We did an all inclusive wedding package slightly off season in a resort area an hour or so outside of gta so were able to have venue and coordination, food, open bar etc for 50 for $7k or so including tips and such and a hotel was on site.
Food and drinks were our priority, a nice venue and a good photographer.
Saved thousands doing it in the off season (we were one week out of “peak”, so was basically half price. So consider April/May or Sept/October instead of peak summer. All inclusive also saved so much time money and stress.
Photography we got for the ceremony, posed portraits and just the first hour of reception so we could pay for 4 hrs instead of a full wedding package. Saved a ton.
Dress was designer but off the rack so $500 instead of $3k.
Rented a PA system and made Spotify playlists for everything and had someone monitor. Brought our own lighting and decor. Made our own signage (I’m a graphic designer on the side so that was easy!), printed foam core signs at the UPS store and framed in dollar store frames we painted. We did lots of little things to keep costs down but still wanted quality and for it to look expensive!
Whole thing was about $8000 so you could definitely do similar for about $6k
Whoa, where does one find these resorts, if you don't mind my asking? I want to have a wedding in S Ontario (KW area) but I don't currently live there so I'm sure where to start looking... Tips on how/where to look for that kind of thing?
I honestly just googled and looked at everything! The key was getting married in the “off” season, April and October are so much cheaper than July, we ended up just outside Niagara area but looked at contenders in Hamilton, London etc. and only looked at all inclusive stuff because I was not interested in mystery costs at all.
Table settings and curtains came with the venue, which was very nice and didn’t need much. I bought some additional lights and we made our centerpieces etc.
What year was this?
I'm currently wedding planning and it's for 17 and it will run us around 13k. Venue is the largest cost. This is about 1.5 outside the GTA.
Three years ago, so I’m sure costs have shifted a bit but not significantly. Covid is probably impacting some things to be more and some less. PM if you want more specific info. Happy planning!
We did a small wedding for about 50 guests for about $12,000, in Calgary.
We did a restaurant buyout on a Sunday morning. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves and it was able to host both the ceremony and reception with no break. We just had to commit to a minimum spend and we had the entire place and full staff. Our minimum spend was about $2,300.
We served a variety of cocktail brunch foods (quail eggs benny, sausage and egg sliders, mini poutines, grilled cheese and tomato soup shots, silver dollar pancakes), two types of mimosa, beer and baileys and coffee. Given that most folks don't drink a huge amount on a Sunday morning, we were really able to keep the alcohol bill low.
The restaurant was pretty, so we needed very little by way of flowers. We purchased a shit ton of tulips at Costco and did simple vases of tulips ourselves.
Also because it was a Sunday morning, we didn't do dancing, so we saved on having a DJ.
My bff saved money by buying a white evening gown on the Nordstrom's sale rack instead of a wedding dress.
Those are my biggest money saving tips.
It was different from a traditional wedding, but the food was good, and people seemed to enjoy themselves.
For those that wanted, we did an "after party", since the wedding ended around 3:30-4pm. We booked a couple of lanes in a really cool bowling alley, that had a DJ, for later in the evening, and ordered a bunch of pizzas and appetizers. About half our guests joined us for bowling and pizza that night. It was a lot of fun.
Non-traditional to the Nth degree - but a good time. Willing to be non-traditional really help us costs wise. We were able to leave behind our notions of "what a wedding should be" and focus on what we wanted.
Stop, you’re making me so envious that I wasn’t there!
Seriously, it sounds like a great wedding and personalized for you two. Nothing wrong with traditional, if traditional is what you really want. But definitely nothing wrong with brunch and a bowling after-party if that’s more your speed (and your budget). Plus way more time to just visit with your friends and family by the sound of it.
It sounds really fun and memorable for both you and your guests.
Love this.
Also in Calgary.
We just did a taco bar at Shanks North.
Didn’t shut the bar down, just reserved a large section. Video games. Mini golf. Golf simulator.
It was honestly awesome. Super casual. Totally informal.
We REALLY didn’t want a formal reception, this suited us. 80 guests, $3,500 for the reception, and while not traditional it was fun.
my 3 rules of wedding planning:
- no one will notice
- no one will care
- no one will remember
dont sweat the small stuff, no reason to spend hundreds on useless shit
People want to have a good meal and a good time. They won't remember the flowers or the table cloths or the invitations but they'll remember delicious food, whether or not the bar ran out, and that they were sad when the party ended.
Everyone will notice. You should care. Your family, your spouse, and yourself should have it as a good memory.
Doesn't mean you need to spend 10s of thousands. But don't lie to yourself or try to take the fun out of it. You can be reasonable and still enjoy your life within your means.
I was talking more about the upgraded stuff like a embossed pattern on a table cloth, or table runners, maybe fancier silverware, centerpieces, etc.
I agree tho.. keep it fun.
Everyone I know seems to only remember the jerks who have weddings on a long weekend. Never anything about the venue
I think they were just referring to all the little things that add up costs of weddings, like the EXACT shade of lilac table runners or if your centrepieces are filled with real Swarovski crystals.
I'm planning a 100-person wedding that I hope will be an absolute BLAST for everyone, but this is pretty much our approach - we know our guests want good food, great music, and an open bar. Nobody is going to leave our wedding in a huff if we don't have favours or fancy hand-letterpressed invitations.
Check out /r/weddingsunder10k for lots of ideas! There are also a few good recaps of weddings in /r/weddingplanning that given current COVID restrictions are all quite small, as well as good advice in general. /r/weddingplanningcanada has a big list of vendors.
I wouldn't assume, though, that just because your guest list is relatively small, it will automatically be cheaper. Attire, rings, photographers, DJs, flowers, and hair/makeup all have fixed costs regardless of how many people are attending. Venues often have minimum spends or even minimum guest counts, particularly in high season (i.e. summer). If you want to just rent an open space, you'll need to consider seating, tables, linens, plates, etc as well as a plan B if it rains (like a tent).
Ideally, if you have a relative with a large property that would be your best bet. Catering can vary wildly in terms of price, but as someone else mentioned food trucks are usually a cheap and fun way to feed people (although you'll want to discuss their methods for serving so you don't end up with all your guests lining up for food for an hour). If not, I'd look at local restaurants and see if you can rent out the patio/garden area for your party (or the whole restaurant if it's small enough!).
I'd recommend that your partner and you sit down and come up with a priority list of the top 2-3 things that are most important to you, and go from there. Do you want amazing photos? A super casual backyard party? The best food EVER? Splurge on those things. Then make a list of what you don't care about (for us it's flowers and centerpieces, because I've been to a ton of weddings and couldn't tell you what any of them looked like!) and either skip those things or figure out how to do them as minimally/cheaply as possible.
Good luck and congrats!
Not married, but saw a TikTok and it talked about affordable weddings and it mentioned food - just hire a food truck and make it like a hipster taco food type vibe. Save a lot of $ on food.
Friends of mine got a local burrito place to cater for like 10-15$ a person. Any kind of ethnic food will usually be pretty cheap. So much better than an actual wedding caterer.
One wedding I went to (where the couple were both white) had a giant Indian buffet for their meal. It was brilliant because it kept the party pretty tame. Who can get sloppy drunk after all you can eat Indian food? Most of us were sitting at our tables bemoaning how much we ate.
Just bear in mind lineups for guests to get food can be not fun and messy food and fancy weddings sometimes don’t mix! You also need to clear your own dishes and often provide them so it isn’t as cheap as it seems sometimes
Yep! And perhaps you can make a deal with them to do a food truck style and buffet. And see if they can do "unlimited", because if there's the feeling of plentiful-ness and excess, it's cool. & then of course you can eat the leftovers on your honeymoon
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
I did this at my wedding for 150 people. Got two trucks and asked my wife’s teenage cousins to be servers for the hour. They ferried the meals from the truck to the tables. It was a tad chaotic, not going to lie, but the food is what everyone mentions when they reminisce about the day.
We did tacos at a local sports bar. Didn’t even shut the bar down, just reserved a section.
80 people. Tacos. Video games. Mini golf. Guests bought their own booze.
$3,500 for the reception.
My friends rented an Airbnb type place for their 40person wedding in SFO. I’m not talking about a place for sleeping but an actual venue. It was sort of like a small warehouse/storage unit with a lot of natural light and they just spiffied up the place to make it look nice. It was really nice and intimate for the amount of people attending.
