My husband and I got married in March of 2018. A wonderful, Spring wedding on the river. We had been discussing getting married in 2018 anyway, but when we found out we were pregnant, we moved up the timeline. 
With our baby on the way, we knew we couldn’t afford to spend a lot on our wedding and had to find ways to cut costs. With the help of friends, family, researching, budgeting and smart shopping, we were able to do our entire wedding (for 35 people) for under $3,000. Also important to note, all of this was planned and implemented in less than 2 months. I wanted to share how we were able to pull all of that off and how you can too. I look back now and I am so proud of what we accomplished. It turned out better than I could have imagined and I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
A little rant first – Personally, I am not a big fan of people spending thousands and thousands of dollars on their weddings. I think it is a ridiculous way to spend your, or your parent’s, hard earned money. If you have the desire and money do to it, have at it! I think using the money you would spend on some huge wedding is smarter and better suited to put into a home, a car, savings, college tuition, traveling, etc… Anyway, I digress.
First up, the Venue:
Patrick and I were extremely blessed to have my sister’s in-laws provide us the venue free of charge. Words cannot express how fortunate we were to have the gift of using their river house property for our wedding. The setting couldn’t have been any better; just absolute perfection. I know this was a true blessing and this can’t happen for everyone. 
With that being said, utilize your network of friends and family, and friends of friends and family, to see if there are any prospects for a possible venue.
If so, see if you can negotiate a fair, low price so that you can use their property for a day. If you cannot think of anyone in that realm to help out, think about local spots that have enough space for your sized wedding and see if you could negotiate a great deal. Churches (if you are into that), have reasonable prices – search around. With time and good negotiating skills, you will be able to land yourself a fairly decent place to have your wedding and at a great price.
The Wedding Dress, Bouquet and Decorations:
These days, you can buy ANYTHING online. I know it is always a gamble to buy clothes online, but guess what, you can get it altered (if need be). Online you can find some amazing deals and great selections. I scoured the internet over and over until I found the dress I wanted to wear. I even made a couple of returns in the process. When I found the dress I wanted, my sister-in-law (thanks Marie) altered my dress for me. I spent ~$150 on my dress. I recommend checking some local stores to see if you can find a good clearance / discount rack. Sometimes you may get lucky and find ‘the one’ for a steal. Find what makes you happy and stay within a budget. 
For my bouquet, my sister-in-law and I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of artifical, stemmed flowers and succulents. We got the necessary ribbon, tape, wire, etc… for it to be put together. Marie (my fabulous sister-in-law), took all of our supplies and put my gorgeous bouquet together. I absolutely loved it. The good news with it being artificial is that I can keep it forever and it will always look the same. By making our own and using artificial supplies, we were able to save a ton of money. My bouquet ended up costing me about $30. I should also note, while on that Michaels trip, we also picked up a lot of the cake and table decorations for our wedding. Those costs me another $40.
The rest of the decorations I picked up on Amazon (again, I love Amazon). I spent another $200 of table runners, aftifical succulent potted plants, sparkly light strands, etc…
My hair and makeup we did ourselves (free, yay).
Tables, Chairs, Tablecloths, Tents and Chaffing Dishes:
For the tables and chairs, I researched hard. I contacted several local party rental companies and finally found one with the best rates. I used them for 8 tables and 35 chairs. Those costs me ~$200. My dad (thanks dad), used his truck to pick them up and drop them off for us. That was a tremendous help. We bought our party tents on Ebay (yes, Ebay). We found that they were the cheapest way we could get big enough party tents. The party rental places charge an arm and a leg for them (so just skip them). We knew we needed tents because there was a bit of a chill in the air that weekend. So, if you’re having your wedding in nice, warm weather, you might be able to skip that altogether. We spent ~$160 on two 10X30 tents. I told you it was a great price. 
Our families helped us set up and break down everything. Talk about the best family ever! That definitely saved us some money.
For our tablecloths, my mother-in-law allowed us to borrow them for our wedding. Fortunately for us, that meant free. So, no additional cost there.
The chaffing dishes were also borrowed. Marie and my mother-in-law graciously provided those, for use, for our wedding reception.
The Wedding Cake:
For our cake, we visited a local bakery that we knew made amazing cakes. We talked to the owner and discussed all of the different options and sizes. 
