How do you plan a small, simple and classy wedding?
July 12, 2009
on a very small budget? i just want something nice for my closest friends and family. but i still want it to be something special to remember
does anyone have any advice on planning something like this.. help will be greatly appreciated.. i have no idea where to start.
is it really ok to just do desert? im pretty good at that stuff and i was thinking of making chocolate covered strawberries and maybe a few other little desserts…. and the cake ofcourse.. a friend of the family is making it for just 50 bucks!
Easy.
We’re getting married in just under two weeks, our entire wedding budget (including the dress, food, and open bar alcohol) is about $3000.
Consider buying your dress used. I got mine off of our local Craigslist for $350. It’s a designer Maggie Sottero gown, which in stores retails for at least $1000. I also bought our daughters flower girl dressed used for only $50. As a bonus, it’s a totally green way to go! Completely enviromentally friendly!
For invitations, buy the Do It Yourself kit. We did. 100 invites for $25 from our local Michaels. We designed them ourselves, and they turned out very unique and wonderful! My mom said she liked them better than the professional invite she’d received earlier in the month.
Have your ceremony/reception at a friend or family members home. Do you know anyone with some country property? This would be perfect. We’re doing ours at my parents home. 134 acres, with a 4.5 acre limestone quarry as our backdrop. Surrounded by lush green forest. Better than a lot of professional wedding venues, and it’s all FREE.
Get flowers from a grocery or department store, it will be much cheaper. OR, if you know anyone with a garden, enlist their help. All our flowers are free. Tiger lilies are our flower, and they just happen to be in bloom at the time of our wedding. All flowers for centerpieces, bouquets, decorations, etc, are completely free.
Invite only your closest friends and family. We have a grand total of about 80 guests attending our wedding.
Do your own music. If you’re willing to rent your own DJ equipment, you can still have a fantastic party without paying through the roof for a professional. We’re paying only $100 to $150 to rent all the equipment a professional would use, and that’s the price for an entire WEEK. A fraction of what a pro costs for only 4 hours!
Instead of just hiring a professional photographer, check out some portfolios for aspiring students. You’d be surprised at the amount of talent those students have! A lot of the time you’ll find their talent far surpasses that of professionals. And, because they are still students, they still have the enthusiasm that a lot of pros seem to lack. Just MAKE SURE they have some experiance in wedding photography (maybe try to find an actual wedding photographers assistant).
Or, if you have any friends that are photographers, ask them. My brother is a professional, and is doing our wedding as a gift. Lucky us! He takes amazing pictures, and has traveled overseas just to do so!
Consider doing your own food. We are. My mother is an experianced cook (for large groups, as my parents run a bed and breakfast). Everything except the meat is being done by us.
Instead of spending hundreds on a cake, buy something nice, but not a typical cake. We’re getting a nice black forest cake (husbands favorite) for us to cut. Then, we’ll also get a bigger black forest sheet cake, to serve our guests (with ice cream of course!).
The point is, if you’re willing to take things into your own hands, you can save literally THOUSANDS of dollars.
7 Responses to “How do you plan a small, simple and classy wedding?”
First, toss out the idea that you have to go with ‘conventional’.
On a small budget especially in the summer, I would recommend checking out nearby state and national parks. Most have a lodge with a restaurant overlooking gorgeous scenery.
Next, don’t feel that you have to serve a dinner. You can just do cake and punch and it is fine!
References :
Since it is very small and you want simplicity, perhaps you should consider a destination wedding to Gatlinburg, TN and get married on a mountain? Packages include EVERYTHING including cake, flowers, music, you name it, for about $500 starting, even lodging for your wedding night. Similiar packages available for Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio…just depends where you are! See if you can get a package, because if you can find one you like, you’re looking at a very special, memorable wedding for everyone at EASILY less than $1000, including your lodging for honeymoon at the destination.
By Peachy on Jul 12, 2009
Easy.
We’re getting married in just under two weeks, our entire wedding budget (including the dress, food, and open bar alcohol) is about $3000.
Consider buying your dress used. I got mine off of our local Craigslist for $350. It’s a designer Maggie Sottero gown, which in stores retails for at least $1000. I also bought our daughters flower girl dressed used for only $50. As a bonus, it’s a totally green way to go! Completely enviromentally friendly!
For invitations, buy the Do It Yourself kit. We did. 100 invites for $25 from our local Michaels. We designed them ourselves, and they turned out very unique and wonderful! My mom said she liked them better than the professional invite she’d received earlier in the month.
Have your ceremony/reception at a friend or family members home. Do you know anyone with some country property? This would be perfect. We’re doing ours at my parents home. 134 acres, with a 4.5 acre limestone quarry as our backdrop. Surrounded by lush green forest. Better than a lot of professional wedding venues, and it’s all FREE.
Get flowers from a grocery or department store, it will be much cheaper. OR, if you know anyone with a garden, enlist their help. All our flowers are free. Tiger lilies are our flower, and they just happen to be in bloom at the time of our wedding. All flowers for centerpieces, bouquets, decorations, etc, are completely free.
Invite only your closest friends and family. We have a grand total of about 80 guests attending our wedding.
Do your own music. If you’re willing to rent your own DJ equipment, you can still have a fantastic party without paying through the roof for a professional. We’re paying only $100 to $150 to rent all the equipment a professional would use, and that’s the price for an entire WEEK. A fraction of what a pro costs for only 4 hours!