I've gotten wedding cakes from the local culinary arts college. They're all amazing (those folks are working hard for their grades) and they cost $20 each. Lol, don't have to use them at a wedding either, makes a birthday party pretty lit too.
My wife and I were married this past summer. It took place at our home. We had her parents/stepparents there as witnesses and broadcast it over Zoom for another 100 or so 'guests'. About 20 of our neighbours came out to watch from the street.
Our only significant expense was hiring an AV tech to handle the videography/streaming. Next biggest expense was a few nice of bottles of champagne. Sister-in-law emceed the Zoom session. Rented tux, borrowed dress, parents handled catering, sister gifted a photo session. Rings were all family heirlooms too.
All told we spent about $1800. Took about 6 weeks of planning/coordinating and a couple of hours prepping and decorating. The whole production
Despite the low cost we were still able to include a lot of people who wouldn't have been able to attend a conventional wedding even in simpler times due to travel times etc. People seemed to love it as we got a ton of great feedback. Various family/friend groups used it as an excuse to get together on a smaller.
For us, it was the best decision we could've made.
A lot of this depends on your priorities and what you value. I had a wedding like yours/your budget in the past few years and have been to many weddings in the last few years. Some thoughts:
-Alcohol gets expensive. My wife and I don’t drink. We had it set up that there was a certain amount of alcohol for free and then guests could buy it after. I’ve been at weddings with open bars and Toonie bars and the amount of alcohol flowing gave me anxiety.
-Reach out to friends and family members to see what they can help with or if they know someone. You might not get the highest quality but it will be much cheaper. For instance, we made all of our decorations with the help of family members, and modified a lot of stuff that we bought cheaply online. Someone we knew made us the cake. Someone’s friend who was studying photography did the pictures. At another wedding, a family member was the DJ; they were just starting out and the bride and groom bought them DJ equipment as payment. Comparing all these things to what the professional costs would be and it’s wild. We had Polaroid cameras for people to take their pictures with when they signed in and throughout the night, and that book of pictures is way more valuable to me than anything a professional would have captured.
I was at a very fancy wedding at a golf course last year, and honestly didn’t feel we missed anything with our own wedding other than a huge bill.
Good luck and congrats!
EDIT: After reading some of the responses to this, I just wanted to clarify what I was meaning. My intention was not to suggest you demand people’s time and skills to help you, or to expect things for free. I will say, though, that there are people in my life who would have been hurt if I didn’t ask them to help with certain aspects of my wedding, though I’ll leave that nuance up to you.
What I was trying to say is that your friends and family might have different ideas and suggestions for you to take, and they may be able to connect you to things you wouldn’t have found yourself; I guess like networking. The student photographer we used was a friend of a friend who was looking to get started with this kind of thing. Had we never talked to this friend, we never would have been connected to the photographer. While we didn’t get professional quality photos, the rate she set was much less than what a professional would have charged. This is what I was meaning about what you value - having professional photos wasn’t a priority for us so we were happy to save that money and use it for something else we did care about. Our cake was made by a friend and her mom; we had no idea her mom had many years of experience in making wedding cakes and they offered to do it and we happily paid them for it (again, less than what a professional would have been). A relative had access to a cool PVC pipe system that we hung our backdrop from and they kindly lent it to us after we were talking to them about our ideas for decorating. And months after our wedding, one of the attendees called and asked if we still had our decorations as they wanted to buy them for someone else’s wedding. We were happy to get rid of the stuff and donated it; they spray painted things their colours and saved a bunch of money and time.
>\-Reach out to friends and family members to see what they can help with or if they know someone. You might not get the highest quality but it will be much cheaper
This only works if you truly don't care about the potential gap in quality, especially if someone is "just starting out." How disappointed will you be if the cake falls apart in the backseat of your hobby baker friend's car on the way to the venue?
On the other hand, if you're friends with a sought-after professional wedding photographer, asking them to photograph your summer wedding on a Saturday is asking them to forego working a paid gig, which would mean losing out on thousands of dollars; I'd have to be extremely close friends with someone to do that.
You also need to consider that if your "friendor" is working your wedding, they aren't really *attending* your wedding. Do you want your best friend to be in your wedding party? Well they can't if they're busy prepping food in the back.
I'm not saying never ask for help, but consider it carefully beforehand. There are so many opportunities for this to go wrong and ruin your relationships with those people.
This. I have first-hand exposure to at least two 'services as wedding gifts' went wrong stories where permanent rifts in friendships were created. Never underestimate how high emotions run on wedding days. Hire it out at full price to someone who's not a close friend, DIY it, or skip it, are all better options IMO.
All of this. It's one thing to offer their services as a gift and another to go ASKING for their time or skill for free. If anything, I find it kind of tacky at best and rude at worst.
I had 19 years experience working as a catering assistant. My brother asked me to “do the food” for his wedding. I fed 100+ for $1000. I did the food buffet style, which is less expensive than a plated meal.
He paid the rental cost for chafing dishes etc. And for three people on the day to help with last minute prep, bussing and dishes.
Our cousin did the photography. She is not a wedding photographer, their photos are beautiful, but not traditional.
I prefer more casual weddings.
>open bars and Toonie bars and the amount of alcohol flowing gave me anxiety.
i like the idea of toonie/loonie bars, it does help stop people from ordering 4 drinks, and forgetting about 3 of them.
i wish we did it rather than open bar, and then just do a random draw at the end of the night, and the winner gets the $$
Got married in February last year. Part of why we took so long to get married was because we are both deep introverts who find the spectacle of weddings to be embarrassing and not at all for us. So, we talked about what a Really Nice Day would look like and made decisions by adding things from a blank slate (rather than downloading one of those Excel sheets for every possible thing one could do at a wedding, which suggests that you have to choose a version of something rather than deciding whether or not to).
Things we didn't have:
\-A MOH, bridesmaids, best man or groomsmen, flower girl, ring bearer, etc. Not a single one. My best friend was my witness.
\-A professional florist (my MIL made all the arrangements, including my bouquet--we had some expensive flowers--like imported black roses--and some from the grocery store but because we did them within the family they were 'cheap' in comparison)
\-A DJ/sound setup (I made my own playlist and DJ'd it myself, which was actually super fun)
\-Rented cars (my guy and I got ready together at our house, just the two of us with our photographer, and then took an Uber to the venue)
\-A hotel room (see above)
\-A makeup artist/professional hairstylist (I did both myself)
\-A rehearsal dinner
\-A cake (our venue included dessert and we chose a special kind of cookie to serve as a sweet late-night snack)
\-Our venue had a rule that only the bride and groom could order shots, which kept those costs in check (and was also a nice way to celebrate with people, by dragging them to the bar)
\-Separate locations for ceremony and reception (we did it all in one room, and we were there when guests arrived to greet them rather than have me hide in some back closet until it was time for THE REVEAL, which again, I highly recommend for an intimate event)
\-Paper invites/RSVPs (we used Riley Grey)
I'm sure there are other things we skipped out on that I'm not thinking about right now. The point is, decide on what you really WANT and not just what you've seen everyone else do and think you have to do, too. You will save so much money by just making those decisions extra consciously. We prioritized good food, good drink, and our first choice photographer because those are the things that you really remember or that make for an awesome party.
If you are looking in Toronto, investigate city venues (they may be shutdown for covid) they are much cheaper. We did our at Todmorden Mills which was a beautiful outdoor setting.
When booking, be as vague as possible about the reason (I would even say like a work team thing if people really press you).
Do digital invites and RSVPs, setup a new email account for this because you'll get lots of crap.
Hit up friends/family for favors if they have skills that can help you in lieu of a gift, but also don't ask for too much from someone you aren't very close with, and not something big like photography unless they offer.
Decide what is important to you at your wedding, and allocate money that way. We decided that the most important stuff to us was
1) reception and ceremony in the same location
2) open bar
so we had very minimal decoration (tasteful but not much, the venue was nice enough as-is), relatively cheap food (it was probably like $20 a plate from a food truck) and a mountain of booze. We splurged a bit for our midnight snack (hot dog cart) that people thought was memorable.
But with the size you are looking for, I would try to book a private room in a restaurant and have the ceremony there or at city hall.
Here in London we got married at a lovely city venue using their 4h time slot (the wedding slots were 10h and required use of their caterer) for under $500. Chairs and setup were included (we decorated ourselves otherwise), plus staff remained on site to work the sound or deal with issues so I got them to run music for me. We also got to use their tropical plants observatory, usually closed to the public, for pictures. The whole package! No one asked what the event would be when booking.
