Hey OzBargain,
So I'm doing it, I'm getting married!
I know wedding budgets vary tremendously but are there any smart decisions I can make to keep costs low?
Probably outdated but my parents both agreed "don't tell the florist it's for a wedding and you'll save 20%".
Got any more? Planning to have the ceremony in Sydney if that helps.
Cheers
I went to an Arab wedding and they spent $250k.
$40-50k on flowers alone.
I look at the country they came from and I shake my head. Their neighbours can't even feed themselves properly back home. But you know these people, anything to show off.
Moral: don't spend money needlessly. Give charity, feed the poor. That's the best wedding.
I thought I'd share some of the tips we found:
1. Figure out what you really value, spend your money on those things and save on those things that are less important to you. For us, that meant spending on food and live music; and saving on photography.
2. Involve your family, if you can. We had a lot of family arrive a day early and help us prepare decorations and set up the venue. It was only a small fee to access the venue a day early.
3. We spoke with staff and ordered flowers from Harris Farm that were in season and readily available. We purchased a large number of glass vases that were cheap from many discount stores and enabled for easy flower arrangement. Again, the family helped with this.
4. Graphic design friends were happy to help us by creating simple invitations, menus and save the dates. We wrote them in word, and they made them look amazing. We were then able to print these off at Officeworks/Big-W cheaply.
5. If you want an attractive venue, consider looking outside of Sydney. I don't know if other major cities are as bad. For me, it was silly how much better the deals were in the Hunter, Mudgee and Orange as compared to Sydney (that were also often cheaper to cater).
6. Keep it on the smaller side. I've been to a lot of weddings and the sweet spot always seems to be around 50-70. The size makes a huge difference to the intimacy of the event. I'd rather spend the night with those I am closest too.
7. New photographers/event photographers who are interested in doing weddings are often light years cheaper than established wedding photographers. Keep a look out on local social media. It wasn't perfect, but it was perfect for what we wanted.
8. I don't think you need an MC if you are having a simple wedding, the band/DJ can often cover the few things that are needed if you ask/prepare them beforehand.
9. If you are relatively calm and organised and are having a simple ceremony, I don't see any need for a wedding planner. Controversial take I know, I'm sure I've just been unlucky, but in every bridal party I've been in, they seemed to annoy everyone by being obsessed with micromanaging everything.
I hope that helps.
Never spend too much! It's a single day in your whole life. Enjoy the time with your friends and family, but don't go into debt over a party!
I remember there was a good post on twitter with "questions to ask before getting married". You can google that, it was quite extensive.
Buy a fake wedding cake for display and a real cake for the kitchen in the fridge (which isn't as pretty, just a normal cake), when it's time to cut the fake cake, the baker outline where to cut a small section where the real cake is. The waiters take the cake away, while in the kitchen, they are already cutting up the real cake to serve.
I hired fake flowers for the bridal table runner, it was so much cheaper than the real thing and looked awesome. I also hired pedestals with pots and fake flowers for the ceremony, wishing well and other decorations. The only money I spent on real flowers were the bouquets.
Make your own wedding invitations and place cards.
All vendors are negotiable, even the venue. If they won’t budge on price, ask for free upgrades and more inclusions.
You can ask a good friend to be the MC.
Bridesmaid dresses from ASOS.
I do recommend having professional photography and videography though, because I think those memories are important.
Malke it simple and u will never regret
Remember its a marriage not a wedding
We just had the service then reception at the same room and only spent put money on really good cake, finger food and drinks … no frills just great beverages and a good photographer
Elope. Cheap, stress free, more fun.
Sound expensive, but a stylist will save you from having to pay for flowers and all the stupid little decoration stuff. PLUS, after the wedding, you wont have a whole bunch of decoration stuff to store/sell/throw away.
STATIONARY!! Just use Canva or Vistaprint, they offer printing services too!
Pop up Wedding.
Bombonieres, waste of money. Little gifts that most people leave on the table, don't bother.
Be brutal with your guest list. Relatives weren't an automatic invite at mine, ruffled some feathers but I'd much prefer a mate I see regularly get a guernsey than an interstate aunty I hadn't seen since I was 8.