Instead of just hiring a professional photographer, check out some portfolios for aspiring students. You’d be surprised at the amount of talent those students have! A lot of the time you’ll find their talent far surpasses that of professionals. And, because they are still students, they still have the enthusiasm that a lot of pros seem to lack. Just MAKE SURE they have some experiance in wedding photography (maybe try to find an actual wedding photographers assistant).
Or, if you have any friends that are photographers, ask them. My brother is a professional, and is doing our wedding as a gift. Lucky us! He takes amazing pictures, and has traveled overseas just to do so!
Consider doing your own food. We are. My mother is an experianced cook (for large groups, as my parents run a bed and breakfast). Everything except the meat is being done by us.
Instead of spending hundreds on a cake, buy something nice, but not a typical cake. We’re getting a nice black forest cake (husbands favorite) for us to cut. Then, we’ll also get a bigger black forest sheet cake, to serve our guests (with ice cream of course!).
The point is, if you’re willing to take things into your own hands, you can save literally THOUSANDS of dollars.
References :
By Coffee Junky on Jul 12, 2009
rent a nice tent and have a close friend or family member to make the food and video.
References :
By Amy on Jul 12, 2009
We are having our wedding at a local park. It’s $25 to rent my choice of two bridges or a gazebo for the entire day for my ceremony, and an additional $25 to rent a picnic pavilion for the day. I am going to put covers over the picnic tables to make it a little classier, it is going to be semi-formal, but the reception is going to have a more casual feel. We are planning on having a dessert reception, probably just cake and juice or something. I’ll figure out some way to dress up the pavilion I’m sure. I have planned it all out so that I can spend $1,500 on a photographer, $500 on my dress, $500 on his suit, and $500 on the cake and still have everything under $5000.
A general tip is to try and find venues that are already well decorated so you don’t have to spend much on decor. We are having an outdoor wedding because I wanted my ceremony decorating to be minimal, it will already be floral so there will be no need for me to spend hundreds on flower arrangements.
I don’t know if any of that fits your definition of "classy," but I wouldn’t considerate tacky for a semi-formal event. It is generally going to be cheaper the more casual you go, which is how we ended up at semi-formal.
ETA
It’s perfectly okay to have a dessert only reception, but you do have to make sure you are considerate to your guests when planning it. They need to be between meals so no one is going hungry, and it’s generally not a good idea to serve alcohol with just sweets– for us that’s a major bonus because alcohol can get hugely expensive anyway and it just wasn’t one of our priorities.
References :
By TwistedxKiss on Jul 12, 2009
Hi April and congratulations!
I agree with all the others who have posted. It is very easy to do a nice classy wedding on a budget. Here is what I have said over and over on this forum….there is a difference between a "cheap wedding" and a "wedding on a budget." Very different.
You can have a classy wedding in a number of different venues….a family member’s home or backyard? A friend’s home and/or backyard? A park? A gazebo/pavilion in a park? Lots of places.
YES, it is very acceptable (and nice I might add) to have a dessert only reception! Many on here have done that (or are planning to.) The thing to remember about that is TIMING. You cannot plan your wedding/reception during a "meal time" if all you are offering is desserts. This type of wedding/reception would be best from 2-5 p.m. or later in the evening (8-10 p.m.) It is totally fine.
Also, by doing only desserts you are able to save A TON of money. You may also want to put out some fruit/dip and possibly some assorted cheeses and crackers for those who don’t like or eat sweets. But that would be all the "extras" you would need.
As others have said:
~ Look on craiglist or Ebay for a gown. Or buy one from David’s Bridal in their clearance section.
~ Get a "boxed set" of invitations from places like Michaels, Walmart, Hobby Lobby. These cost around $25 (or less!) for 50 invites.
~ If having something outside….maybe "dress things up" a bit by covering the tables with tablecloths (plastic is fine) and putting out a small potted plant for a centerpiece.
~ Another way to "dress things up" would be to serve your desserts on clear plastic plates (you can buy these online at Oriental Trading Company) or at places like Walmart or Target. It just looks a bit nicer than paper plates:
orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=12&sku=70/2426&mode=Searching&erec=14&D=plastic+plates&Ntt=plastic+plates&Ntk=all&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&y=15&N=0&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&x=36&sd=Clear+Salad+Plates
Then, you can always order some printed napkins in whatever color you want:
orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=12&sku=70/1555-G&mode=Searching&erec=4&Ipp=16&No=16&D=wedding+napkins&Ntt=wedding+napkins&Ntk=all&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&y=10&N=0&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&x=8&sd=Gold+Purple+Wedding+Lunch+Napkin+%28P%29
~ Do everything yourself….invites, food, decorations. That way you save lots of money.
Just some ideas. Good luck with your planning!
References :
By iloveweddings on Jul 12, 2009
Gatlinburg, Tn is a beautiful backdrop for Smoky Mountain Destination Weddings.
The people are friendly, the atmosphere is delightful, and it won’t break the bank!
As the owner of Ever After Events in Gatlinburg, Tn, I help dozens of brides every season. This area really does provide it all. For more information, visit my website, everafterplanner.com
Thanks & Happy Planning!
By Ever After Events on Jul 13, 2009
I purchased my cheap, but nice, wedding decorations and favors here centurynovelty.com/category_445.html
By Bride Bobbi on Jul 14, 2009