Kyle Hayden, the Event Coordinator for Strong Events, which specializes in event decorating and design for theme parties, offers a few suggestions on how to stay within your wedding budget. He says that the main thing to focus on when planning a wedding is which items are most important to you. One couple may not care as much about the flowers as they do the cake. Or another couple may want the flowers to be amazing, but do not care if the cake is out of this world, he says.
Hayden says that you have to prioritize which items you are willing to be flexible on and which items you really want to focus on. "Sometimes people run into trouble when they won't give on anything, and the package ends up being $10,000 or $20,000 when they wanted to do it for $8,000. You've got to give somewhere!" he says.
Another idea that Hayden suggests is to do some of the work yourself and to ask friends and family to pitch in to help defray some of your costs. For example, bridesmaids can buy their own dresses and groomsmen can rent their own tuxedos. He says being creative can help you come up with other ways you can get the work done that you would otherwise have to pay someone to do: "You can get the bride's family to pitch in and do the centerpieces for the rehearsal dinner. That really helps you keep the cost down."
Hayden also suggests that when dealing with a florist you should tell him or her your wedding budget and that you want to get the most "bang" out of your buck. "You might only get two blooms of a particular type of flower, whereas with something else, you might be able to get two dozen for that same price," he says.
One more way to cut costs is to use the decorations that your venue may have on hand. Hayden says, for example, that if you wanted to drape fabric around a particular room, you might ask what the venue has available instead of buying it yourself. "You have to be willing to work with what people have and make that dollar bill stretch to cover all of the important expenses," Hayden advises.
Once you develop your budget and determine what is most important to you, it should help you keep your expenses under control. With some extra work and careful planning, you can still have a lovely wedding even on a strict budget.