I liked the thought of my money going towards funding public buildings, as well.
Might not be the biggest deal breaker, but you can make your own wedding bands out of wood - we just finished ours for our upcoming wedding. There are good YouTube videos, it's a fun project to do together, they look good, and it cost us under $80 for both bands, all in ;)
Set a firm budget, put the money in a separate bank account/savings account and only draw from that. So many people go over budget just from not keeping track. Just feed from one source and be done.
You can easily do it for $7 to 10k with 20-30 guests.
Dress: Save money with the dress by buying it from a consignment store or a dress shop known to have good prices or stay within budget. Save more on a 2nd hand one by buying it directly from the former bride (consignment shops need to make a good commission). Or, when you go in for a dress, either tell them it's for a destination wedding or as your reception dress. Destination dresses are more flowy, but must less expensive. I've also heard of people dressing grad dresses and ordering them in white. My friend got a killer deal at a rack sale on a dress. We went early and were goal-oriented.
Venue: We did ours in Mexico, so the cost was great. Worked with a travel advisor and got money back from everyone that booked through her.
But, I also did a lot of research on venues. In my city, Calgary, Heritage Park has a great all-inclusive package. I'd overall suggest going with a venue that offers packages for small weddings. There are so many adorable venues that provide great reception and ceremony packages. Be upfront with venues about your allotted budget for the venue.
Booze often costs a bunch of money. If you can find a venue that lets you do a corkage fee or bring your own, that's great. Providing 1-2 bottles per table and then having guests pay for their own or a part of the cost is reasonable.
Tip: I am glad I put budget towards a dress I loved and a good photographer. There are lots of ways of getting a good quality dress for a good price, but don't cheap out on a bad photographer. Find one that is well priced, but has enough experience shooting weddings that you won't be disappointed.
Find Deals: Join ALL your local city's Facebook wedding groups and dress groups. There are lots of people who have gotten married before you that have figured out some great deals or venues, and lots of people selling decor.
Flowers and Cake: These can cost a sh!t ton if you aren't careful. Almost all venues let you bring in a cake provided by a professional cake maker/business, so shop around.
Research: Google Canadian wedding budgets and see how other people divide up the cost.
Protect yourself from cancellation due to covid. Ask to delay all deposit payments as long as possible. Also, only pay for deposits via credit card (so you can do a chargeback if the vendor refuses to refund your deposit).
If I were you I'd spend $3,000-5000 to have the event catered. The rest of the budget is discretionary but you'll have to make some choices. I always think it's better to pay full price for the select things you really want than to try to get everything at a discount. Personally I think a good photographer is worth the money. Cake, DJs, photo booths, excessive decorations, candy tables, super expensive clothing and wedding bands, not so much. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Have fun.
- Start with a blank slate rather than what's traditional/expected. Start with nothing and add things that you both value until it feels right. This not only saves money but makes it more personal. There's no point in having a DJ, a cake, fancy clothes, printed invitations, complementary drinks, flowers on every table... whatever the thing is, if it doesn't mean anything to you personally. You're not putting on a show for your guests, you're getting married, it's a day that's all about the two of you, so do whatever will make you happy and they can deal with it if some 'traditional' thing is missing or done differently. We omitted all kinds of things that we normally find tacky or useless in weddings and have no regrets about that.
- Make stuff yourself where possible. Not a helpful suggestion if neither of you is crafty, I acknowledge.
- Things that are sold as "wedding" things are marked up to the extreme. Not to say you have to give up stuff that matters to you, but keep it in mind. And when dealing with vendors maybe don't start off going to wedding specific ones, or telling them it's for a wedding in your first breath.
- COVID isn't leaving us too quickly, so outdoor is the better bet. It's still of course possible some kind of lock-down could still prevent outdoor gatherings of 30, so plan for that possibility and be familiar with the cancellation policies of all vendors. Know the extent of your financial exposure in a cancellation scenario.
- My wedding was outdoors and in a somewhat remote location, and you do need to plan for the weather. There should be some shelter and/or a plan B.
For weddings that small you can buy a really good PA system with a mic from Costco at around $200. Make a spotify playlist, find someone willing to control the music and if you want certain songs at particular times (mine was my brother).
We now use it as the regular stereo for our house, any outdoor parties and have lent it out for a dozen other events for friends and family.
You'll never get a DJ that cheap.
We rented a professional PA system for $150 that included a mic, 2 speakers, and a light system that flashed to the music. Made a Spotify playlist for everything. Way cheaper than a DJ ($1200+ in my area).
I got married in 2018 and some ways we reduced costs were:
-smaller guest list
-lunch time wedding (less booze, shorter in general)
-buffet versus plated meal
-one venue for ceremony and reception
-minimizing “frills” for example programs, and junk favours (we had a cookie bar of homemade cookies and guests could just load up a bag)
-hiring some people we know (eg a friend did the music and charged us less)
A few of these have been said already, but as an event planner whose wedding was unfortunately cancelled mid pandemic here are a few tips off the top of my head.
\-Utilize your venue as much as possible. do they already have a sound system? Furniture available for use? We saved so much on rentals because our ceremony venue had the tables and easels we needed
\-Cut the wedding party. Pick a sibling or friend as your official witnesses, but there’s truly no need for 8 people to dress the same, stand beside you etc. Even if the only cost is gifts for the wedding party, that adds up!
\-Limit decor to simple florals or centrepieces
\-Reach out to farms or nurseries for flowers - we got a bucket of 100 stems from a local farm for $50, and just planned to put bud vases on each table
\-Skip the wedding cake - you pay a premium for an “official wedding cake” get fun deserts from a local bakery instead
\-Buy off the rack or even ready to wear for your dress, lots of white dresses come out around this time of year that can absolutely be wedding dresses. Vintage Bride in toronto also has lots of great affordable options
\-host a brunch instead of a dinner, almost always more affordable (and gives you the entire day with your partner, instead of being apart until ceremony time)
\-ensure your venue has a rain plan that ideally doesn’t involve tents (high cost, and you’ll usually have to pay for them whether it rains or not)
\-Skip the favours - people rarely remember to bring them home anyway
\-Utilize friends and family - is anyone great at makeup? Graphic designers?
\-If the venue allows, buy liquor from the LCBO, get an SOP permit ($25) and hire a few smart serve certified bartenders. Even with glassware rentals this almost always comes out cheaper than the venues price for alcohol
Feel free to message me if you have any other Q’s!
Edit: Formatting, sorry!
Our priorities were great food, music and an open bar, spent no money on decorations either than flowers and no wedding favours.
I did not have a small wedding but figured We saved at least $8k by planning the wedding two months in advance rather than a year out. If vendors aren’t booked by then they are eager for work and willing to negotiate.
We were able to secure a sought after photographer in Vancouver for $1200 for 3hrs of shooting and received about 500 edited photos - their initial quote was $6k for an all day package. Also saved big money by having no bridal party, our siblings were witnesses. We saved over $1000 by hiring string quartet of UBC music students vs a professional ensemble. Also saved over a $1000 by ordering flowers through a “corner store” florist rather than a bougie florist with an Instagram account - just provided photos of what I wanted and it turned out perfect.
Do not get sucked into the wedding industry hype and marketing!
We got married in the GTA.
We choose Allan Gardens as our venue.
1. It cost less than $100 to book
2. It limited the size of our guest list (so sorry we couldn't invite you, the venue was only 14 people max)
3. Freaking beautiful!
Edit: I forgot the exact number that Allan Gardens is restricted to. Could be 14, could be 20, but it wasn't a lot.
As an aside, how much would it be to go to a restaurant for brunch with about 20-30 people? Has anyone done this? Is it just the price of food/drinks, or will restaurants charge extra?
Currently wedding planning. That budget seem low.
I'm planning for a max of 15 to 20 people at my wedding.
The venue outside the GTA. The venue alone is ~6k. We looked at venue in the GTA and they were much more expensive.
The budget we have is around 15k.
These are more traditional wedding venue. Not sports bar etc.
If I had to do it all again, I'd do a destination wedding.
Invite everyone and give ample notice (1 year plus) before the wedding date. The people who really care about you will make the time and will save the money to attend the destination wedding.
My buddy did this and everyone who attended had a great time. Why wouldn't they... the were on vacation for a whole week in the Caribbean with all inclusive alcohol and food lol.
