I would say the biggest cost savers are:
A smaller guest list
Being flexible and creative about almost everything.

Good luck!

I am also a professional wedding and portrait photographer and must add a note of caution. Wedding photography is an art and a science. The photographer must not only be in the right spot at the right time, but must also compose the image and provide appropriate condition compensation such as adjusting the flash exposure to the situation and correcting for the color temperature (daylight, Tungsten, Flourescent, etc). Lastly, these images are to last a lifetime and saving a few dollars on photography may not be as wise a choice as it first appears.

My husband and i got married in southern california in aug ’07 for $5000…. it was beautiful! We had almost 100 guests and served dinner. Here’s how we did it:

1) the wedding was in a Huntington Beach city park ($300 fee)…. they had a little amplitheater, so no need for chair rentals or set up… (this park was also very important to us as we both spent our childhoods going to it!)

2) reception was at the public library that sat at the front of the park grounds– i think this was the largest expense at $2200…

3) thru craig’s list we found a digital photographer who had worked for a studio (and didn’t have rights/access to her previous work). She not only did the wedding for free (we still tipped her), but spent 7 hours photographing us for “engagement” photos.

4) for the catering– we told then it was for a “Family Reunion” (which pretty much is what a wedding is!) and it cost 1/3 of the exact same food that was on the “wedding” menu.

5) for the wedding cake, we did a nice sheet cake that was cut before-hand and kept in the kitchen, and had only a small wedding cake for cutting the first piece. (and our friend in Culinary school made that for the cost of supplies!) total cake costs were under $100

6) the library allowed beer and wine (only) which we purchased from sam’s and costco, chilled in coolers in the reception room’s kitchen… we were drinking the extra for a year after!

7) my wedding dress was a gift from a cousin– she had picked it up (for her wedding) at a discount store ($88, non-returnable) and later decided on another dress…

the closest family/friends helped set-up and take down the decoration

9) i had all the flowers done (boutineres, corsages, bouquets) done at a discount flower shop for $200

10) my husband and i made our own wedding announcements (cardstock, printer ink and ribbon) and table-centerpieces for bottom of the barrel prices… (and i think my mom returned all the glass bowls afterwards! lol)

however, we have yet to go on a honey-moon… it just wasn’t feasible at the time (we left days after the wedding to drive to NC where i attended school at UNC, so we’re working on that now….

hope this helps someone in their planning stages!

You should decide what’s really important to you and skip the rest, as Lori said. And excuse me, the really important part is the ceremony. That’s why you’re all there, isn’t it? If you just want to “be married”, have a private ceremony with a judge and just have a party afterwards.

I have very little sympathy with any cost cutting motives like going to a photo kiosk for photos.

Celia,
We put the photos right next to our engagement photos ordered from a photographer and you can’t tell the difference..

There is nothing wrong with spending less if you’re getting the same quality.

Ed,
The reason a wedding costs more than a reunion is that the numerous details you expect your banquet hall to be responsible for are vastly less for a reunion. The cocktail hour is probably going to be longer, you will expect events like a toast to be choreographed, and all of this takes personnel, planning and care; that translates into money.

Celia,
I’m comparing apples to apples. The services were exactly the same. Same bar hours, we had a toast but people just got their own drink from the open bar – no need to coordinate this with the reception hall.. We had a volunteer cut the cake.. All the reception hall employees had to do was serve food and clean up. The DJ took care of the rest (toast and such).

Wedding planning is not rocket science. I have been to two weddings planned by “professional” wedding planners and couldn’t tell the difference between them and weddings planned by the couples. In fact, I think our own personal touch to the planning made it more elaborate and meaningful.

The only value I see of hiring a wedding planner is if you’re so busy (and I mean you have to be BUSY) that you can’t make the accommodations yourself. During the planning stage, my wife and I were super busy and still managed to plan without a strain. We both had demanding jobs, she was going to night school for her masters, and I was going to night school for engineering.
No problem finding the time whatsoever.