I already knew that I wanted a naked cake with white icing in the middle. I also wanted to decorate the cake myself, versus paying them to do it. I already had the supplies and if I had her of the decorating, it cost more than the cake. No way was I doing that. Plus, getting to decorate it yourself is fun and you get to choose exactly how you want it. We ended getting a 2 tier cake (8 layers total). It was enough to serve 40-60 people. The cake cost us ~$160. If you are interested, the bottom tier was a coconut cake with coconut icing and the top tier was a white cake with a peaches and cream icing (fresh peaches – yum). Everyone loved it. We had enough leftover to enjoy for several days after our wedding.
The Food for the Reception:
The main food served at our wedding ended up coming from a local BBQ spot. I did a ton of research trying to figure out the best way to save money on our food. Catering is expensive, in case you didn’t know. I highly recommend checking out a BBQ spot for your wedding. They usually have a ton of options to pick from for your menu, they can do bulk orders for a decent price, the food tastes amazing and they usually give you several options on how you want the food serviced by them. For us, we chose to just have them deliver and we would do all of the setting up, serving and cleaning ourselves. Again, our wonderful families helped with all of that. The catered BBQ ended up costing ~$700 for 35 people. We also ended up having enough leftovers to last for over a week. 
Marie, the great person she is, also made a bunch of tasty appetizers, snacks, desserts to accompany our BBQ dinner. She prepared everything, set everything up and cleaned it all up as well (have I thanked you enough Marie?).
Since my husband is Filipino, we of course, had to had an entire roasted pig for our wedding celebration. My in-laws provided the whole roasted baby pig. Sorry if the picture offends anyone, but pig is delicious! Pigs served at celebrations are a requirement in the Filipino community.
The Officiant:
My husband and I agreed that neither one of us would use someone we knew to officiate our wedding to be fair. We both wanted different people when our primary choice wasn’t available. I searched online and found a reputable man in the area who could perform our wedding. We had a meeting with him prior to getting married to make sure we felt comfortable with him. We also exchanged a lot of emails back and forth until we nailed down exactly what we wanted. He only charged us for has gas/mileage and then the required ‘state fee’. We ended up giving him a tip as well and he ended up costing us $200.
Music:
We ended up putting together a playlist of songs we wanted to be played at our wedding. We used bluetooth, outdoor speakers to play the music. My husband played around on his computer and was able to take a song and make a snippet of it for me to walk down the aisle to. In case you were interested in what song that was, it was a ukulele version of ‘Faithfully’ by Journey. Faithfully happens to be ‘our song’ and I really wanted that to be represented in our wedding. The music ended up being free (we already owned all of the songs we used). Bonus score!
The Photographer:
This ended up being the single most expensive thing we paid for. We could have skipped the photographer and just relied on our friends and families photos, but I knew this would and up being 100% worth it. My photographer was someone I knew for like 20 years. We grew up in church together. Allison’s work is something I have always admired and I just knew we had to fork out the money on this one. I knew I wanted Allison, so I didn’t talk to anyone else. Had I, I could have potentially found someone cheaper, but it wouldn’t have been what I wanted. She ended up costing us ~$900 with a tip. As a friend, she provided us a discount and we were a smaller wedding for her. We are certainly grateful for that. We ended up with like 400 photos as a result. A HUGE thanks to Allison for our awesome photos! I do not regret it.
Some Tips Overall:
- Narrow your wedding guest list down as much as possible (we kept ours to immediate family only)
- Don’t feel bad / sorry for not inviting everybody (this is YOUR wedding and you are trying to save money – each person costs you additional money)
- Make a budget and stick to it
- Research, research, research prior to purchasing anything
- Ask around to multiple businesses (don’t just call or reach out to one)
- Don’t be afraid to ask your friends and family for help (they want you to enjoy your wedding day too)
- Try to find a way to do your wedding at a cheap location that you are happy with (venues cost alot of money)
- Spend your money wisely, don’t waste it on stuff you don’t need or won’t ever use again
- Don’t skip the photographer and/or videographer, just do it (you won’t regret it – you’ll want to look back on it one day)
- Be willing to compromise (this is something you’ll be doing everyday in your married life)
- Most importantly – Have Fun! It is your wedding – do it how you want.
I hope you’ve found this post interesting / useful. Tell me in the comments about other ways you’ve saved money on your wedding. If you don’t mine, share how much you were able to get your entire wedding done for. I think it is important for us to share and learn from each other.