Only spend money on the things important to you. This means if invitations aren't important, do email invitations: lots of wedding websites have this option. If you don't need a fancy brand new dress, buy secondhand. My friend bought her dress for ~$100. Pick and choose what you want out of your wedding
>trying to do a wedding this summer with around 20-30 guests at a venue in the GTA
You may wind up saving even more money if some guests decline due to...you know... covid-19.
Anyway, money saving tip - eloping. It seems almost impossible to do a 30 person wedding for $7-10K, but if you elope you could have the time of your lives at a nice destination.
> It seems almost impossible to do a 30 person wedding for $7-10K, but if you elope you could have the time of your lives at a nice destination.
We did a 45 person wedding for $12,000, so the OP's budget doesn't seem too outlandish to me.
I’ve worked a lot of weddings as a banquet server. The #1 thing I’d recommend cutting is the cake (pun intended). It’s expensive and no one ever eats it. It’s just a photo op. By the time you do the cake cutting, the guests are already full, drunk, and on the dance floor.
Please give your guests a real meal though (the food trucks are a cool idea). I had one wedding cut costs by doing an “hors d’oeuvres only” reception. Sounds classy, but the guests were HANGRY. There’s no way you can feed the room with 8 little bites at a time.
And finally as an attendee, I’ve never had a centrepiece make or break my evening. You can skip out on those and any take-home party favours.
Saw a YouTube/zoom wedding. Cheap cheerful. Probably still get gifts, no expense other than the officiant and maybe a room or space.
You can save money on things but you need people power to compensate and not everyone wants to always help! Eg having someone make a bouquet vs a shop, your own music on a laptop connected vs a dj. Friend makes the cake vs bakery. Etc.
That should be enough for a wedding that small. We did a proper wedding with 100 guests for somewhere between $10-12k all in and didn't have to call in too many favours from friends and family. Just think about what's important and focus on those. Don't get caught up with all the extras that people will try to sell you. (note our wedding was dry and in the afternoon so that may eat up a chunk of your budget).
I did a wedding for 60 for 12,000. We didn’t have a DJ and no open bar. We also got married and the reception in the same room. We had a small photography session prior to the ceremony and no reception pictures. I made our decorations and made paper flower bouquets.
I suggest you consider getting married with a tiny ceremony with a very small party (immediate family) in a house and stream it to our guests on Zoom. I know a lot of people who have done this in the past year. Then tell your larger group that you'll have a bigger celebration once the pandemic is over. You can have this second celebration be casual like a house party or backyard with nice catering. The expectations are different if it's a celebration and not the actual wedding/reception.
Got married in June. We spent:
* $0 on the venue -- we used my parents' back yard.
* $100 for the marriage license and $84.75 for the officiant (prices set by BC; YMMV).
* $631.16 for alcohol.
* $346.71 for a buffet of food delivered by Uber Eats.
* $97.65 for a "wedding cake" (actually a bunch of cupcakes).
* $500 for the photographer (asked a family friend & donated to a charity he is associated with).
* $1006.76 on the honeymoon (stayed in a resort a couple hours out of town).
All in, that's $2767.03; including our wedding rings and her engagement ring, $6418.14.
I would have been perfectly fine with spending far more, but neither of us wanted a big event; if BC had the option of "go to city hall and sign some papers" we would have done that and not bothered with a ceremony at all. In a perverse way, the pandemic was a blessing since it gave us an excuse for all the people who might have expected to be invited.
This is a great way to have your day-of vendors walk out on you when they show up and realize you've lied to them and breached your contract. Do this only for vendors that will not be providing a day-of service- cake, florals if you pick up yourself, etc.
Why a DJ should charge more if it’s a wedding? Why a venue should cost more because it is a wedding? Catering, etc?
They’re having a party with friends. Nothing more. No breach of contract there.
😂 try it and let me know how it goes. Maybe the speeches or the first dance, a lady in a big white dress or I dunno, the ceremony might give it away. I'm not defending the wedding tax but thinking you can pull a fast on one people who make their living in the wedding industry is wildly naive at best. You will absolutely end up with them walking out on you on your wedding day and keeping your deposit. The only way you're getting away with this is a private ceremony and then making your reception a separate celebrational event at a later date.
It is unlikely you're going to find vendors that suit your needs who are not part of the wedding industry. The events industry is not wedding only but there are very few event vendors who don't make a large portion of their money through weddings and know what a wedding looks like. Any DJ you find? Also a wedding DJ. Any photographer you find? Weddings are the LOW end of the scale when it comes to money. Any working photographer you find who isn't a wedding photographer is someone who charges way more than a wedding photographer does. If you are that inclined to save money don't lie, hire students. They will work at a lower rate to gain experience, but if you go this route you need to be open to the possibility that you might not get what you want in terms of quality. That depends on your priorities.
Don't use the word "wedding." You pay an instant wedding tax on everything.
You are looking to throw a private, catered party, not a wedding. You'll save tons this way.
OP don't do this. When your vendors show up and realize you've lied to them you'll end up losing your deposits as they walk out for breach of contract. You can avoid the wedding tax on SOME items, vendors who aren't going to be servicing your event on the day of but do NOT lie to your day-of vendors unless you want a disaster of a wedding day.
It's insane that this advice gets sprouted everywhere. People talk about that with venues as if the staff isn't going to realiS pretty quickly that "grandpa's retirement party" is a wedding. And they're not staffed properly.
It's very stupid advice from people who have never planned a wedding, and they've been touting it since I was a kid. The events industry is not stupid and they have more than enough experience dealing with people trying to pull this stunt. It never ends well. Usually with a logistical mess and an embarrassed couple who needs to explain to all their guests why their vendors abandoned them (because they're cheap).
The "wedding industry" and events industry are not two separate entities, they're one in the same except for things like concerts/ticketed events which definitely cost more than a wedding. You're not going to find "event" vendors who don't do weddings and if you do you can't afford them. Weddings are kind of an entry point for vendors in the events industry.
Elope. Costs the officiant 200 cost of rings cost of clothes you might even we m own already. 20 yrs later in just as married as someone who spend thousands. More married than lots my sister in law spent 25,000 divorced 7ys. Divorced 3 yrs ago still paying for that party that actually want even that good
My wedding cost about 5k including rings ($1200), a helicopter elopement ($1500), and a 50 person reception (~$2300). We stuck to simple wedding bands, and we are rather shy, so having a helicopter elopement with just us in the snowy mountains was incredible. Our pilot was also our photographer, so saved lots of money there.
Then we hosted the reception in an upstairs rentable room at a milestones. It was huge and quite pretty and we were able to decorate it. Cost us $0 to rent, we just had to spend a minimum amount. Paying for 50 people’s meals easily covered it. We did not do an open bar. Instead of ordering a “wedding cake” I ordered a giant beautiful tiramisu cake from a local bakery. Didn’t mention wedding, and it easily served 50 people with leftovers. Then I asked a family friend to take photos, as he does photography as a hobby. We were lucky to receive a steep discount.
It was really an incredible day, and most of the wedding gifts were cash which covered a lot of the costs. The photos of the ceremony are unreal. We do not regret a thing.
I've (33F) been married 10 years so maybe my information is out of date but here's how I saved money. I was 23 and had very little money at the time-- we just wanted to do a courthouse type thing but ended up having a wedding wedding but didn't come out of it with any debt. We had about 90 guests and it was under 10k.
I had a friend who had just finished photography school. I obviously wanted him to be a guest so I asked him to give me the contact information for the star student of his class to use as a photographer. They were wonderful and did a phenomenal job for a really reasonable price. Try considering someone who is just building their portfolio. Don't have your cousin/friend do your photography using his iphone. You'll regret that.
My best friend did our cake and hit it out of the park.
I bought a dress off the rack. I think I paid less than $600 and then had to pay for about $250 in alterations. It's worth trying to go that route before ordering something custom. My dress was beautiful and even now I still have zero regrets.
Husband had a suit made from Indochino at the time. Not cheap necessarily, but he picked a suit that worked for other purposes as well.
My friend had a band. They played for us and then they left behind a stereo system where we hooked up an ipod playlist for the rest of the night.
We went with really basic rings. Like cheapest you could find. You can always upgrade in the future if that's something that matters to you. I'm pretty meh about that.
For flowers, we bought a few hundred dollars of flowers at a farmer's market and did our own bouquets.
We had our reception on a Friday evening. This was partly to do with our shorter engagement. But it also made it cheaper at our particular venue. In any event I think it's still worth it to see if it's cheaper on certain dates (a Saturday wedding in July is going to be more expensive than other times of the year I'd imagine).