I’m with you on that. What’s wrong with doing less?

We invited 20 people (handwritten invitations), had 1 attendant each, wore clothes we already had, asked the friend who introduced us to marry us at the park we’d gone to on our first date, and arranged a buffet brunch and cake at the hotel we were having our honeymoon.

Total cost: under $3000, most of it on the honeymoon.

But look at what we didn’t do. We didn’t invite a hundred people; we didn’t serve booze; we didn’t hire a florist, a calligrapher, or a printer; we didn’t have clothes made for an army of attendents; we didn’t rent a hall.

And the funny part was that we didn’t skip those things to save money. We skipped them because we didn’t want to bother with them. Neither of us wanted to *PLAN* a Huge Big Event, and even more, both of us did not want to have to *EXECUTE* a Huge Big Event. We just wanted to get married.

[...] Rich Slowly recently had a guest post Beating the High Cost of Weddings: How We Did It, and How You Can Too. It made me think about one of the costs that is hard to beat: being an attendant in a wedding. [...]

[...] Beating the High Cost of Weddings: How We Did It, and How You Can Too – a great piece that I plan on referring to a lot of my friends. I have a feeling this winter season many of them will be popping the question. They’re going to need some good advice on how to keep the wedding costs under control. [...]

[...] Beating The High Cost of Weddings http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/11/08/beating-the-high-cost-of-weddings-how-we-did-it-and-how... [...]

[...] Rich Slowly shows us how he saved money on his wedding. You need to read this article if you’re getting married soon, or ever plan to get married. [...]

1) We saved — as soon as we were engaged, we decided upon an amount of money to set aside every month. And by doing that, we were able to have a wedding and a honeymoon without going into any debt at all.

2) Photography — Craigslist! We sent out an ad asking for a photographer and received over 50 responses. Yes, many of them were not appropriate, but we found an amazing photographer, just getting into wedding photography, who was willing to do our wedding for only $500. He is now charging over $2500 per wedding.

3) Flowers — Farmers Market! Now, if you have your heart set on a certain flower or a certain aesthetic, this might not be for you. But I wanted a natural feel to the flowers, so this was perfect. We found a vendor at the farmers market who was able to do all the flowers and prepare them, so all we had to do was wrap them. Cost for 1 bride, 4 bridesmaids, 4 groomsmen, 1 dad, 2 mothers: under $300.

We cut costs in other areas, but these three really helped us make it as painless as possible. And saving for the wedding in advance really helped my husband appreciate the value of saving in advance versus buying now and paying later.

And I think our wedding turned out pretty amazing:
http://flickr.com/photos/littlemissjenny/sets/72157600982423032/

I’m not embarrassed about my fees, nor am I embarrassed about my belief that some things (as someone else pointed out with the very real possibility of food poisoning) are worth paying for. The difference between a crappy, unprofessional job that will have you worried till it’s over or mortified as it’s happening is usually a couple hundred bucks.

Everyone has their priorities; mine happens to be the ceremony; thats why I do this work; to give beauty and dignity (and organization) to situations that are not in a church or a civil court. No one’s uncle, no judge, and no disinterested minister is going to create the service that I do. If you just want to be married, why not dispense with the whole thing?

The ceremony is a gift of inspiration and thanks to the people who support you (those same people who maybe made your decorations and made chicken cassaroles.) It’s insulting to them to make them sit through another dull ceremony cut and pasted by someone who doesn’t really care and doesn’t really write because they are not paid as the professional they are.

If you don’t know anyone or are unwilling to draft people into service for you, then the tips don’t really apply.

