Cheap Wedding Ideas
It may seem like the word ‘inexpensive’ doesn’t go with ‘wedding’. However, there are already many ways to achieve this. Having cheap weddings doesn’t mean losing elegance or even sentimentality. It means being creative, pulling out all of your resources, including your friends and family.
The best way to have an affordable wedding is to make a budget, then stick to it. Make a list of things you really need and decide on excesses. You don’t need to invite the whole world to your wedding, and don’t need a dozen for your entourage. You don’t need a cake big enough to be seen from the moon. And you certainly don’t need too many flowers that you could make your own botanical garden.
There are surely many things you can do yourself. The internet is a good source of cheap schemes. It provides a lot of do-it-yourself instructions for various contraptions. From the listed instructions, you can make your own giveaways, even the invites, decorations, and whatever else. Buy by the bulk for the various materials you need. Flowers, candles, various cloths and other things are cheaper by the bulk. Also, don’t be afraid to go inside thrift shops. For example, for centerpieces, you can opt to use mini-wineglasses, marbles or other pretty, shiny baubles, which you can procure from bargain stores.
Just make what you can. This includes baking the cake, the flower arrangements, invites, and party favors. Most spend too much on party favors that will end up gathering dust in your guests’ attics. One can create more meaningful, and less expensive party favors, like cupcakes, or candies or your favorite chocolate in cupcake liners. Be sure to throw in personalized notes or quotes, and maybe the date of the wedding. For the invites, you can throw together a picture, stylish (yet inexpensive) paper, a ribbon, and print out the details, and you’re all set. For the decorations, you can gather together friends, especially those experienced in the art of flower arranging.
One sure way to cut the costs is deciding where to hold the wedding. You can opt to have it at the beach, wherein you can opt to shed the traditional wedding outfits and perhaps have the wedding Hawaiian style, leis and grass skirts and all. It can all be very informal, and this includes the food: barbecue, fruits and fruit juices. This requires sparse decorations too – a couple of dangling lights, here and there, paper flowers, and you’re all set.
A picnic wedding can also be inexpensive. It could all be casual, and affordable, and very unstuffy. To fit the theme, the food would be picnic fare, which would include buffalo wings, sodas and whatever else people pack in their picnic baskets. You can also choose a location that wouldn’t need much flower decorations, like gardens or parks. The natural view will be enough of a backdrop.
It isn’t only the location that could help alleviate the expenses, but also when. Avoiding a time when flowers would be very expensive, like February, with Valentine’s Day around. Also, scheduling it at a time when weddings don’t usually happen is bound to get you steep discounts.
A wedding can certainly be meaningful and memorable, but then it doesn’t need to cause holes in your wallet, bank accounts, or even your future children’s college fund.