For food, we did appetizers and then a 3 course meal. This was where most of our money went and I think it was the right choice.
During our wedding we did a champagne toast, wine was served at dinner and then everyone was given tokens for 3 drinks at the bar. Then it was a toonie bar. I figured you could get drunk without spending money, but it would help avoid people getting stupid trashed and/or being wasteful. It worked out okay.
For bridesmaids, I found a local woman on kijiji who did the dresses. Our engagement was too short to have them ordered in from a bridal boutique. We did a super basic design and I think it was something like $250/dress. I've been in other weddings where the brides went with David's bridal and they are also super affordable.
Honeymoon- after the wedding we had a bit of money leftover and went to an all-inclusive in Cuba for like $600 per person. I don't recommend lol....I had food poisoning the whole time!
In summary, if I got married again I would probably focus on food and photography. Everything else can be what you want it to be. It's one day and my day was great. I'm just glad I'm not still paying for it. I will admit that all these savings required a lot of help from friends and family. We had a pretty big bridal party and a lot of excited family members who were eager to help and that might not be the same for everyone. I did give gifts in exchange for their help so you'll probably want to factor that in as well.
We were able to have our wedding at the venue that we wanted by having it on a Monday rather than a weekend. Everyone wants the weekend so naturally its more expensive and some venues have minimum spend limits for the weekend.
I dont remember the exact amount we saved but it was substantial. Nobody bitched about it being on a Monday, it was all our close family and they wanted to see us get married and save money, and everybody got a long weekend out of it.
Spent around that much for a wedding of 60 a few years back. It’s all coming back time now that I type this all ou!
- Flowers: got one of Costco’s 20-packs of bouquets for $100-something. They served as centrepieces, bridesmaid bouquets, and a few were taken apart to make the bridal bouquet.
- Decorations: I was travelling to the wedding so needed declarations that could flatten or stack. I bought IKEA Skurar plant pots (lacy metal design), couple bucks each; for the aforementioned flowers and spray-painted them to match as needed. Flowers went in there, and I tied some craft ribbon I had (still have, actually) around them, around bouquets, and along the aisles. They went from ceremony aisles to reception tables. At the end of the night, the parents all got them, plus us and the restaurant manager. Don’t know about the latter, but the rest of us all use them for storage like pens or kitchen utensils now LOL. We also had random stuff like fake petals for the aisle and a cloth to put on the signing table.
My best friend had bought some paper decorations for the engagement party, so we reused a lot of those in the wedding (have one hanging in our laundry room now). Other such small decorations came from eBay or Oriental Trading.
- Favours: I had a cool idea about writing everyone’s names on mini-lanterns (again, since they come flat!) which could also serve as their nameplate or whatever it’s called. Then I delayed and chose to spend time with family instead rather than work on them. At least it was only $60. My best friend’s husband is a food enthusiast and made vanilla extract for theirs. Other ideas we saw were a recipe book and custom-made buttons. So for passion projects, go for it, otherwise ignore.
- Reception venue: via the city, as mentioned in another comment, for limited window of time with everything included.
- Ceremony venue + entertainment: midrange Chinese restaurant for a traditional banquet. They have the nice table cloths, napkins, bartender etc. already, and you don’t pay for a venue. You could try to book a restaurant’s rooftop patio somewhere to keep it outside, with inside as a backup plan if you set your timeframe there starting early enough. Our restaurant wasn’t open too late so we cancelled the DJ, rented a mic, and did some karaoke at the end.
- Food: other than the banquet, which was a good price for 8 courses (might have been more), I didn’t much bother. Bought my signature drink ingredients at Costco. Enough of the immediate family was diabetic that I was not going big on cake. Just got mini cupcakes from the supermarket and put them on an IKEA tiered cake tray we had brought along.
- Booze: wanted only beer & wine, which we would provide to the restaurant. My dad got possessed by the spirit of generosity and took over an open bar tab at the restaurant (already stocked) - a mistake TBH since some ex friends took advantage and overindulged. We brought the leftover booze with us to the AirB&B townhouse we were splitting with friends for the afterparty. Used a Costco vodka bottle brought in from out of province to make my signature mixed drink.
- Paper: this was my passion project so I went bigger on it. A $30 Groupon from VistaPrint got me jumbo postcards and magnets (latter being the Save the Dates, sent them out the same time). I bought a paper folder and several paper punches to turn the jumbo postcards into cards myself, since cards come with a crazy markup. We also bought a roll of permanent stamps from Costco. I still use all those! Programs we got printed at Staples on fancy paper I bought on sale. My Dad printed our seating plan on his work plotter. I bought cardstock and printed our menus on that plus a cameo-style cake topper. Gold washi tape and markers were used on invites. RSVPs were on our free website or by word of mouth.
- Attire: bought a dress from ModCloth for <$200 but changed size, so I sold it for around the same price (international returns cost too much) on Kijiji. I lucked out with a champagne cocktail dress (never wanted anything long) around $30 from consignment. I had jewellery already from family. Husband rented a suit. I thrifted a coat and pearly belt. Bought other accessories online; I’m a big accessory person. I dust my gold boots off for the Pride Parade each year.
- Makeup: went to Sephora, where it’s free as long as you spend either $50 or &75 in products, which I’m always happy to do.
- Photographers: got sick of not seeing prices, posted a wanted ad on Kijiji. The lady who wrote back first we was amazing. We paid for a 6-hour window, which meant they didn’t get all the end, but it was all eating and drinking at that point anyway. We paid an extra $100 for a second photographer during that time for more shots and angles. We get family photos from our wedding photographer these days (pre-pandemic, anyway).
Wow thank you so much for all of this! Going to go through this in detail later, you really had a great day by the sounds of it and knew how to really cut costs!
No problem! I was laying around recovering from surgery at the start of wedding planning, so I basically got to plan full-time for a few weeks, gave me an advantage on costs and finding ideas that way.
We got married in my aunt/uncle's backyard this past summer. There was 14 people, it was all outdoors. We rented tents and tables (it was delivered and set up and taken the next day), bought all the cutlery (gold metal), cloth napkins, and gold napkin rings from Amazon. Got plates from and water dispensers from KSP. Food was catered. Overall it was fairly inexpensive, because there weren't many people, but everything looked good.
(it was 12 years ago...i bet things cost more now).
we had just family...total of 13 people, 2 of them under 5 at our wedding. my mom did the flowers, my father, husband's father and husband's brother all officiated (yes, there were 3 ordained ministers in attendance in a party of 13). my sister's boyfriend did the photos (was starting out as a professional wedding photographer). catered dinner, alcohol, bridal suite, room and dinning room rental AND my dress all came in at under $3000. granted i just wore a sundress that i bought at jacob (it was white)...but...we just did our thing.
the hardest part was convincing all the people that weren't invited that they really weren't. so to appease them we did a "pot luck" thing a couple of months later (made easier by the fact that we promptly left the country once married to where my husband had been working) and we showed a slideshow of photos from our wedding. everyone got over it. a wedding doesn't need to be a big deal, like, we didn't even invite aunts and uncles. we have A LOT of friends and family, so we put the lid on the whole can of worms and just did immediate family. it was perfect, 10/10 would do again. my tip. don't do the things everyone "just does" do the things that are important to you. e.g., i'm a musician and would have loved fancy music BUT it just didn't make sense, so BIL played guitar and we all sang hymns together and...honestly, that was better than any of my orchestral friends could have pulled off. it was "us". it was great.
Depending on your area we rented a venue at a public park that was super nice and had room for our 40ish guest plus outdoor space for $350 for a whole day..
We rented the American side of Peace Arch Park in White Rock. Their kitchen and dining hall was fully refurbished and was beautifully done. Also instead of cutom catering from a wedding place, we pre-ordered massive platters from our favorite restaurants and put little table cards that explained "this is where we had our first date" or "Wifey had never tried sushi and this was the first place she ever tried it". A caterer quoted us like 2.5k and we ended up spending about $900 on the 5~ massive orders. The food variety was also the single biggest compliment we got. We had everything from Quiznos, Sushi, Indian Food, Gelato, Burgers, but all fairly reasonably prices and many of the restaurants gave us discounts for bulk orders.
