The Realist’s Budget Conscious Guide to Things Your Wedding Doesn’t Need + Expenses You Shouldn’t Pay For
Literal dollars and your emotional well-being is the currency that matters when planning your special day. It’s easy to get too bogged down worrying about little details or elements that your wedding doesn’t actually need. By eliminating these elements that cause more trouble than their worth and cutting back on unnecessary expenses, you can make your wedding planning process a whole lot simpler. Now that’s the real “shredding for the wedding”!
Things Your Wedding Doesn’t Need
Reality check on the details that couples get too caught up in
Elaborate “Save the Date” or Invitations
$5 per invitation that opens up and turns into a swan is by far too unnecessary. These will collect dust and realistically, you’ll be much more into your own wedding invites than anyone else ever will. It’ll be appreciated for 3 minutes max and then your invitee will move on with their life.
Because we had a small elopement, the free wedding invite site withjoy.com was perfect for listing our love story, wedding date info (you can put your entire itinerary and other events like showers, after party, etc), photos, video, FAQ. For bigger scale weddings that also include a registry, use Zola or theknot.com (also free). Save on postage AND save trees!
Our wedding e-vite made on withjoy.com
Party Favors
Cake pops, wine bottle openers, lighters, etc: admittedly a nice touch, but choose something simple rather than racking your brain trying to have some never-before-seen wedding favors. Half the time party favors don’t even make their way home with your guests. In between good food and an open bar, no one will even miss them. (Exception: If someone wants to make favors for you, like my sweet aunty did, then totally have them go for it, but this is just a tip to lighten the load on your wedding-planning list)
Cake Topper
It’s a very cute idea, but ever seen Cake Wars? Cake makers are really outdoing themselves on the deco these days; I’ve seen cakes where flowers are the actual accent so the cake looks complete without a caketopper. If you both are say very big Marvels fans or something, then why not, but if you’re just choosing something generic for the sake of a cake topper, then it’s essentially unimportant and definitely a cost you can cut.
The wedding topper would be too much with this already gorgeous cake
The baklava cheesecake that we had at our wedding
Garter
Unless you’re having a fun garter toss with a ton of eligible bachelors in the crowd, there’s no actual reason for a bride to worry about wearing a garter.
DJ
In the age of Spotify playlists where friends can also contribute to your wedding playlist, it’s no longer necessary to hire a DJ. Instead, just buy a good set of speakers (which you’ll still have after the nuptials are over, so that’s a bonus)
Extra bonus? Your Spotify wedding playlist can be repurposed for your friend’s future weddings if you have similar taste in music!
Registry
I personally find people are spending too long building their registries; just make them give you money, honey. What you really need is straight cash or gift cards to whatever store you want to purchase your household items from.
This is an especially good idea if you’re starting your marriage off long distance like my husband and I, or if you’re moving. It’s better to avoid hauling all these items from your old place to the new one. Instead, you can just use the money to buy whatever would have been on your registry once you’re settled. Just be sure to explain that on your wedding invite or site that you would appreciate monetary-only gifts in lieu of a registry, and also include the reason so that guests will be extra understanding of why it’s important to give money and not buy you crap.
Elaborate Engagement Shoot
All in all, it only makes sense to do an elaborate engagement shoot if you’re sending out save-the-dates or building your wedding website.
Albeit, we had one ourselves, but it’s because we had a friend who was building her portfolio. (And we completely lucked out, because it turned out phenomenally, check out her work HERE).
A few years ago I took one of my girlfriends engagement photos with my dad’s professional Nikon D750. I’m by no means a photographer but a good camera and the rapid fire nature of digital cameras means you don’t necessarily need to hire a professional for this. If you’re looking at hierarchy, your wedding photos are much more important than engagement photos.
Expenses You Shouldn’t Pay For
Save some money on your wedding, have more money for the honeymoon
Our DIY wedding programs for our ceremony & reception
Personalized Fonts
You can use a site like dafont.com and browse a wide range of free wedding-esque cursive like we did to create DIY wedding programs for our ceremony and reception. If you’re DIY-ing your own programs, invitations, save-the-dates, anything requiring typing, you don’t need to pay for fonts.
Size your finger at home for free!
Ring Sizing
I went to a boutique jeweler close my house to get my ring size and the store owner was going to charge me $5 to size my finger. Obnoxious! Just go to a regular mall and one of the jewelry kiosks or stores will size you for free, or you can get a free sizer mold sent to you from Blue Nile. It’ll take a few weeks to come in the mail, but if you have that time, this is a great option!
Officiant
If you’re of the non-traditional or non-denominational variety, having a close friend (who has a certain level of responsibility and stage presence) get ordained and officiate your ceremony both cuts your costs AND gives you a unique opportunity to really customize your ceremony script so it matches you as the couple. Wedding ordainments can be done online for free, my close guy friend got his ordainment through American Marriage Ministries. There other sites like Open Ministry and Get Ordained that are also free. Just make sure this option is recognized in the state you get married in as a legitimate authority. Alternatively, if you are of faith, most likely your local church pastor or rabbi is happy to perform your ceremony for free.
Our close friend ordained our wedding & really helped make the nuptials our own
Things Your Wedding DOES Need
A loving relationship that your friends and family will be happy to support throughout your lifetime journey together.
To all my brides! What do think? Did I leave anything out? I want to hear from you!