6 of the Biggest Wedding Expenses and How to Slash Them
Planning a wedding typically involves setting out with the best of intentions, a sensible budget based on a good idea of what you want and what it is likely to cost. Then the costs spiral rapidly out of control as forgotten essentials get added to the list and the true cost of ‘wedding premiums’ rears its ugly head. But there are ways to slash costs and still create and amazing wedding day. We take a look at some of the biggest wedding expenses and how to get the best price for them.
The Wedding Dress
Designer wedding dresses can start at between £1,000 and £1,500 and, well, there’s no real upper limit to how much they might cost. But there are several ways to significantly reduce that cost and still look amazing on the day of the wedding.
Firstly, you could consider buying second hand. A lot of £1,000+ designer wedding dresses end up in second hand shops for a fraction of the price and you can discover some real finds by prowling the right second hand shops. Alternatively you could get a hand-me-down. Your mother’s wedding dress might be from an era of questionable taste but what about finding out if your grandmother still has her now vintage wedding gown for some serious class? If you must have new then a third option is to bypass the wedding premium and go for a non-wedding gown. Just because it isn’t from a wedding collection doesn’t mean a classic white dress can’t be pressed into service as a beautiful and modern wedding gown.
Catering
Catering typically works on a price-per-head basis. If you get married in the afternoon and then have a large evening reception be prepared to spend a large chunk of your budget on a meal for your day guests and then an additional buffet to accommodate hungry evening ravers. And expect a hefty wedding premium to be slapped on top of the typical amount you’d expect to pay for similar fare.
The first thing to consider is attacking guest numbers. The sit-down meal is going to be the most expensive part of this equation so think seriously about whether there is anybody who can be moved over to the evening party-only roster, or cut from the guest list altogether. To avoid offense, try to cut categories rather than individuals – inviting all of your cousins except that one you don’t really see much of isn’t the most politically savvy idea, but cutting all work-colleagues from the day ceremony and keeping it exclusively family and childhood friends will help avoid anyone feeling jilted. You could also plan the wedding ceremony for the morning instead of the afternoon – a sit-down lunch is likely to cost less than a full dinner.
Drinks
The cost of drinks can sometimes come as a surprise especially when you come to the realisation that your budget will only stretch as far as a miserly one glass of champagne per guest and table water for the meal. There are several savvy ways to bring these costs down and still let the cheer flow.
Let’s assume you’ve already exercised the guest culling measures already mentioned and consider additional alternatives. Firstly, a good cava or Prosecco is often nicer than cheap champagne and usually easier for unaccustomed palates, so unless your guests are seasoned champagne guzzlers, give serious consideration to the more cost effective and easier to enjoy bubbly. Expect the caterers or wedding venues to over-charge on the table wine and instead plan to supply your own wine and negotiate a corkage cost with them. Finally, whether you plan on providing free drinks for the reception or will have a cash bar carefully compare the venue’s bar prices with a mobile wedding bar. Not only are they more likely to be able to cater to your guests’ varied drinks tastes but the per-head or cash-bar costs are often cheaper than most wedding venues’. They may even be able to provide a package price which includes drinks reception and wedding breakfast wines along with a cash bar for the evening at a significantly lower rate than a venue or caterers costs.
Stationery
Sending out party invitations doesn’t seem like it would cost that much, but wedding stationery is so much more than that. Date for your Diary cards, the actual invitation, RSVP cards, Menus, Order of Service, Place Name Cards, Seating Plans, Thank You cards and more can mount up. Get custom designed, handmade stationery and add on the personalisation costs (i.e. getting them all named and addressed), not to mention all those stamps, and the wedding stationery can see you set back by hundreds of pounds.
Again, we’ll assume that you’ve culled the guest list by as much as you can by now, so the main option left for reducing wedding stationery costs is to cut the amount of paid labour involved. If you don’t need handmade, original designs look for pre-printed wedding stationery packages. Instead of getting them personalised with your names and the names and addresses of each guest, try to find ones which are blank and fill them in by hand yourself. Alternatively, if you do want handmade then get out your craft knife and do it all yourself. Craft shops have a plethora of material for making your own wedding stationery. Many of them will also have simple printing facilities as well to print the necessary text on the cards. Just remember that this can be very time consuming so leave yourself plenty of time to make and/or name and address all the invitations you need to send out.
Venue
Wedding venues are the flagship culprits for charging a premium just because they are catering to a wedding, but there are ways to beat even them. Firstly, get that guest list out again, are you sure you’ve cut out absolutely everybody? A smaller guest list, even if it’s just for the wedding ceremony, can lead to a smaller venue and significant savings. If you can trim it right down to just your bridal party then you might even be able to afford to fly everyone abroad and have a small but memorable wedding somewhere in the sun.
If your list is as small as it’s going to get and you still can’t afford to take everybody to the Bahamas then the first thing to look at is the venue for the ceremony. Find somewhere that has the appropriate capacity for your guests, no point in spending money on empty pews. Consider the church, synagogue or mosque etc. your family attends if they have one, being members might mean they waive the usual fee and it will also have sentimental significance. If you aren’t planning a religious ceremony then your local council will have civil reception venues that are relatively inexpensive but still attractive. Choosing to hold your wedding ‘off-peak’ (i.e. outside of the popular May-August period) or during a weekday may also help you secure a lower booking cost.
Alternatively you could consider finding a venue which can be licensed for wedding ceremonies and will also serve for the reception, this way you should see an overall reduction in the booking cost (one venue for the day rather than two) and also not have to worry about the cost of transporting the wedding party from one venue to the other. You may even want to consider finding a non-traditional venue which isn’t geared up for doing weddings as they are less likely to pull out a marked-up weddings pricelist at the first mention of nuptials. Services such as mobile bars can also be a big help here in turning just about any venue into a memorable wedding venue.
Entertainment
Entertainment is a very individual taste but one thing which is probably universal to weddings is avoiding ‘dead air’, moments during the day where there isn’t at least background music in between ceremonies and speeches. It’s perfectly possible to hire a string quartet to usher guests into the ceremony, play the bride down the aisle and provide background music during the meal and drinks reception before handing the stage over to a 10 piece Jive band but all those people will need paid. Consider the venue, your priorities and your personal preferences. Background music could be provided by an MP3 player over the venue’s audio, even the bridal chorus needn’t be performed live – will any of your guests actually notice the absence of a live string quartet?
Likewise, you might want to splash out for a live band for the evening depending on your personal preferences but even if you do you might only want them for part of the evening and then replace by a DJ later on. Speaking of DJs, these days they needn’t be the type that brings along an expensive set-up of massive speakers, mixing boards and multiple CD and record decks needing a van to transport it. More cost-effective DJs can put together a playlist on an MP3 player and set up with nothing but that and mobile speakers – same music but less cost and clutter.