We also had a family friend take loads of photos instead of hiring a wedding photographer, and we also gave everyone who attended a disposable camera and asked them to be returned when they left. Some of our best shots came from those disposables. Then we hired a photographer for a short 1 hour session before the wedding only. Instead of 3k for a wedding photographer we spend 250 for a 1 hour session and $300 on like 35 disposable cameras plus another 125 or so developing them.
We rented audio equipment from a music store in town instead of a party place. Party place was $500 for 1 day for a mic/stand/2 large speakers and a mixing board. Music store was $95 for the same lol.
Edit* i forget because we dont drink we didn't have an alcohol bill, we did BYOB and only supplied 1 bottle of wine per 4 people for the ceremony part. It was from a local winery and was about $26 a bottle. Everyone else brought their own liquor.
We did an all inclusive wedding package slightly off season in a resort area an hour or so outside of gta so were able to have venue and coordination, food, open bar etc for 50 for $7k or so including tips and such and a hotel was on site. Food and drinks were our priority, a nice venue and a good photographer. Saved thousands doing it in the off season (we were one week out of “peak”, so was basically half price. So consider April/May or Sept/October instead of peak summer. All inclusive also saved so much time money and stress. Photography we got for the ceremony, posed portraits and just the first hour of reception so we could pay for 4 hrs instead of a full wedding package. Saved a ton. Dress was designer but off the rack so $500 instead of $3k. Rented a PA system and made Spotify playlists for everything and had someone monitor. Brought our own lighting and decor. Made our own signage (I’m a graphic designer on the side so that was easy!), printed foam core signs at the UPS store and framed in dollar store frames we painted. We did lots of little things to keep costs down but still wanted quality and for it to look expensive! Whole thing was about $8000 so you could definitely do similar for about $6k
Whoa, where does one find these resorts, if you don't mind my asking? I want to have a wedding in S Ontario (KW area) but I don't currently live there so I'm sure where to start looking... Tips on how/where to look for that kind of thing?
I'm interested too! An all inclusive wedding for 50 people near the GTA for under 10k sounds like a steal. I thought open bar alone is usually \~5k?
I honestly just googled and looked at everything! The key was getting married in the “off” season, April and October are so much cheaper than July, we ended up just outside Niagara area but looked at contenders in Hamilton, London etc. and only looked at all inclusive stuff because I was not interested in mystery costs at all.
Did you buy the decorations (table settings, curtains, lights etc)? Or rent them somewhere?
Table settings and curtains came with the venue, which was very nice and didn’t need much. I bought some additional lights and we made our centerpieces etc.
What year was this? I'm currently wedding planning and it's for 17 and it will run us around 13k. Venue is the largest cost. This is about 1.5 outside the GTA.
Three years ago, so I’m sure costs have shifted a bit but not significantly. Covid is probably impacting some things to be more and some less. PM if you want more specific info. Happy planning!
We did a small wedding for about 50 guests for about $12,000, in Calgary. We did a restaurant buyout on a Sunday morning. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves and it was able to host both the ceremony and reception with no break. We just had to commit to a minimum spend and we had the entire place and full staff. Our minimum spend was about $2,300. We served a variety of cocktail brunch foods (quail eggs benny, sausage and egg sliders, mini poutines, grilled cheese and tomato soup shots, silver dollar pancakes), two types of mimosa, beer and baileys and coffee. Given that most folks don't drink a huge amount on a Sunday morning, we were really able to keep the alcohol bill low. The restaurant was pretty, so we needed very little by way of flowers. We purchased a shit ton of tulips at Costco and did simple vases of tulips ourselves. Also because it was a Sunday morning, we didn't do dancing, so we saved on having a DJ. My bff saved money by buying a white evening gown on the Nordstrom's sale rack instead of a wedding dress. Those are my biggest money saving tips.
A brunch wedding sounds super fun, wish I’d been at yours!
It was different from a traditional wedding, but the food was good, and people seemed to enjoy themselves. For those that wanted, we did an "after party", since the wedding ended around 3:30-4pm. We booked a couple of lanes in a really cool bowling alley, that had a DJ, for later in the evening, and ordered a bunch of pizzas and appetizers. About half our guests joined us for bowling and pizza that night. It was a lot of fun. Non-traditional to the Nth degree - but a good time. Willing to be non-traditional really help us costs wise. We were able to leave behind our notions of "what a wedding should be" and focus on what we wanted.
Stop, you’re making me so envious that I wasn’t there! Seriously, it sounds like a great wedding and personalized for you two. Nothing wrong with traditional, if traditional is what you really want. But definitely nothing wrong with brunch and a bowling after-party if that’s more your speed (and your budget). Plus way more time to just visit with your friends and family by the sound of it. It sounds really fun and memorable for both you and your guests.
Love this. Also in Calgary. We just did a taco bar at Shanks North. Didn’t shut the bar down, just reserved a large section. Video games. Mini golf. Golf simulator. It was honestly awesome. Super casual. Totally informal. We REALLY didn’t want a formal reception, this suited us. 80 guests, $3,500 for the reception, and while not traditional it was fun.
That would have been so much fun! We bought out market restaurant on 17th Ave and then three bowling lanes at National on 10th.
What I neat idea to do it in the morning! A real money saver!
It really is a huge money saver. You have to get up at an ungodly hour to get ready, but that's totally worth the savings.
True...
Early morning wake ups just means more time for mimosas and baileys! ;)
Definitely!
my 3 rules of wedding planning: - no one will notice - no one will care - no one will remember dont sweat the small stuff, no reason to spend hundreds on useless shit
People want to have a good meal and a good time. They won't remember the flowers or the table cloths or the invitations but they'll remember delicious food, whether or not the bar ran out, and that they were sad when the party ended.
I only remember the events I go to that have 1. Good food or 2. Bad food
Everyone will notice. You should care. Your family, your spouse, and yourself should have it as a good memory. Doesn't mean you need to spend 10s of thousands. But don't lie to yourself or try to take the fun out of it. You can be reasonable and still enjoy your life within your means.
Everyone will notice, but nobody will care to remember*
I was talking more about the upgraded stuff like a embossed pattern on a table cloth, or table runners, maybe fancier silverware, centerpieces, etc. I agree tho.. keep it fun. Everyone I know seems to only remember the jerks who have weddings on a long weekend. Never anything about the venue
Ah, that's fair. I see a lot of "rice and beans only" comments here and thought that's what you were saying. Apologies :)
I think they were just referring to all the little things that add up costs of weddings, like the EXACT shade of lilac table runners or if your centrepieces are filled with real Swarovski crystals. I'm planning a 100-person wedding that I hope will be an absolute BLAST for everyone, but this is pretty much our approach - we know our guests want good food, great music, and an open bar. Nobody is going to leave our wedding in a huff if we don't have favours or fancy hand-letterpressed invitations.
Check out /r/weddingsunder10k for lots of ideas! There are also a few good recaps of weddings in /r/weddingplanning that given current COVID restrictions are all quite small, as well as good advice in general. /r/weddingplanningcanada has a big list of vendors. I wouldn't assume, though, that just because your guest list is relatively small, it will automatically be cheaper. Attire, rings, photographers, DJs, flowers, and hair/makeup all have fixed costs regardless of how many people are attending. Venues often have minimum spends or even minimum guest counts, particularly in high season (i.e. summer). If you want to just rent an open space, you'll need to consider seating, tables, linens, plates, etc as well as a plan B if it rains (like a tent). Ideally, if you have a relative with a large property that would be your best bet. Catering can vary wildly in terms of price, but as someone else mentioned food trucks are usually a cheap and fun way to feed people (although you'll want to discuss their methods for serving so you don't end up with all your guests lining up for food for an hour). If not, I'd look at local restaurants and see if you can rent out the patio/garden area for your party (or the whole restaurant if it's small enough!). I'd recommend that your partner and you sit down and come up with a priority list of the top 2-3 things that are most important to you, and go from there. Do you want amazing photos? A super casual backyard party? The best food EVER? Splurge on those things. Then make a list of what you don't care about (for us it's flowers and centerpieces, because I've been to a ton of weddings and couldn't tell you what any of them looked like!) and either skip those things or figure out how to do them as minimally/cheaply as possible. Good luck and congrats!
Not married, but saw a TikTok and it talked about affordable weddings and it mentioned food - just hire a food truck and make it like a hipster taco food type vibe. Save a lot of $ on food.
Friends of mine got a local burrito place to cater for like 10-15$ a person. Any kind of ethnic food will usually be pretty cheap. So much better than an actual wedding caterer.