If you can supply your own booze that will save you a heap, Dan Murphy's let you return what you don't use so if you over cater it's ok.
Don't bother with a wedding entirely. Elope at the courthouse (Costs about $220 IIRC), went a tux & wedding dress and have a wedding photographer take pics.
Just don't get married.
Do it on the cheap, its a huge waste of money to begin with and people are not really going to remember your "special day" anyway.
Got married 11 months ago, just coming out of lockdown. Indian wedding so had 4 events, all up about $60k spent (venues, vendors, outfits etc)
1) Shop around with your photographer/videographer - prices vary wildly. But (and this goes against what some others say) I do not suggest going the DIY route you will likely be disappointed (like where you put cameras on everyone's table). However everyone is different.
2) Be picky on your guest list - make a list that you your partner, your parents etc want there and then start to cull cull cull. But I would start with a complete list including those who may come from overseas if invited, and then reduce it from there. Less likely to realise you forgot someone (at least considered whether they get invited)
3) I'd pick your battles on the "this is not for a wedding" when talking to vendors. In some instances it makes no difference to the price, but the vendor will pay more attention to detail if it IS for a wedding as they know people care about it more and are more likely to complain if something goes wrong. Where we bought the cake from it made no difference whether it was for a wedding or not and we just bought our cake topper from etsy to stick on the top once the cake was delivered to the venue. I found for venues it also made no difference whether it was a wedding or not - they charged the same for their packages.
4) I somewhat agree on the catering - 2-3 course is fine, and basic drinks package OK too. I never remember if a wedding includes the higher quality stuff
5) Can DIY certain things if you have time or help e.g. used a friend's luxury car as the wedding car, did wedding favours ourselves (Costco chocolate almonds with maltesers, in some fancy looking boxes I bought from ebay for like 20c each), got a close friend to be MC, had DJ rather than full band, bought templates for invites and table list from etsy and filled it in ourselves. Wedding invites we just sent electronically via email/whatsapp etc rather than printing them out (partly due to COVID though for this one)
6) Flowers - didn't have many but just used fakes from Spotlight where possible - can't tell in the photos/videos anyway
Prenup - Easier to negotiate when friends rather than enemies….
If you're having a small-medium sized wedding that's more on the casual side, a fantastic idea that I read recently was don't hire a wedding venue. Instead, shop around for a REALLY nice and big AirBnB that matches the aesthetic you like and ask the owner if they would mind if you have host a wedding there. It will probably cost you thousands for just a couple of nights but would likely still be cheaper than a venue. It will also be a private space for the ceremony, reception and photos, and provide onsite accommodation for you and maybe more (depending how big the place is). You're free to organise whatever catering or drinks that you want. There's probably some complexities that I'm overlooking, but if I had my time over, I'd definitely look into this option.
if you don't own a house just yet, save up and buy a house first ;) (unless you prefer to rent)
We went with a very basic wedding which reduced the cost by a fair bit.
Got married at the registry with about 50 guests.
Had a small reception with immediate family and relatives.
Separately caught up with friend groups at later dates and paid for the meals as we felt this way we could spend more time with them rather than a fleeting "thanks for coming" at the reception.
If you are a guy, there is really no advantage in getting married and just disadvantages. But if you definitely want to thats fine, just make sure its the right person and you have made sure there are no red flags or issues that you guys havent already worked out. I would also advice going to relationship counseling just to have a professional go through and help you guys figure out what you want out of the marriage and each other and also if there are any hidden issues you guys havent realised yet.
If you are a guy, there is really no advantage in getting married and just disadvantages
Except for health and happiness which would seem like pretty good things to me
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens…
Yes, they can create all sorts of crap from "stats". Just like you have to buy a diamond ring to get engaged..Fact of the matter is, a guy can get companionship etc from having a girlfriend, he doesnt have to get married. Marriage suits a woman especially with rights, divorce, finance and family court etc. Perhaps it will change one day.
