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Cut the cost of the wedding

6 tips on this task  |  Tweet

1) Consider an off-peak wedding
Getting married on a Saturday in the middle of July is, funnily enough, quite expensive. However, getting married on a Friday or Sunday can drastically cut the costs of everything from the church and reception venue to the DJ and wedding transport.

2) Cut out the non-essentials
There are hosts of ‘must-haves’ according to the wedding magazines that are nothing of the sort.

Do you really need to send out Save the Date cards to your guests, only to follow them up with formal invitations a month or two later? And will any of your guests care if they don’t get favours on the table? Probably not, so why are you spending good money on them?

3) Rope in your friends
Do you have a friend who is great on a set of decks, or knows how to handle a camera? Or perhaps you are best mates with a florist, or have a friend with a massive garden you can use for the reception?

 Chances are, at least someone in your family or group of friends will be able to help out in some respect at the wedding and help you keep the costs down. Make sure you ask around!

4) Rent, don’t buy
After the wedding day, will you ever wear your wedding dress again? Probably not – it will just sit in the cupboard gathering dust. So instead of dropping thousands on a dress to keep, why not spend hundreds on a dress for the day.

It’s exactly the same with the gents’ suits – when are you ever going to need a morning suit besides on your wedding day?

5) Negotiate!
Most firms that deal with weddings will have set options, but that doesn’t mean they are inflexible. So when discussing the menu with your reception venue, why not see whether they can do a buffet instead of a sit down meal?