Budget-conscious brides don’t necessarily have to resort to extreme measures to save money. Here are a few ways – collected by area wedding planners and a recent bride – couples can skimp, without resorting to letting Uncle George serve the cake.
Cut out the champagne
Even if you have always dreamed of having champagne on your wedding day, from a cost standpoint, the bubbly’s best saved for the wedding night. Your guests will be happy toasting with their own libations and won’t even notice it’s gone. Best of all, you won’t have to pay for the glasses and extra wait staff to serve it.
Serve fancy food – standing up
Offering heavy hors d’oeuvres can be cheaper and more creative than a sit-down dinner. If both of you love sweets, wow guests with an over-the- top dessert reception featuring candy, pastries, chocolate fountains and a coffee bar stacked with flavored syrups, suggests wedding planner Heather Allen of Table Six Productions in Denver. “It could be a lot of fun because people are used to a typical wedding,” she says. If you’re wedded to a sit-down dinner, serve it family style. Allie Liebgott of Fete event planners in Denver recommends this tip often, saying family-style uses less wait staff than a full service sit-down meal. Servers bring out platters of food and guests choose what they want. “It’s still elegant,” Liebgott says. “And it’s also nice because the people at the tables are forced to interact. It just becomes more intimate.”
Skip the welcome baskets for out-of-town guests
Creating welcome goodie bags for out-of-town guests is fun and a nice touch. But really, the guests will be fine without the bottled water and snacks. A cheaper and still thoughtful alternative is to create a welcome letter, along with a list of restaurant recommendations and sightseeing options. The local convention and visitors bureau may be able to offer free pamphlets.
Honeymoon where the dollar is strong
Of course, the United States has some great honeymoon ideas: Napa Valley, New York City, an Alaskan cruise. But if you’re eager for an escape on the cheap, skip Paris and choose a location where the dollar is strong. Frommers.com keeps a global index of such information and updates it monthly. Recent offerings: Ushuaia, Argentina; Budapest, Hungary; and Trinidad and Tobago.
Stash the bridal magazines
They’re pretty and glitzy and fun to read. But if you’re trying to keep a lid on your budget, reading bridal magazines can make you depressed about what you can’t have. A better solution: Get together with other brides-to-be and gab about ideas. Or scan the Internet for budget wedding ideas.