If you read the article it’s actually fairly balanced and explores these aspects. It’s also probably a confounder as the article points out people who get married may be more likely to have some factors that promote health. However it’s not just companionship, it’s more so doing life together, long term. Sure you can do this without getting married but it’s less likely.
Women have no more rights than men when it comes to divorce. If there are kids involved it’s about providing for the kids not the gender of either parent. I know plenty of women who have been burned financially by their no hoper financially unsound exs.
You absolutely don’t need to buy a diamond ring to get engaged. I know plenty of couples who’ve done something different. Maybe you just haven’t found your crowd or person yet.
@morse: No worries mate, I know different and if you look around, there are many articles and research in to women having far more rights regardless of kids as well as how society treats them. There are a lot of men who suffer from depression and / or suicide due to their marriages and / or divorces. Women initiate majority of divorces and end up generally coming out of it much better than men financially as well as via society.
Strongly disagree with your leading point. But your two other points are spot-on.
user name checks out.
Interesting you have to ask for opinions on a bargains website - you gonna have very biased views…
Whilst its good to save money, dont go too extreme and make it a ultra budget cos that’s embarrassing for you and guests if its terrible. Just look at those shows eg Australia's Cheapest Weddings https://g.co/kgs/Sw1c3U
Suggest spending all that cash on cheap cars and fast girls.
Unless there's a religious or personal significance, I'd avoid throwing the wedding - this coming from someone who threw a wedding, and is happily married (I wouldn't change a thing). As soon as you tack the word "bridal" or "wedding" onto anything, the costs shoot up significantly. Want to celebrate your love with friends and family? Go right ahead! Organise a nice picnic soiree.
If you MUST have the wedding, I'd personally skip on any paid videography services. You'll look at that video no more than 2-3 times, tops, and would have paid in excess of 4k for the privilege.
Make sure reception sticks to tap water. We specifically said NO bottled water, yet they served that horrible Italian fancy water in bottles. $300 just on water??? Ridiculous.
Biggest mistake to avoid?
Spending more then $5k on the wedding..
In my view, spend however much you want on the things that you want to spend it on.
But you shouldn't feel pressured to spend on things that you don't necessarily need (in your own view). No-one else here knows what you want.
The one critical cost; you need a registered celebrant in attendance to be legally married.
a cheap properly fitted suit will look better than an expensive suit of the rack. and nobody will notice what the suits are worth anyway
Maybe go halves with your fiance you pay for the wedding she pays for the divorce?
I regret buying my dress = cost me 2.1k including the alterations. I wish I rented, my dress is taking up so much space in the wardrobe
You can take it to some Wedding Dress shops and get them to package it into a little box. My wife's (pretty big) wedding dress is in a box the size of a large shoebox
I bought the engagement ring online from brilliant (USA) for 4k, so for wedding we decided cheaper local rings at a shopping centre place.. both broke after a month. Last I saw my wedding ring was 1/3 of it in my daughters toy chest.
Just finished planning my wedding. Happy to share some tips, feel free to DM.
“don't tell the florist it's for a wedding and you'll save 20%” I’m not sure if this is outdated but we didn’t feel comfortable not telling them. We wanted specific flowers, so an experienced florist will work it out lol.
I don't understand all the hate for suppliers that charge more for weddings. It's an acknowledgement that you require a higher grade of service compared to your usual. It's also to cover all the headaches for the supplier too when things inevitably change
I agree…
One thing I wish we had done is gone with preserved florals that you can then gift to family and bridal party or keep/reuse, a friend of mine did that and they looked so good! We also had close pal who is a talented baker make our cake as their gift and it was wonderful.
My husband got his ring from Mensringsonline and it was a couple hundred bucks, has worn really well.
We have been long time book collectors (love the Lifeline book fair!) so for our favours we invited all of our guests to peruse the bookshelves we put at the back of the room filled with the treasures we could part with - and everyone could take a book home, it was a massive hit.
In my opinion, one thing not to cheap out on - photographer and the food! We are in South Coast NSW but used Olguin Photography, the photos he took are still something we look at and treasure.
