Planning a wedding is one of the hardest things to stay on budget for. Don’t believe me?
I proposed to Amanda 18 months before our wedding day. Many would think that this would make wedding planning a lot less stressful but, it was exactly the opposite. Having 18 months to plan for our wedding meant we both had lots of time to meet with different venues, caterers, videographers, photographers, florists, etc. This may sound like an ideal situation to be in, but what it ended up doing is giving us more choices than we really needed to have.
It felt like we were both spending every weekend leading up to our wedding day on wedding tasks.
For those men out there, if you’re going to propose to your partner, just get married at the next available chance. Don’t try to delay it. If not to put a smaller dent on your wallet, then do it for both your sanity.
Here’s why you’ll thank me later:
Your partner will have very limited options in terms of venue, caterer, photographer, videographers. Many of the best/expensive ones are usually booked a year in advance of the wedding day so you both won’t even have a remote chance in hiring them. Your problem is solved and you won’t be left with decision paralysis. You’ll have to take whatever you can get at this point, and this may not necessarily be a bad thing. You’ll both have a lot less things to
worry about.
Over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing some things we found extremely valuable to help us save over $10,000 on our wedding.
1. Be patient with suit shopping
As the groom, I ordered my wedding suit (jacket & pants) on The Bay for $120 including taxes and shipping. The brand was 1670. The suit fit me perfectly and I didn’t have to pay for any alterations. I had gone to Indochino, Harry Rosen, Tip Top Tailors but they were all going to be at least $800 more expensive after taxes with alterations and there would not be any noticeable differences. One day by chance, I happened to be at The Bay and tried on a 1670 suit and it was at the moment, I knew it was perfect for me. Being me, and with Black Friday happening the following week, I knew there was going to be sale so I had waited and ended up saving an additional 30% from the regular price when I ordered it online on Black Friday.
If you’re looking for your perfect suit, be patient, look around, it’s possible to a find a suit that fits like it’s custom tailored for under $200.
2. Non-traditional wedding bands
Amanda and I wanted to get wedding bands that were different than typical silver wedding bands that typically cost over $1,000. We came across a local craftsperson at the One of A Kind Show that sold handmade wooden jewellery. The craftsperson helped us custom design and make our wooden wedding bands which ended up costing $70 for two rings. Amanda and I get asked about where we get them on more than several occasions which is a pretty good sign we did something right.
3. Keep fresh flowers to a minimum
Using fresh flowers on the wedding day can easily cost upwards of $5,000. We were able to spend less than $1,000 on flowers by selecting more foliage rather than blooms, not using flowers as centrepieces, and eliminating floral arrangements where possible.
One of the unique things about our centrepieces were that they continued to look amazing even after it’s been dried out. Unlike flowers which wither away, we used pussy willows to be the highlight of our centrepieces. This was extremely beneficial because we were able to make the centerpieces ourselves 6 months ahead of our wedding without worrying about it going bad. We kept them in our garage the entire time and they still ended up looking the same.
I’ll be sharing some more tips in the next post so stay tuned to find out how we were able to save and cut costs while still managing to have our dream wedding.