Regardless of your wedding size—a grand affair with a large guest list, a micro-wedding, or even an elopement, wedding planning is not easy. In fact, it can be extremely stressful due to all the moving parts needed to make a wedding happen. There’s the “easy stuff,” like save-the-dates, invitations, and color schemes, and then there’s the more difficult stuff—like catering, venue selection, seating charts, and general logistics needed to make your wedding day organized and seamless.
Wedding planning can be even more daunting if you’re going the DIY route instead of hiring a wedding planner. If you’re on a budget, and you just started the planning process for your big day, follow the tips below to help you save not only money on your wedding day, but your sanity as well.
Know Your Budget
Before you do anything, you and your partner need to establish what your wedding budget is. Every decision that follows will be based on this number. If any family members are contributing to your wedding budget—add their contribution as well.
Get Your Guest List in Order First
The cost of your wedding is ultimately determined by the size of your guest list. The higher the guest count, the more your wedding day is going to cost. With that in mind, it’s best to work on your guest list right away so you can see if your ideal guest list fits within your budget. You can’t start inquiring about venues and catering until you have an idea of how many guest you anticipate attending.
First, sit down with your fiancé and write down the important people you know you want at your wedding—parents, siblings, grandparents, and close friends. After you establish the people you know you will be sending an invite to, add more people if your budget allows.
Quick Tip: Don’t feel obligated to invite everyone. Weddings are expensive, and it may not be worth the additional money needed to include co-workers or friends you haven’t seen or spoken to in years.
Don’t Financially Overwhelm Your Bridal Party
Not only are weddings expensive for the couple—weddings are expensive for those you ask to be in your bridal party—especially if you don’t plan on paying for their dresses, tailoring, transportation, or beauty services.
The best way to do this is by not requiring your bridesmaids to invest in expensive dresses they will likely only wear for your big day. Unlike in the past, there are now a plethora of affordable bridesmaid dress options available such as the bridesmaid dresses from AW Bridal. Your bridesmaids can score a beautiful dress for less than $120 in a wide range of colors that will suit your wedding theme.
Quick tip: Be everyone’s favorite bride by not requiring your bridesmaid to wear the same exact shoes—instead, let them wear a pair they already own.
Accept Help If It’s Offered
If someone offers to help you, don’t try and be a superhero and reject the offer. Take it! The last thing you want to experience while wedding planning is burnout.
Quick Tip: Help comes in many forms—this could be a friend helping you add stamps to invitations, or a parent helping with your seating chart.
Take Care of Your Mental Health and Well-Being
Speaking of burnout, don’t forget about self-care while wedding planning. Even with the most drama-free wedding planning experience—you will still experience stress. Stress is a normal part of life—but too much stress is unhealthy. To prevent burnout, take care of your mental health and well-being during your wedding planning process. You can do this by meditating, taking yoga classes, treating yourself to the occasional massage, and maintaining your hobbies.
Quick Tip: You don’t want to lose touch with your partner because all you do is talk about wedding planning. Plan date nights where talking about “the wedding” is off limits.
Being a bride is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, so it’s important to enjoy every minute of it. Hopefully these tips will calm your nerves so you can actually enjoy your budget conscious wedding planning process.
Quick Tip: For more wedding day inspiration—Check out AW Bridal’s Instagram.
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