We met our celebrant at one of those wedding expos (painful.. but a good way to meet someone to see if you click) and they generally offer good discounts at those on various things.
"What Are The Stupid, Expensive Mistakes I Should Avoid " - getting married
If you are at all handy or crafty, try and do as much as possible yourself.
We got married about 20 years ago, being "arty" I was able to do a lot of it myself (my wife isn't wired the same way) and saved a motza.
Used a photo I had taken to create the invites. Nice hand made quality paper on which I printed a photo I had taken myself, I then overlaid wax paper with the invite text on it that I had run through the laser printer as well, creating a translucent finish.
The centre pieces for the tables I also did myself by buying an assortment of candles and plates, creating a repetitive "print" pattern using our names in a calligraphic style and again ran some wax paper through the colour laser printer. Used this to create a printed band around the base of the candles. Add in some white pebbles and stuff to dress the centre piece and all sorted.
Bombonieres was some rock candy with our names in it made in bulk, then syphoned off into small individual glass jars from Ikea with every persons name printed on top using sticker paper, again run though the laser printer. These also doubled as the basis of the table seating place holders as they had peoples names on them. All these various prints were done in the same navy blue colour and font style to keep the theme running through the decorations.
We were lucky to have the reception at an private yacht club (with about 100 people), as we were good family friends with a member there. Whilst not stupid cheap, it certainly was a higher end facility than we would have normally justified paying for.
Our cake was also done by another family friend who used to teach high end cake decorating at Tafe. That was her wedding present to us.
My wife used a private dress maker for her dress. Admittedly nearly 20 years ago, but she only paid $800 for a dress that would have cost several thousands in a bridal boutique. Plus she was able to incorporate pieces of lace into it that were of family significance to her.
Set up on the day was quite easy and our parents just rocked up at the yacht club to place the items out while we had our photos done. Best bit, apart from marrying my wife and having an absolutely awesome day, was the massive self satisfaction of rocking up and seeing it all come together and look a million dollars. None of it looked cheap or tacky, and no one had any idea we had spent hours sitting there assembling all the items ourselves as opposed to paying people to do it.
You do have to be selective with who you use if outsourcing stuff like the cake etc, as not everyone has a family friend who is a professional level cake decorators etc. But use your families network to your advantage (without taking advantage of them, if you follow my drift.)
Been married 20 yrs. Cost me 30k back in 2003.
If i went back in time to change it i would cull my guest list from 100 to 30 of my closest friends/relatives.
So at $300 per head it would come down to less than 10k.
It was so exhausting just walking around the tables greeting everyone and not even eating our nice expensive meals.
Keep the guest list tight! I’ve attended many asian weddings with 10 course meals which is a big waste imo. The costs have spiralled to around $200/head. I would prefer not to be invited to a wedding unless I am close to bride and groom, as I would have the obligation to cover minimum $200 per head for the expenses. The food is pretty the same for asian weddings and by the 3rd or 4th course, everyones already left their seats or intoxicated by then. Very underwhelming moment.
Did our wedding for around $10,000-$15,000 1 year ago.
Got married in the botanic gardens.
Hired a venue with no room hire cost (was a nice upstairs function room of a Adelaide CBD pub)
Did cocktail food at roughly $20 per person
60 Guests
Had a limit of $2500 on the tab.
Hired suits.
Kept it casual and relaxed and everyone had a great time.
It was the best way to play it while rolling the dice with COVID lock-downs.
get the right Celebrant - they are in the middle of the whole ceremony - make sure they are right for you
Forget Sydney. Have a drive through wedding in Vegas
Some would say that getting married IS the stupid expensive mistake! haha
100% go to as many wedding expos as possible, enter all the comps you see. We won a free photographer for ours.
Only advice is to reconsider the whole traditional celebration full stop. Firstly, it's religious garbage, and secondly, you can celebrate with family and friends in myriad ways.
Planning and affording a wedding puts crippling pressure on couples, and although the day is a wonderful and cherished memory, I wish it did it differently.
If you're not careful it's really easy to go overboard and spend more than you want.