My husband and I got married in Vegas last summer. Here’s how our wedding broke down:
Ceremony for 20 (at the Stratosphere Hotel chapel)and one dozen professional photos plus video:$800
Very nice four-course seated dinner and drinks at Fellini’s Ristorante (in the Stratosphere) for 20: $1200
Husband’s suit (very nice classic gray, he will be able to wear forever):$900
My dress (white summer dress from Macy’s): $80
Airfare/Hotel for us and some relatives: $2000
Misc accessories and travel items: $200
Pre-wedding bowling night:$100
Total: $5280

We did not have dancing, a rehearsal dinner, swan-shaped ice, or choreographed toasts. Everybody there was able to relax, including us. A couple of people gave spontaneous toasts, and it was a really fun, elegant night. Everyone had a good time. I would encourage eVeryone to consider which aspects of a wedding are really important. For us, it was feeding/boozing our guests. We didn’t care to have a guestbook, a DJ, an elaborate dress, or favors. I did kind of want a bagpiper, though

Celia, you talk a good talk, but like another commentator, I don’t know anyone who got a “wedding professional” officiant for their wedding–and yet, somehow, their wedding was not ruined.

My ideal wedding would probably be held in a nice park or wildlife reserve with a few friends. Just hike to somewhere nice, and sit around and hold the ceremony. No crazy dresses or anything. Reception would be potluck and pizza, with cookies for dessert. It would be necessarily small and I’m OK with that. I have been told that asking guests to bring a small dish to the reception is tacky, as one is bringing them there to celebrate, not work. I see it as a way for people to make or bring their favorite foods and share it with everyone else. I haven’t decided which viewpoint is more “correct”.

[...] Beating the High Cost of Weddings: How We Did It, and How You Can Too – Weddings are notorious for costing astronomical amounts of money (according to the article, the average wedding costs $28,000), but it doesn’t have to be that way. JD presents a number of tips that will help you save money on your wedding without sacrificing your idea of a “dream” wedding. (from Get Rich Slowly) [...]

Wedding professionals are expensive people by the hour because we know what we’re doing, we care about what we do, and we can only do it once; it has to be perfect. The difference between “cheaping out” and choosing refined, experienced pros to help you celebrate is often very little; it is the initial style decisions you make that drive the price. I’m sorry; if you feel that you need to have 200 people at a country club for a wedding, I have very little sympathy with any cost cutting motives like going to a photo kiosk for photos.

That being said, I don’t believe that throwing money at an event makes it a better one; there are simply some hard choices to be made at the very beginning.

A lot of the “wedding hype” can be reduced by creating a list of stuff you want at the wedding and then ranking it in order with your future spouse. Not to mention that planning the wedding is a great exercise for many of the other challenges you will face as a married couple …..

- Planned the wedding for Monday instead of a Saturday or Sunday.

- Got an estimate from a great professional photographer for the full deal on the weekend, ($2200), then bargained her down to $1000 by reducing the timeframe slightly and moving to Monday.

- Had a 2:00 wedding followed by hors’d'oevres instead of a formal reception dinner

- Hired a celtic harpist and violinist — the most gorgeous music and very reasonable

- Did our own wedding “programs” and got the invitations done via a reasonable internet printer.

- Likewise, beautiful wedding dress from the internet for $300

- Bought our own wine and champagne by the case. No hard liquor.

- Friend made the wedding cake as a present, an unexpected saving.

It was an absolutely wonderful, perfect day and we’ll remember it for the rest of our lives. It was my second marriage, the first was when I was in college and that was a $500 affair — I’m so happy to have finally had a “real” wedding!

In wedding planning, adding the ‘W’ word to anything automatically increases the price by a significant ammount. Let me give an example:

I was calling around for catered reception hall prices and found something very interesing. I got the price of having our wedding reception there then a few days later, I called back and asked how much it would be for a family reunion. The family reunion was almost three thousand dollars less for exactly the same setup. So, I booked our wedding reception as a family reunion. The reception hall manager wasn’t happy when we showed up, but they couldn’t do anything about it. We paid for it and had a contract. Our wedding reception was, in fact, a gathering of the family so it couldn’t be ruled out as a family reunion.

