1. A naturally beautiful venue. My favorite place, actually. The beach offers so much visual interest and beauty that minimal decor is needed. Some opt to decorate elaborately at the beach, but in my opinion, it isn't necessary. I mean, look at this. FLAWLESS.
2. DIY decorations. Our "arch" was made of bamboo that Caleb and his dad cut down. It was draped with a sheer fabric we spent only about $20 on. The table centerpieces consisted of glass jars dyed with Elmer's glue and food coloring, with tea lights placed inside. The jars were old pickle jars, spaghetti sauce jars, etc. that were salvaged from the refrigerators of my friends and family. I also embellished some glass coke bottles with twine and had glass vases filled with baby's breath. Because our reception was small, we had very few tables to decorate. For our reception in Clinton, we reused all of these decorations.
3. Saving on stationary. If you order fancy invitations, RSVP cards, inserts for directions, and all of the add-ons for an extensive guest list, you can easily spend hundreds of dollars. Because of our separate events, we had several pieces of stationary to send in the mail.
For the wedding:
We ordered pretty invitations from Paper Source (the beach waves one). This was our splurge. Instead of sending save-the-dates, we mailed the invitations pretty early on. Because our guest list was short, we did not send RSVP cards.
For the Clinton reception:
Our save-the-date postcards came from Vistaprint at only $10 for 100 of them. Postage is also much cheaper for postcards as opposed to envelopes.
We ordered our invitations from Gartner Studios for a steal. The printable, "some assembly required" invitation packages that Gartner offers are very easy on the wallet. They are customizable, and you can print them on your own printer at home. The boxes come with all of the pieces you need, even RSVP cards and envelopes. The catch: the assembling of over 200 of these invitations is quite tedious and time consuming! Thank goodness for the help of friends.
4. Packaging services together. We hired Darwell's Cafe to both provide our rehearsal dinner, and cater our reception. He gave us a deal on these two meals because we were willing to trust him with not one, but two events! And he did not disappoint.
5. Minimizing apparel. Caleb and I took several steps to save money on clothing both for ourselves and for our wedding party.
We had several college kids in our wedding party. We know what it's like to be college kids - heck, that's what we still are. Instead of picking out exactly what the wedding party would wear, I came up with very general guidelines for them to follow. That way, each person could spend as much or as little as he or she wanted. The guys wore light grey pants, a black belt, a white button-up shirt, and no shoes. The girls wore a blue knee-length chiffon-like dress with pearl stud earrings, and no shoes.
Caleb and I kept it simple, as well. He wore light grey pants with a matching vest, and a white button-up shirt. I wore a traditional wedding gown, but I didn't buy a single accessory. Because of the wind at the beach, I did not wear a veil, but wore baby's breath in my hair instead. All of my jewelry was old and/or borrowed. I borrowed earrings from my Nannie and a necklace from my mom (which was originally my great grandmother's). Gran loaned me a brooch and a handkerchief, each belonging to one of my great great grandmothers. Having these heirlooms added such a sentimental aspect to our special day. I was honored to have my ancestors represented!
6. Non-traditional cake. Now I'm a traditional girl, and I wanted a real wedding cake. Caleb is not much of a cake fan, though, so we went a different route for his sweet treats.
For the beach reception, I made Caleb homemade mini peanut butter cookies in lieu of a cake, his favorite cookies. At the Clinton reception, we ordered Caleb an Oreo blizzard ice cream cake from Dairy Queen - his favorite kind of "cake". It was decorated in camo colors and read "The hunt is over." Yeah, yeah, I know. Cheesy!
7. Recruiting friends. I'm not telling you to mooch, but if family/friends offer their services to you for free or for a low price, don't be afraid to take them up on their offers!
My cousin took engagement pictures, and one of my bridesmaids took bridal portraits for me. Both of them offered to do this for free, but my parents compensated them. We did not pay nearly as much as we would have for a full-priced photographer, though!
We asked my sister-in-law to make our wedding cake, and she offered for the cake to be our wedding gift from her.
Also, I asked a good family friend to act as director/coordinator. We did not hire a wedding planner, but Shannon did so much leading up to the wedding and on the day of to keep me organized, to make sure I was communicating everything I needed to, and to greatly ease my stress! Everyone needs someone to do this job if you don't hire a wedding planner!
Caleb's best man was our driver when we left for the honeymoon. He was so sweet to drive us to the airport, and we got to skip out on the cost of a limo.
8. Skipping out. We did not have programs printed. We did not have fancy bachelor/bachelorette parties. We did not have a toast at our reception. We did not have a photo booth (though I love that idea). We didn't have a unity candle/sand/whatever else you can have. As I said before, we didn't rent a limo. We didn't have place cards. As much as I love the wedding videos where they include the getting-ready process, we only had the ceremony filmed. We did not have alcohol. There wasn't a band or string quartet. We didn't even give each other gifts as many couples do.
You don't have to have all of the components of the "perfect" wedding that Pinterest tells you to have. There is certainly nothing wrong with including all of the components I mentioned above, but cutting out some unnecessaries will cut your cost. (It will also cut your stress.)