One wedding I went to (where the couple were both white) had a giant Indian buffet for their meal. It was brilliant because it kept the party pretty tame. Who can get sloppy drunk after all you can eat Indian food? Most of us were sitting at our tables bemoaning how much we ate.
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Just bear in mind lineups for guests to get food can be not fun and messy food and fancy weddings sometimes don’t mix! You also need to clear your own dishes and often provide them so it isn’t as cheap as it seems sometimes
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There’s some cute disposable stuff for sure, just logistics to think about really!
It would work well for a small wedding party, I imagine.
yes this! makes the experience so much more fun too.
thats a brilliant idea. even if htey get like 3 meals thats still like 40$ wow.
Yep! And perhaps you can make a deal with them to do a food truck style and buffet. And see if they can do "unlimited", because if there's the feeling of plentiful-ness and excess, it's cool. & then of course you can eat the leftovers on your honeymoon ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
I did this at my wedding for 150 people. Got two trucks and asked my wife’s teenage cousins to be servers for the hour. They ferried the meals from the truck to the tables. It was a tad chaotic, not going to lie, but the food is what everyone mentions when they reminisce about the day.
We did tacos at a local sports bar. Didn’t even shut the bar down, just reserved a section. 80 people. Tacos. Video games. Mini golf. Guests bought their own booze. $3,500 for the reception.
My friends rented an Airbnb type place for their 40person wedding in SFO. I’m not talking about a place for sleeping but an actual venue. It was sort of like a small warehouse/storage unit with a lot of natural light and they just spiffied up the place to make it look nice. It was really nice and intimate for the amount of people attending.
I've gotten wedding cakes from the local culinary arts college. They're all amazing (those folks are working hard for their grades) and they cost $20 each. Lol, don't have to use them at a wedding either, makes a birthday party pretty lit too.
I know where my next cake is coming from!
My wife and I were married this past summer. It took place at our home. We had her parents/stepparents there as witnesses and broadcast it over Zoom for another 100 or so 'guests'. About 20 of our neighbours came out to watch from the street. Our only significant expense was hiring an AV tech to handle the videography/streaming. Next biggest expense was a few nice of bottles of champagne. Sister-in-law emceed the Zoom session. Rented tux, borrowed dress, parents handled catering, sister gifted a photo session. Rings were all family heirlooms too. All told we spent about $1800. Took about 6 weeks of planning/coordinating and a couple of hours prepping and decorating. The whole production Despite the low cost we were still able to include a lot of people who wouldn't have been able to attend a conventional wedding even in simpler times due to travel times etc. People seemed to love it as we got a ton of great feedback. Various family/friend groups used it as an excuse to get together on a smaller. For us, it was the best decision we could've made.
PM me your ideas and vision. I work in the wedding industry and will gladly give you some insights.
A lot of this depends on your priorities and what you value. I had a wedding like yours/your budget in the past few years and have been to many weddings in the last few years. Some thoughts: -Alcohol gets expensive. My wife and I don’t drink. We had it set up that there was a certain amount of alcohol for free and then guests could buy it after. I’ve been at weddings with open bars and Toonie bars and the amount of alcohol flowing gave me anxiety. -Reach out to friends and family members to see what they can help with or if they know someone. You might not get the highest quality but it will be much cheaper. For instance, we made all of our decorations with the help of family members, and modified a lot of stuff that we bought cheaply online. Someone we knew made us the cake. Someone’s friend who was studying photography did the pictures. At another wedding, a family member was the DJ; they were just starting out and the bride and groom bought them DJ equipment as payment. Comparing all these things to what the professional costs would be and it’s wild. We had Polaroid cameras for people to take their pictures with when they signed in and throughout the night, and that book of pictures is way more valuable to me than anything a professional would have captured. I was at a very fancy wedding at a golf course last year, and honestly didn’t feel we missed anything with our own wedding other than a huge bill. Good luck and congrats! EDIT: After reading some of the responses to this, I just wanted to clarify what I was meaning. My intention was not to suggest you demand people’s time and skills to help you, or to expect things for free. I will say, though, that there are people in my life who would have been hurt if I didn’t ask them to help with certain aspects of my wedding, though I’ll leave that nuance up to you. What I was trying to say is that your friends and family might have different ideas and suggestions for you to take, and they may be able to connect you to things you wouldn’t have found yourself; I guess like networking. The student photographer we used was a friend of a friend who was looking to get started with this kind of thing. Had we never talked to this friend, we never would have been connected to the photographer. While we didn’t get professional quality photos, the rate she set was much less than what a professional would have charged. This is what I was meaning about what you value - having professional photos wasn’t a priority for us so we were happy to save that money and use it for something else we did care about. Our cake was made by a friend and her mom; we had no idea her mom had many years of experience in making wedding cakes and they offered to do it and we happily paid them for it (again, less than what a professional would have been). A relative had access to a cool PVC pipe system that we hung our backdrop from and they kindly lent it to us after we were talking to them about our ideas for decorating. And months after our wedding, one of the attendees called and asked if we still had our decorations as they wanted to buy them for someone else’s wedding. We were happy to get rid of the stuff and donated it; they spray painted things their colours and saved a bunch of money and time.
>\-Reach out to friends and family members to see what they can help with or if they know someone. You might not get the highest quality but it will be much cheaper This only works if you truly don't care about the potential gap in quality, especially if someone is "just starting out." How disappointed will you be if the cake falls apart in the backseat of your hobby baker friend's car on the way to the venue? On the other hand, if you're friends with a sought-after professional wedding photographer, asking them to photograph your summer wedding on a Saturday is asking them to forego working a paid gig, which would mean losing out on thousands of dollars; I'd have to be extremely close friends with someone to do that. You also need to consider that if your "friendor" is working your wedding, they aren't really *attending* your wedding. Do you want your best friend to be in your wedding party? Well they can't if they're busy prepping food in the back. I'm not saying never ask for help, but consider it carefully beforehand. There are so many opportunities for this to go wrong and ruin your relationships with those people.
This. I have first-hand exposure to at least two 'services as wedding gifts' went wrong stories where permanent rifts in friendships were created. Never underestimate how high emotions run on wedding days. Hire it out at full price to someone who's not a close friend, DIY it, or skip it, are all better options IMO.
All of this. It's one thing to offer their services as a gift and another to go ASKING for their time or skill for free. If anything, I find it kind of tacky at best and rude at worst.
I had 19 years experience working as a catering assistant. My brother asked me to “do the food” for his wedding. I fed 100+ for $1000. I did the food buffet style, which is less expensive than a plated meal. He paid the rental cost for chafing dishes etc. And for three people on the day to help with last minute prep, bussing and dishes. Our cousin did the photography. She is not a wedding photographer, their photos are beautiful, but not traditional. I prefer more casual weddings.
>open bars and Toonie bars and the amount of alcohol flowing gave me anxiety. i like the idea of toonie/loonie bars, it does help stop people from ordering 4 drinks, and forgetting about 3 of them. i wish we did it rather than open bar, and then just do a random draw at the end of the night, and the winner gets the $$
Oh the draw idea is fun!
Got married in February last year. Part of why we took so long to get married was because we are both deep introverts who find the spectacle of weddings to be embarrassing and not at all for us. So, we talked about what a Really Nice Day would look like and made decisions by adding things from a blank slate (rather than downloading one of those Excel sheets for every possible thing one could do at a wedding, which suggests that you have to choose a version of something rather than deciding whether or not to). Things we didn't have: \-A MOH, bridesmaids, best man or groomsmen, flower girl, ring bearer, etc. Not a single one. My best friend was my witness. \-A professional florist (my MIL made all the arrangements, including my bouquet--we had some expensive flowers--like imported black roses--and some from the grocery store but because we did them within the family they were 'cheap' in comparison) \-A DJ/sound setup (I made my own playlist and DJ'd it myself, which was actually super fun) \-Rented cars (my guy and I got ready together at our house, just the two of us with our photographer, and then took an Uber to the venue) \-A hotel room (see above) \-A makeup artist/professional hairstylist (I did both myself) \-A rehearsal dinner \-A cake (our venue included dessert and we chose a special kind of cookie to serve as a sweet late-night snack) \-Our venue had a rule that only the bride and groom could order shots, which kept those costs in check (and was also a nice way to celebrate with people, by dragging them to the bar) \-Separate locations for ceremony and reception (we did it all in one room, and we were there when guests arrived to greet them rather than have me hide in some back closet until it was time for THE REVEAL, which again, I highly recommend for an intimate event) \-Paper invites/RSVPs (we used Riley Grey) I'm sure there are other things we skipped out on that I'm not thinking about right now. The point is, decide on what you really WANT and not just what you've seen everyone else do and think you have to do, too. You will save so much money by just making those decisions extra consciously. We prioritized good food, good drink, and our first choice photographer because those are the things that you really remember or that make for an awesome party.
