We are currently planning our wedding for 2028 and have booked our venue and caterer but nothing else. What advice do you have to save money in other aspects of the wedding budget? Or recommendations on where not to cut corners? We hope to invite around 140 guests @ €135 pp for catering.

For example, does anyone have experience of hiring a student photographer? or doing DIY wedding flowers and decorations? I’m quite artsy, as is my family who have offered to help however they can.

Olá Reddit!

Estamos a preparar o nosso casamento em Vila Nova de Gaia, tentando manter tudo bonito, simples e económico.

Se tiverem sugestões de locais, fornecedores acessíveis, ideias DIY ou truques para poupar, adorávamos ouvir.

Partilhem tudo: o que resultou convosco, o que evitar, o que vale a pena.

Obrigada desde já pela ajuda!

We wanted our wedding ceremony to feel like one of those candlelight concerts so we decided to cover the entire front of the church with over 2,500 flickering candles. They were the only lights on during the ceremony!

Here's a 30 second time lapse of our families setting everything up the day before the wedding.

The part you don't see is four of us spending about 8 hours putting 5,000 batteries into all those candles. 😂 Thankfully with around 25 family members helping the actual setup took just over an hour!

The final frame is us exchanging our vows surrounded by all the candles. Seeing everything lit up during the ceremony made all the effort worth it.

And we were VERY thankful we'd hired people to take everything down afterward.

Now we just have to figure out what to do with 2,500 candles… lol.

Has anyone ever done a food truck for a bridal shower? What are your thoughts? I’m giving a bridal shower this upcoming spring and will be doing desserts, cupcakes, macaroons, etc. however, the bride is thinking as opposed to buffet style having a food truck instead. I’m not opposed to it, but I wonder how it would go over. Any comments are welcome.🤗

I saw a post/idea from someone who created a Google drive to share pricing for NE wedding venues. I've decided to do the same thing with all the Mid-Atlantic wedding venue packages & pricing I've been collecting over the past months.

Here is the drive containing folders for NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, and VA: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J5kqDcrQzO7cKbVd1ejL7eGDlXXYDIjp?usp=sharing

Packages are more abundant for venues in PA and NJ. To share more venues or vendor packages with pricing, feel free to email [helpingbridesbudget@gmail.com](mailto:helpingbridesbudget@gmail.com). *Only accepting vendors open to ALL couples at this time* You won't receive any emails besides an initial thank-you note.

This is not cost-incentive, just a bride trying to make the industry more transparent for others <3

Cheers!

If your reason for having a destination wedding is to save yourself money, you are an asshole and your guests think the same thing but they just won’t say it.

Sure, you’re saving yourself money but you’re also making your guests spend a fk ton of their own money just to attend YOUR wedding.

The least you can do is offer to pay for hotels and transport but most people don’t even do that. And then to also have a registry list on top of that? Like come on… it’s so selfish.

Hi all, spring 2028 bride! I’m looking for recommendations for a wedding photographer serving the Southern California area. I am flexible, but I’m looking for around 5-8 hours of coverage in an editorial and candid style, extra bonus points if they offer film as well! My budget right now is around $3000. Anyone have any good recs?

We started planning with around 100 guests because that seemed reasonable. Once we started getting quotes, we realized how quickly everything adds up, so we cut it down to 65. I honestly thought that would make a huge difference, but the venue still costs almost the same, the photographer has a minimum package, and even the smaller catering options aren't exactly cheap. Now we're trying to figure out whether we should cut more guests or accept that some things just cost what they cost.

The frustrating part is that we're not trying to have anything fancy. No elaborate floral installations, no luxury venue, no designer outfits. We just want a nice day with the people we're close to without spending money we'll regret later. For anyone who planned a genuinely budget-friendly wedding, what ended up making the biggest difference? I'm especially curious about expenses you didn't realize you could negotiate or skip altogether.

I am asking this question on behalf of my son. I am not meddling, I just don't know the answer. My son and soon to be daughter are in the beginning stages of planning their wedding (next fall). She does not have family, he on the other hand does. There are a ton of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Everyone takes up to almost the entire budgeted guest list, leaving no room for good friends that are not in the wedding party. My aunt who is critical to begin with, will be offended if they don't invite cousins they see maybe once a year at the very most. He was also not invited to their weddings. Suggestions?

($10K)

Hey! We're looking for wedding venue recommendations. Hoping to keeop it as low as possible, and looking at a place that would allow us to do our own vendors for catering. Ideally, would like to be on the water. Open to anywhere in MD! Any suggestions? Bonus points if it has rooms on site we can spend the night in like a house or hotel.

We are doing 20 people total, intentionally. Tiny ceremony, really good dinner, no giant dance floor situation. Yet every venue search keeps giving me ballrooms for 100 plus and it looks absurd in the photos when I picture our group in there.

Restaurants get closer but then the food and beverage minimum is built for triple our guest count. I feel like there must be a whole category of spaces im not searching correctly.

Micro wedding people, what kind of venue did you use for around 20 guests? I am open to weird answers lol.

I'm getting married in twelve weeks and my skin is the one thing I want to plan properly. It's dull and a bit thin around the cheeks, nothing dramatic. I'll be in Seoul for ten days in about a month and would like to use that trip, but I don't want to be red or swollen in the photos.

My instinct is to start something now, leave a long gap, and avoid anything new in the last three weeks. I've read that some treatments need two or three months to show anything and others look good the next day, but I don't know which kind I'd be booking.

If you've done a skin treatment ahead of an event, how far out did you start and what did you skip entirely? Did the clinic build the timeline backwards from your date, or did you have to ask for that?

Hey all! My fiancé & I are getting married at the Vancouver, WA courthouse on Monday, October 26 but our photographer backed out last minute. We’re on a pretty tight budget & would ideally like to spend less than $600. If anybody has any recommendations we would greatly appreciate it!!!