How to pull off the wedding of your dreams without a financial hangover!
They say love is priceless… until you start planning a wedding.
By now you might have crunched some numbers and realised your dream wedding comes with a not-so-dreamy price tag.
Or maybe you just read our last article, where we shared the average cost of a wedding in Australia along with the potential cost breakdown.
But before you have a full on menty-b, here are five tips to help you save costs on your wedding so you can spend big on things that actually matter to you!
Smaller weddings create an intimate and meaningful atmosphere, and it’s also waaaay more cost-effective because you get to reduce expenses across the board. With catering often taking up to 50% of the wedding costs, each mouth you don’t have to feed becomes a big saving.
But it’s not just catering - think: venue size, seating, invitations, and decorations. All of which can add up very quickly when you have a huge guestlist…
Start with immediate family and really close friends and work outwards, like work colleagues, school mates and distant relatives.
A simple rule of thumb: if you haven’t made a social arrangement with them in the past 12 months (excluding overseas/interstate guests), they shouldn’t be on your list.
It’s no secret that peak season (spring/summer) and weekend weddings attract higher costs because that’s when every other couple in Australia is planning to get married too!
If you don’t mind a cosy wedding in the colder months, or want to give your friends an excuse for a midweek celebration, a lot of venues and vendors offer discounts for off-peak weddings.
A wedding is (usually) a once in a lifetime celebration which means you won’t be re-wearing your wedding dress, or re-using the decorations any time soon.
Where possible, rent instead of buy to give more flexibility in your budget. An added bonus is, you won’t have to deal with the storage or removal of these things post-wedding!
If you want to be an eco-friendly queen/king AND save money, digital invitations are the way to go. Not only do you save costs on printing and reduce paper waste, digital invitations make it super easy for your friends and family to RSVP.
Take this opportunity to be extra creative with free tools like Canva, where you can share your story and engagement photos in the invitation too!
It’s easy to see how a couple hundred here and there adds up way beyond your initial wedding budget! While you’re making payments to wedding vendors, use budgeting tools (like the Flux spending tracker) to keep account of all your wedding related expenses to avoid overspending.
While some couples take out debt to fund their wedding, it might not be the smartest money move (read up on good debts vs bad debts here).
Do you really want to be starting your future with a new partner deep in debt from one night?
Instead, prepare well in advance and START SAVING as soon as you’ve locked in that wedding date (or even earlier).
Using these tips will help you pull off your dream wedding without having a financial hangover after your big day!
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