This goes same with the cake. I asked for a custom cake and told them what I wanted. I said it was for a party. It closely resembled one in their “wedding cake” book. I got it for $200 less.

Florist – Same deal with the ‘W’ word. Saved over a thousand dollars here.

Chair covers – I just couldn’t win this fight with the boss-to-be. The reception hall wanted $4 a person (we had 300 guests=$1200, ouch). I purchased new chair covers online for $2 a piece and split the cost with her sister who was getting married around the same time we were. They looked great and the deal saved us $900.

If you have to hire a photographer, avoid the “money saving” photo packages and get one that will customize their service. I found a high-end photographer that would charge me for her time by the hour and give me a dvd with all the high resolution photos. I took the dvd to the photo kiosk in the local pharmacy and printed them for cheap. Between her time, the dvd, and photos I spent a total of $750. The cheapest ‘wedding package’ I found was from a low-end photographer for $1700. My wife and I had fun picking out the photos and creating our own wedding album from a kit instead of someone else doing it for us.

Just wanted to share.

We ended up deciding to take the time for making all the food ourselves. We saved money in planning for lots of insalate type dishes and had no foods that required heating. For an August wedding, it made sense to have exquisite chilled or room temperature foods.

We did not want the responsibility of alcohol- we did not have a bar or any drinking like that at our reception. We had a big juice punch and soda or bottled water available.

We used the reception hall of the church we had our ceremony at. The rental was very inexpensive and we had friends help us do all the decorating.

A friend made our cake for her gift to us. She had just finished one of those Wilton courses- it was fabulous and we were able to have Duncan Hines Cherry Chip as our cake flavor (yum!).

Another friend who is a nationally recognized photographer took wonderful pictures and gave us copies.

We did splurge on a really good DJ for the reception- the dancing was great and everyone got in on it.

My mom made my dress and my sisters (a witness). My mother in law made my sister in laws dress. We rented a nice tux for my hubby.

My mom and stepfather paid for the rehearsal dinner. A few out of town guests were also invited along.

Most of our money went for costs to our week in Provincetown for the honeymoon.

Our one big snafu was forgetting to plan for who would be keeping the buffet table filled with food. OOPS! But luckily, some of our relatives who weren’t quite as liberal as they had thought (and were nervous about being around so many gay or lesbian folks) stepped up and helped out in this department. It smoothed over the first hour then everything went fine.

[...] Beating the High Cost of Weddings: How We Did It and How You Can, Too Our best wedding tactic was to involve everyone who came in from out of town in wedding preparation. We held a small party at the reception hall for out-of-town guests as well as the most immediate family, where everyone talked and very gradually assembled things for the reception. This eliminated hall setup costs and was a lot of fun. (@ get rich slowly) [...]

[...] Rich Slowly blogs on saving money on weddings (at $28,000.00 wedding, I am clearly in the wrong [...]

We got married at sunset, after a raging thunderstorm, on Edisto Beach, SC during our July vacation; our closest friends were vacationing with us (that was planned b/f our wedding). One friend went out and cut wild tropical tropical flora and arranged for us. We all had a great time and it was a wonderful event.

We also limited those invited to family (100 people).

We hired our semi-profession photographer friends to shoot the wedding for more than half the cost of hiring a professional. We already knew their work, and chose to hire both because we liked their individual styles (one being documentarian, the other portaiture).

We also did the buffet, and I wore my mom’s dress. Another thing we did was that we had an 11am wedding & early reception. And I had a wedding cake from Carvel (can’t stand regular cake)

I am a professional wedding photographer. Even before I was, my wife and I didn’t skimp on our wedding photographer.

I have no interest in winning an argument here. I never said that amateurs can’t take good photos, nor that there aren’t pros who take terrible photos. I am making a generalization, and generally, you’ll get much better results from a professional than you will an amateur.