8. I Made My Own Wedding Cake
“I made my own cake. My favors were heart shaped cookies I baked. I made my own invitations and never told the hair and makeup lady it was for a wedding until I had it priced and booked it. I never told the car people it was required for a wedding. But if you’re not ‘car people’ – just take your own car. We got married at lunch time to cut the cost per head down by about $20 each. But nice restaurants you can sometimes jsut book it as a function and book the whole place out it can be cheaper than a reception centre. Cut down your invitation list, you don’t need a big bridal party.”
9. We Made Up Our Own Play List
‘My Fiancee and I chose all our favourite music, and set it up as a play list – and played it through the laptop and through the speakers at the reception. Saved a bomb on not having a band or dj – and we got to listen all the music WE like to listen to!”
10. Buy at End of Season Sales
“I bought my bridesmaid dresses at the end of season sale and just got nice rockabilly style dresses worth $50 each. I shopped around for my dress, I was young and got a ball down but gone one off the rack for $1300. A friend got one on Ebay, it was a lace one perfect for her and only cost $150, then got it altered to fit her perfectly all up it cost $300 with a bra.”
11. We had a ‘Pot Luck’ Wedding Dinner
‘Rather than a gift, we asked our guests to bring a plate. This catered for the entire wedding, and it was so delicious!.” This is such a wonderful idea to bring lovely homemade meals to cater for the wedding and money saving at it’s finest.
12. We Got Our Friends Involved
“We got all our friends involved. One was an aspiring photographer whom we got to do the pictures. A beautician friend did my makeup and hair. A friend who worked at a university suppliedd the sound gear for laptop music. We just had a playlist that went right through the whole day. We also used our wedding cake as dessert with ice cream. That way it got eaten! Also we asked our parents to buy an extra box of beer or bottle of wine at the supermarket when it went on special. These slowly stacked up over the months and this is the only alcohol we served to guests. My advice, pick a couple of things each that are important to you and that you don’t want to go ‘budget’ on, and then just relax with the rest. Congratulations and enjoy it all.”
13. I Designed My Own Invitations
“I saw a few really nice wedding invitation designs I liked on Pinterest, so I spent a few hours using Picmonkey to design my own – and bought some nice white paperstock and printed it all out at home.”
14. The Bridesmaids Bouquets Were Used as Table Decorations
‘Instead of buying, renting or making table centrepieces, I had a large vase in the centre of every table. When we arrive, the bridesmaids put their flowers into the vase – they looked amazing and matched in with all our colours!.”