Very Very Cheap Weddings

If you are getting married in a church, most churches do their own decorating, you do not have to purchase flowers and you can use the churches flowers. Instead of the bridesmaids carrying bouquets, you could have them to wear beautiful wrist corsages. You can make these out of silk flowers. If you know anyone you makes flowers for weddings, maybe they can do this as a wedding gift. Keep your wedding party very minimum to not over three bridesmaids and groomsmen. Purchase your dresses now since it is off season. You are having a summer wedding and a lot of those dresses are on sale. You can also check with department stores that sale formal dresses in catalogs they may have discounted their summer dresses now since summer is out. Ask your bridesmaids to purchase their gowns and as a gift from you to them you could purchase the jewelry. You can find nice jewelry in stores such as Claries. You can find a store in the mall that is inexpensive that sales nice good quality jewelry. Check with a grocery store for your wedding cake. They are alot cheaper than specialty cake shops, not unless you know someone who does wedding cakes that would be willing to do this as a gift. You can do a three tier wedding cake in sheet cakes as well instead of the round cakes. You get more cake out of sheet cakes than those round cakes. Try to only invite intimate people such as close friends and family since you are on a budget. Try to have the reception at a low rental place, somewhere nice. I know arts councils, college campuses, recreation centers, and church reception halls will allow you to rent places at a nice nominal fee. If your have people who could help you to make you wedding reception food, then this would cut down on cost from hiring a caterer. Good people to use are church members, family members, or family friends. Have your reception and wedding early in the afternoon so you do not have to serve a heavy meal. You can serve finger foods. Make sure at each table of your receptions that you have dinner mints and peanuts mix for the guest because they can eat this as a small appetizer while they wait to be served. I forgot to mentioned that if you did not want a church wedding, you can get married in a nice gardenia area located on a college campus or in a nice park area where ever you live. The fee would be nice an nominal and you would not have to worry about decorations. Now back to the reception, serve finger foods such as finger sandwiches, potato salad, pasta salads, green leaf salad, and get a nice punch bowl with a nice Kool-Aid the color of your wedding. For cups and plates go to Sams Club or Costco and purchase the clear cups and plates in bulk. For your photographer, you can call one of the colleges or schools in your area to see if they have a student that well crafted to take your pictures. If you plan to display your bridal protrait at the receptions, you can call local schools that do framing to frame your pictures as well. For decorations and center piece at the wedding reception, you can go to the dollar store and purchase these items. You can get glass globes, flowers, marbles, and etc. To decorate your tables. Start getting the dress for your mom now then one she would wear, because again summer is out and things are on sale. There maybe someone you know who could play the music for you at your wedding. Lastly, you can make your own programs, invitations, and these things on the computer now. Your invitation could be a post card invitation. You can make these on the computer. It would cut down on postage. You could have included where you and your husband to be a registered. Have a blessed and wonderful wedding.

Some things to consider also is find out if there is a cooking school, or a class at the local community college. Find out if they would be willing to make your cake, and if maybe a small group of them would be willing to do the catering.

Some will do it for just the cost of the food, others will do it for a small bit more.

You could try the flowers as the same thing. For favors you could make cellophane roses, that consist of 2 hershey`s kisses, red celophane (one roll could do easily 100, if not 500), green florists tape, thicker wire or shish kabob wooden skewers, silk leaves.

Know someone w/ a baby? or lots of someones w/ babies? Collect the baby food jars and make candles, or fill w/ m&m`s and print labels with your information on them.

Go to David`s briday when they have a sale, one just got over, or is over on the 22nd (not sure which), they seem to do them about twice a year or so.

Watch Ebay!!! Go to thrift stores for old wedding dresses and use them for the lace (make headpieces, ring berers pillows, flower girl dresses out of them)

Is mom or soon to be inlaws part of a lodge? Moose, Elk, VFW, etc? Find out if they would be willing to talk to the lodge about a reception. Not positive on the costs, but should be less than at a hall.

Hi, I am getting married this June and we are paying for the most of it. And we dont have alot of money either! If you can have your ceremony in a family or friends yard that would be a big help finance wise. We are having our wedding at 1 pm and serving appetizers from Costco which has great prices. Safeway has wedding cakes the one I looked at was $132.00. As for my dress its a bridesmaids dress and that cost is 150.00. As for music I lucked out I have a friend who DJ`s and she is flying in from Florida to DJ for us. We are being charged $500.00 for that which in our budget is alot but if I didnt know her the cost would be between $1000.00 and $1200.00. So if you have a small ceremony pick some cds that you or your friends may have and play thoses for the wedding march and reception. Costco has alot of inexpensive paper products as well as plastic silverware. Start now have fun and dont stress on finances. And if you can stay away from using credit cards. Another thing is unless you need household items dont register anywhere and if your family or grooms family asks what you may need tell them money would be nice. Dont put that on your invites though! At most party stores they should have a wedding invitation book called something like weddings on a budget. Take your time as you have more than me and everything will work out fine. Oh flowers! I am going to order from Costco flowers in bulk. I havent priced it out yet but I am sure it will be less expensive than a specialty store. For pictures......Got a lot of ideas dont I :-) ! Anyway you can get those disposable cameras and put one on every table at your reception. If you can get a family member to video your ceremony and take a few after that would save you more money~! Let me know how things go!
Sue

Ebay is great for wedding gowns too. Many shops sell sample gowns, etc. I got mine for $80! NWT (new with tags), usually retailing for $650. They have veils, tiaras, all kinds of things. Sam`s Club sells a large quantity of roses and other flowers very cheap. You could have your brides carry a long stemmed rose. For center pieces there is always dollar store glass/heavy plastic bowls and floating candles. If you live near a big city, put an ad on craigslist.com for a photographer. I have 2, one who is free (a guy who wants to start in the business and he`ll use some of my pics in his portfolio) and another gal who is charging only $400 for the whole day. Again, she wants to build her portfolio as well. Not bad for NYC area!