain around the neck) to avoid paying GST.
Tuxes etc, can get them tailor made in asian countries for a little less than cost of hire here. Trick here is to find reputable tailors who can create modern look suits. Very hard to find. Most of them are great at copying but couldn't explain to you the differences in tux collars. This will require research and advise from people that can give you proven examples. Key point is proven examples, all pictures on the internet are the same and look ok. Best bet is to source the materials and give them to the tailor.
Wedding cake, went to all the expensive wedding cake places: planet cake etc. Was shocked at the waiting times and costs. Ended up taking pictures of the cake we wanted, 3 tiered cake with ribbon and flower icing. Shopped around for recommendations and found a nice lady that did cakes on the side out of her house, $400. Everyone has commented how nice the cake was and can't believe who cheap it was. TBH I think was nicer than all the other top wedding cake shops I went to. The icing was delicate and intricate and cake was moist and yummy.
Wedding and video, we tried to skimp on and get cheaper guys. But couldn't, ended up going mid range but with proven quality, samples and recommendations of happy customers. Cost 6k, but couldn't be happier. You can negotiate with others places to get video / photography package to save 1 - 2k. Take the photos and make your own albulm that will save you 1 -2 k. You can source their album manufacturers from photography forums
Biggest ticket item is the reception / venue. Very hard to skimp here if you want tasteful / elegant. Best advise would be to find a place where you can have both at the same place to save on venue cost, transport, car hire cost. If you can arrange the ceremony to flow straight to the reception you can save a little there. If you are willing to go out from the city you will save, but factor in the cost of transporting your guests. We bawked at our reception initally because of the cost. But after factoring drinks, food / nibblies, transport etc for everyone after the ceremony + reception it wasn't so bad and ended up going with them. Cost was about $180 pp.
End of the day, it is your wedding. You want to be happy, and everyone there are close friends and relatives you want them to be happy and at ease. We found most people gave us vouchers and cash and that helped tremendously. People know when they are invited to a wedding that has had time, effort, and money put into it. They will adjust what they give as presents accordingly. At least we found this to be the case.
You were looking to save money on the wedding, but spent 60K on jewelry?!?!?!
This and a 6K video package being 'mid-range' suggests this person is not at all in the same budget region as the rest of the comments here.
200 people is small?
Some things we did (120 people):
Basically cashed in favours from friends/family in exchange for them not getting us (other) presents.