You don't need to invite every man and his dog you've ever met, think of your guest list as though you're still in lockdown and set a limit of guests. Then write down all those you "want to invite" then cull it, if you have to think about it then cross them off.
Avoid Pinterest and You Tube at all costs, they'll just make you want to spend money on unnecessary shit. Canva for invitations unless you want to go super fancy. You really don't need seperate RSVP, song choice cards etc and if you do print them up yourself.
Sit down with your partner and discuss exactly what type of wedding you want and stick to it, do you want the whole formal, fancy scenario or something fun, plan your wedding to suit your personalities, remember it should be fun, not stressful. No one will remember your table settings or any of that other stuff, so don't go overboard.
Our wedding was around $5,000 catered for by a local butcher, byo booze in lieu of gifts, flowers came from mine and a friend's garden and bouquets were made the night before over many, many laughs and looked ok ish the next day, hair and make-up was done by a family member, nails by Kmart, dress was the most expensive thing. It was a garden wedding, super laid back, cake was made by a family member, music came from a Spotify playlist over Bluetooth speakers around the area, photos were taken by all of the guests, no fuss and very little stress, the only regret is not getting individual photos taken with all the guests, especially as one passed away not long after. Everyone had a ball and said it was one of the best they'd been to as it was us to a T and they could just enjoy themselves without the fanfare.
Think about the weddings you've been to and learn from them. Set yourself a budget and stick to it, honestly by the time it's over you won't remember most of it anyway, so no point going into debt over it.
We had a wedding in our back yard with 60 guests. All up it costed us under 3 grand for everything including the celebrant. We hired outdoor furniture and decorations from a hire place, including an arbour and a drinks fridge we filled with beers, ciders and soft drinks. We did a whole pig on a spit, had wines from a local winery, charcuterie platters from the supermarket. Setup and cleanup was pretty easy and everyone had a great day pretty much able to eat and drink as they pleased. Served its purpose just fine.
Don’t skimp on alcohol
Weddings are so expensive, unless you’re loaded I would recommend a garden wedding and or a backyard reception. With money spent on the important people in your lives. Spend the money you save on a home deposit or for raising kids they are expensive. Having a bunch of family you never see to a $150+ per head function just ain’t worth it. So long as the bride feels special that’s the goal.
Flowers.
You don't need to spend thousands. Not only do they not last long as they are fresh, they are only for aesthetics and aren't absolutely necessary for the wedding to proceed.
To find cheaper flowers, go to the local flower market in your city. For Sydney folk, Flemington markets.
https://www.sydneymarkets.com.au/markets/flowers-market/flow…
I spent $800.
I'm going to add to "limiting guests" as a big one. As people have said, limit the number of guests you have. Don't invite family that you don't really see. We got pressured by both families to invite all the extended family. We paid for the wedding, so we gave the families an ultimatum. If they paid for the extended family per person, then they could come.
We inflated the per-person costs by 200%. Only had 4 extra people invited, which helped pay for 4 of our friends :)
If you are not rich, I would not recommend spending the money on a lavish wedding. Probably do a small ceremony with the close and dear ones. The money that you will save will help set you guys up for the future.
However, If you still want to spend around $20k+ I would think that you will get a better wedding in a hotel in countries like Maldives, Mauritius or Seychelles for the same amount of money that you will be spending in Australia. Also, most of the things will be organised for you so you can have a more relaxed time.
The wedding itself is already the money churning mistake
Get a fake cake for the pictures.
Serve them from big cake slabs (make sure it tastes decent). No one eats the cake at the end anyway.
