I got married last year. We didn’t have much money to invest towards our wedding at the time. Our wedding preparation took a lot of thought, bargaining, and even a little sacrifice. What’s the end result? We only spent $2,500 on our wedding.
What makes this noteworthy? In 2021, the average wedding cost was $22,500, over ten times as much! This is a reduction from roughly $30,000 previously. Do you think spending so much money on a wedding will put you on the correct track to married bliss? Don’t. High wedding costs have been linked to lower marriage success rates (maybe more “show” than “substance?).
An extravagant wedding might put your marriage on a bad financial footing, leaving you and your spouse with a mountain of debt and the stress that comes with it.
What was the secret to our low-cost wedding? Every detail will be laid out for you. You’ll need to follow many, if not all, of the procedures below if you want to keep your wedding costs modest. Along the way, you might cause a bit of a disturbance. That is, nevertheless, perfectly acceptable. Today is the day for you. They’ll grow out of it.
My wedding guest list is kept to a bare minimum.
The first and most difficult step is the most difficult. It is also the most important because it will account for the majority of my overall expenses. However, in order to have a low-cost wedding, I need to limit my guest list, or at the very least limit the guest list during the reception.
How many times have you been asked to a wedding to which you had no right? It could have been a distant cousin you scarcely knew or a long-lost buddy. It’s happened to all of us.
Save such people from the embarrassment of declining your invitation or the agony of attending a wedding they don’t want to attend. A lower guest list means less money spent on food and drink, as well as a smaller reception hall to rent (which also limits decoration expenses).
I’m quite picky about who I invite.
I should go a step farther because I really want to have a low-cost wedding. My wife and I decided to invite only twenty-five people to our wedding.
We invited:
- our parents (4)
- all living grandparents (5)
- our siblings (3)
- our closest friends and their significant others (13)
That was the end of the conversation. There are no relatives in the area. It had been a tough choice. Our parents have a total of more than 20 brothers and sisters between them. We could have easily increased the wedding size by inviting them and their significant others. It would have multiplied if they brought their kids. Similarly, our expenses would have nearly doubled.
Only a few of these relatives remained close to us throughout the years, but we felt that in order to be fair, we should either invite them all or none at all. We didn’t invite anyone.
This was the most difficult aspect of cutting costs. A couple of the closest extended family members were offended, but it was resolved once it was emphasized that we weren’t picking favorites. You have the option of picking favorites, but be prepared for some drama if you do.
Finally, neither of us regrets our decision to exclude extended family. It resulted in a far more pleasurable and private wedding, in which we were able to connect deeply with everyone rather than being pushed in dozens of different directions at the same time.
I’m looking for a flexible reception hall.
For two major reasons, this is crucial to a low-cost wedding:
First, for non-weekend days, a good reception hall will offer you a discount. We chose a Thursday night because it was half the price of a Saturday night, at only $500. The majority of our guests chose to take Friday off, which provided them with a pleasant three-day weekend.
Saturdays are the most expensive to rent, followed by Sunday, Friday, and any other weekday. Some places will even compromise on price, so asking once you’ve discovered the one you want isn’t a bad idea.
Second, finding a hall that permits you to bring your own caterer is an even better way to cut costs. Many reception facilities either compel you to purchase their cuisine or charge you a fee to have someone else prepare it for you. Look for one that doesn’t have this problem.
I’m hiring a wedding caterer on my own.
I despise traditional wedding reception fare. You have the option of one or two plates of generic tasteless cuisine, which is usually pre-made by a lousy chef at best. And the pair will typically spend $40, $50, or $60 per person for that, plus an additional $10 or so for cutlery, dishes, and linen. No, thank you!
In order to keep our wedding costs low, we went outside the box once more on this one.
We were regulars at a Middle Eastern restaurant where we used to eat when we were in school. We inquired if they catered, and they confirmed that they did. Not only did this restaurant serve delicious food, but it was also incredibly inexpensive. You could feast like a king for less than $7.
We chose a variety of salads, vegetables, kibbeh, hummus and pita, spinach pie, lentil soup, and chicken and rice for the more conservative diners. The dinner was well-received by all, and everyone enjoyed it. We only paid $14 per person (including linens, silverware, and plates)! We gave them a generous gratuity and paid them an additional $50 for cleaning up everything. We not only enjoyed the dinner, but we also felt good about donating the funds to our favorite eatery.
Normally, you’d budget $5,000 or more for a party of 100 people. We only paid $350 for 25 people at $14 each!
Thinking outside the box pays well. You will almost certainly be overcharged if you use the reception hall’s food service. In addition, the food will most likely be bland and uninteresting.
Free Watercolor Black Wedding Invitation Templates
Wedding invitations are expensive to order. As a result, you must manage it wisely, one of which is by downloading free invitation templates from the website. Then you can send digital or paper invitations. Fortunately, I will share a Free Watercolor Black Invitation Templates with you in this article. All you have to do now is download the image and change it to match the elements of the wedding you’ll be hosting.
How to Download
- Right-Click your selection.
- Select “Save Image As”.
- Locate the destination folder, or for easy-to-access, you can put them on your desktop, or just leave it as it is.
- Click “Save”, and the download process will take a few seconds or less depending on how fast your internet access is.
Finally, you can open the file through Microsoft Word or Paint (if you are a beginner), or Adobe Photoshop (if you are dvanced).