Bombonieres - We bought chocolates from Costco and bulk bombonieres and stickers from Aliexpress and put them together ourselves
Venue - We negotiated a deal where we'd guarantee them a number of guests and in return, they lowered our "price per head"- also mentioned that we were checking out other receptions around their vicinity to use as leverage
Videography - Found someone that had just started in the industry and was looking at making a name for themselves
Live Band - We had our wedding on a Sunday night - managed to negotiate the price down based off that
People don't, in the end, give a flying (profanity) about what variety of flowers you had dangling from the walls, if you wore a $6000 Armani suit, or whether you had 2 or 7 tiers on your wedding cake. Put on some decent beers and some not shit wine (and maybe some interesting options for the non-drinkers). If the crowd is small enough you can crack out a few bottles of spirits later for the hangers-on (just don't have these out at 2pm!). And just get catering from KFC or something cheap and cheerful - none of this $5/canapé bullshit. They might be tasty, but people really don't care. Just keep your guests fed and watered. Have a Spotify playlist that your guests can contribute to and buy/hire a big speaker. Invite only the people you care about and they'll have a good time without you blowing your savings (and then some) on a single day. I've met too many people who have financially crippled themselves for literally years by spending $50,000+ on their wedding in order to have an Instagrammable event. It's just so dumb. Please don't do it.
In my view, the plan for beers, wine, KFC and music playing on a home system sound good for an 18th birthday party. Hopefully the Spotify subscription is Premium at least.
OP isn't marrying themselves, so there are two people that need to be happy with the final arrangements for their wedding.
This response is one of the reasons why people overspend on weddings - entitled guests think that a wedding "should" be a certain way. As if you can't have a great day with a low-key wedding. Just more evidence proving you should be ruthless with who you invite.
I didn't mention or allude to guests at all; I specifically said that there are two people that need to be happy with the final arrangements.
If OP agrees with what you believe a good wedding should look like, they can go with that.
I'm saying that they should ignore the expectations of the guests.
Biggest money saving tip is for you and your partner to be selfish on the day.
Most couples spend months and sometimes years planning, paying and stressing over the big day
On the day, you are so caught up with saying hello to everyone, taking photos, ensuring everything is going to plan, stressing etc - you don't actually experience and enjoy what you paid for
Don't let it get away from you. You are paying for the day to be perfect for you only. Make sure you experience it in its full glory.
Lots of prenup talk here.
Practical things to save on wedding:
- Fake flowers - the difference between real and fake flowers is the guest going to touch it once and be like "oh its real" then they dont care for the rest of the night, they'll see the whole event for how it seems and not how it feels.
- No spirits, the wine and beer is plenty, you can save a bunch just making that change.
- If you want fancy cars driving you, ask a friend who has fancy cars to borrow it, otherwise, get the best car in Hertz/Avis rather than wedding rental companies. You wont get it in white and you'll live, do the ribbons yourself.
- Your most extroverted friend/funny (but not a clown) can be your MC. Enough people get their friends that if they mess up lines, then it'll just be like oh its their friend. But if they get drunk or say crude jokes then its no good, hence the no clown.
- Hire the wedding dress if you can. You'll wear the dress once. Say you buy it and you keep it, its dry cleaned and its kept in a box, you'll visit it when you move houses or when you do a spring cleaning, its really not worth it. Also don't spend thousands, more expensive doesnt mean better, in the wedding world, they know its for a wedding they just make it expensive cause they can, it doesnt always mean quality. Dont buy designer, very few people know who the designer is. Who you know won't need to be impressed, the others, you dont care to impress them anyways.
It doesnt have to be a budget wedding, but you'll thank yourself when you're scrounging up money for a house deposit.
+1 for fake flowers, also as a bonus you get to keep them.
Design your own invitations using a free template (or even a paid template for a few bucks if you wanted), but make them 4" x 6" and print them from Kmart Photo or Officeworks for $0.10 each.
If you need to get special cars, then try to avoid "wedding car" services. We rented a couple of Ford Fairlanes from Hertz for less than $100 altogether (in 2007). Both happened to be white so got lucky. Asked BILs to be the drivers.
What Are The Stupid, Expensive Mistakes I Should Avoid Making When Planning The Wedding?
——- marrying
If the time of year isn't important have it in the offpeak (winter) for lower venue prices.
I agree with this post, and would extend it to say that OP could consider having their wedding and reception (or whatever they decide) earlier in the day. I've been to some weddings at amazing locations but once the sun sets you see nothing of that.
Say you're moving out to another city so if possible give cash presents. lol.
I think the number one thing is try to keep it as small as reasonably possible. For us that meant 28 people. But if you have family demands/expectations to invite many people, cutting your list by 20% will be a pretty significant saving and easier to manage.
I think being flexible with where can be an advantage. We found a nice looking resto (i.e kinda instagram worthy inside with amazing skylight etc) near a large public park. When looking at the menu options, we saw it was significantly cheaper in the morning. So we ended up having a morning wedding, which was good for photos, and I dun no I kinda like breakfast food so it was good food but not at a crazy price. We had planned to put most of our money into the honeymoon, but their were visa issues, so we ended up having to honeymoon within Australia, and so we took some of that money and splurged on a string quartet playing a hand selected list of pop songs we selected, splurged on flowers, and probably one or two other minor additional elements we didnt originally consider necessary.
I think its more fun if you keep it simple and as others have said spend the money on one or two things that mean the most to you. Maybe its the dress, or the food, or the location. But I think trying to do it all gets a bit hard and nothing tends to stand out.
I know a lot of comments have said dont bother with a photographer. I think that totally depends on the type of person you and your partner are. If one of you is very sentimental, i think its worth it. We printed two photos from our wedding and have them hung, my wife looks the set of photos from time to time. That being said, we realised we didnt need a whole day of photos, that isnt the type of event we had. We worked out we needed about 30-40 mins pre ceremony photos during sunrise, ceremony photos, and then like 30 mins at resto. The photos were great. The other thing is to pick a photographer whose style matches yours. I think you can just kinda look at keywords on instagram to find them. We liked a very natural style with minimally posed photos. So we got some group shots straight after the vowels, and pre-ceremony it was 'directed' photos in the park of us, but otherwise all the photos were candid and its a) less stress and b) so much nicer than lots and lots of formal photos.
Other things to consider. We had a significant number of guests from overseas and that pretty quickly ruled out the kind of winery venue we had initially picked. It was just too much work trying to get people there and back to accommodation.
Have a basic cheap thing in a park and simple house or cheap club venue reception. If that proposal causes an outburst then beware of what the rest of your life will involve.
We think an expensive marriage is a huge waste of money, dress, cars, reception, costly honeymoon holiday etc. can cost many thousands. So we invited 40 friends on a Sydney Harbour cruise one Friday night, married onboard, and guests paid their own way and no gifts, was a fabulous night, and everyone thought it was a great idea. We used the money saved to buy our 1st house and our parents coughed up $25k too, now 40 years on with total bliss and happy as.
We had a wedding in September with around 35 guests and here's what helped us keep to our initial budget:
Non-money related tips:
- Be prepared for some politics, it is a rite of passage for wedding planning. Someone will get offended they weren't invited, or try to get too involved, or not involved enough - it's all part of the fun! Also if you and your partner can get through the stress of wedding planning, then that's a good sign.
- Don't forget the honeymoon. It will make all the stress of wedding planning worth it
- Try to enjoy yourself on the day! Things won't go perfectly, but it will still find a way to hopefully be perfect
Ultimate unpopular tip: some people will be unable to attend on the day due to illnesses, kids, etc. You could consider having back-up attendees on standby… lol.
It would be pretty funny if 5 years from now, you make a post called "I'm Getting Divorced - What Are The Stupid, Expensive Mistakes I Should Avoid Making When Planning The Divorce?"
I wish you luck on your marriage but if you end up getting divorced, then no sympathies from me.
Yeah only 52,000 divorces in Oz 2021.
Being Asian we pretty much came out even after all the monetary gifts are taken into account (though we didn't plan anything too lavish - around $20k all up)
Don’t spend a fortune on the wedding, that flashy day could take years to pay for
For mine, we DIY'd most of the deco - fake flowers and jars from IKEA. I made my own signs using canva and put them in picture frames from kmart. We used this free RSVP and wedding event tool:
https://withjoy.com
We put most of our budget into the reception.
Request cash as gift in a nice way. Don't have a gift registry.
You can save money by limiting the amount of guests.
For most people they only get married once, so make sure you spend money on what you find the most important to you and your partner.
Don't skimp on the honeymoon. Best part of the wedding.