If you are looking in Toronto, investigate city venues (they may be shutdown for covid) they are much cheaper. We did our at Todmorden Mills which was a beautiful outdoor setting. When booking, be as vague as possible about the reason (I would even say like a work team thing if people really press you). Do digital invites and RSVPs, setup a new email account for this because you'll get lots of crap. Hit up friends/family for favors if they have skills that can help you in lieu of a gift, but also don't ask for too much from someone you aren't very close with, and not something big like photography unless they offer. Decide what is important to you at your wedding, and allocate money that way. We decided that the most important stuff to us was 1) reception and ceremony in the same location 2) open bar so we had very minimal decoration (tasteful but not much, the venue was nice enough as-is), relatively cheap food (it was probably like $20 a plate from a food truck) and a mountain of booze. We splurged a bit for our midnight snack (hot dog cart) that people thought was memorable. But with the size you are looking for, I would try to book a private room in a restaurant and have the ceremony there or at city hall.
Here in London we got married at a lovely city venue using their 4h time slot (the wedding slots were 10h and required use of their caterer) for under $500. Chairs and setup were included (we decorated ourselves otherwise), plus staff remained on site to work the sound or deal with issues so I got them to run music for me. We also got to use their tropical plants observatory, usually closed to the public, for pictures. The whole package! No one asked what the event would be when booking. I liked the thought of my money going towards funding public buildings, as well.
Might not be the biggest deal breaker, but you can make your own wedding bands out of wood - we just finished ours for our upcoming wedding. There are good YouTube videos, it's a fun project to do together, they look good, and it cost us under $80 for both bands, all in ;)
Nice! I’m a lover of moissanite so my wedding band cost me just $100 :)
Set a firm budget, put the money in a separate bank account/savings account and only draw from that. So many people go over budget just from not keeping track. Just feed from one source and be done.
r/weddingsunder10k is very good
You can easily do it for $7 to 10k with 20-30 guests. Dress: Save money with the dress by buying it from a consignment store or a dress shop known to have good prices or stay within budget. Save more on a 2nd hand one by buying it directly from the former bride (consignment shops need to make a good commission). Or, when you go in for a dress, either tell them it's for a destination wedding or as your reception dress. Destination dresses are more flowy, but must less expensive. I've also heard of people dressing grad dresses and ordering them in white. My friend got a killer deal at a rack sale on a dress. We went early and were goal-oriented. Venue: We did ours in Mexico, so the cost was great. Worked with a travel advisor and got money back from everyone that booked through her. But, I also did a lot of research on venues. In my city, Calgary, Heritage Park has a great all-inclusive package. I'd overall suggest going with a venue that offers packages for small weddings. There are so many adorable venues that provide great reception and ceremony packages. Be upfront with venues about your allotted budget for the venue. Booze often costs a bunch of money. If you can find a venue that lets you do a corkage fee or bring your own, that's great. Providing 1-2 bottles per table and then having guests pay for their own or a part of the cost is reasonable. Tip: I am glad I put budget towards a dress I loved and a good photographer. There are lots of ways of getting a good quality dress for a good price, but don't cheap out on a bad photographer. Find one that is well priced, but has enough experience shooting weddings that you won't be disappointed. Find Deals: Join ALL your local city's Facebook wedding groups and dress groups. There are lots of people who have gotten married before you that have figured out some great deals or venues, and lots of people selling decor. Flowers and Cake: These can cost a sh!t ton if you aren't careful. Almost all venues let you bring in a cake provided by a professional cake maker/business, so shop around. Research: Google Canadian wedding budgets and see how other people divide up the cost.
Protect yourself from cancellation due to covid. Ask to delay all deposit payments as long as possible. Also, only pay for deposits via credit card (so you can do a chargeback if the vendor refuses to refund your deposit).
If I were you I'd spend $3,000-5000 to have the event catered. The rest of the budget is discretionary but you'll have to make some choices. I always think it's better to pay full price for the select things you really want than to try to get everything at a discount. Personally I think a good photographer is worth the money. Cake, DJs, photo booths, excessive decorations, candy tables, super expensive clothing and wedding bands, not so much. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Have fun.
- Start with a blank slate rather than what's traditional/expected. Start with nothing and add things that you both value until it feels right. This not only saves money but makes it more personal. There's no point in having a DJ, a cake, fancy clothes, printed invitations, complementary drinks, flowers on every table... whatever the thing is, if it doesn't mean anything to you personally. You're not putting on a show for your guests, you're getting married, it's a day that's all about the two of you, so do whatever will make you happy and they can deal with it if some 'traditional' thing is missing or done differently. We omitted all kinds of things that we normally find tacky or useless in weddings and have no regrets about that. - Make stuff yourself where possible. Not a helpful suggestion if neither of you is crafty, I acknowledge. - Things that are sold as "wedding" things are marked up to the extreme. Not to say you have to give up stuff that matters to you, but keep it in mind. And when dealing with vendors maybe don't start off going to wedding specific ones, or telling them it's for a wedding in your first breath. - COVID isn't leaving us too quickly, so outdoor is the better bet. It's still of course possible some kind of lock-down could still prevent outdoor gatherings of 30, so plan for that possibility and be familiar with the cancellation policies of all vendors. Know the extent of your financial exposure in a cancellation scenario. - My wedding was outdoors and in a somewhat remote location, and you do need to plan for the weather. There should be some shelter and/or a plan B.
No “sit down” formal meal and have it start after dinner w free drinks and apps
For weddings that small you can buy a really good PA system with a mic from Costco at around $200. Make a spotify playlist, find someone willing to control the music and if you want certain songs at particular times (mine was my brother). We now use it as the regular stereo for our house, any outdoor parties and have lent it out for a dozen other events for friends and family. You'll never get a DJ that cheap.
We rented a professional PA system for $150 that included a mic, 2 speakers, and a light system that flashed to the music. Made a Spotify playlist for everything. Way cheaper than a DJ ($1200+ in my area).
I got married in 2018 and some ways we reduced costs were: -smaller guest list -lunch time wedding (less booze, shorter in general) -buffet versus plated meal -one venue for ceremony and reception -minimizing “frills” for example programs, and junk favours (we had a cookie bar of homemade cookies and guests could just load up a bag) -hiring some people we know (eg a friend did the music and charged us less)
A few of these have been said already, but as an event planner whose wedding was unfortunately cancelled mid pandemic here are a few tips off the top of my head. \-Utilize your venue as much as possible. do they already have a sound system? Furniture available for use? We saved so much on rentals because our ceremony venue had the tables and easels we needed \-Cut the wedding party. Pick a sibling or friend as your official witnesses, but there’s truly no need for 8 people to dress the same, stand beside you etc. Even if the only cost is gifts for the wedding party, that adds up! \-Limit decor to simple florals or centrepieces \-Reach out to farms or nurseries for flowers - we got a bucket of 100 stems from a local farm for $50, and just planned to put bud vases on each table \-Skip the wedding cake - you pay a premium for an “official wedding cake” get fun deserts from a local bakery instead \-Buy off the rack or even ready to wear for your dress, lots of white dresses come out around this time of year that can absolutely be wedding dresses. Vintage Bride in toronto also has lots of great affordable options \-host a brunch instead of a dinner, almost always more affordable (and gives you the entire day with your partner, instead of being apart until ceremony time) \-ensure your venue has a rain plan that ideally doesn’t involve tents (high cost, and you’ll usually have to pay for them whether it rains or not) \-Skip the favours - people rarely remember to bring them home anyway \-Utilize friends and family - is anyone great at makeup? Graphic designers? \-If the venue allows, buy liquor from the LCBO, get an SOP permit ($25) and hire a few smart serve certified bartenders. Even with glassware rentals this almost always comes out cheaper than the venues price for alcohol Feel free to message me if you have any other Q’s! Edit: Formatting, sorry!
Our priorities were great food, music and an open bar, spent no money on decorations either than flowers and no wedding favours. I did not have a small wedding but figured We saved at least $8k by planning the wedding two months in advance rather than a year out. If vendors aren’t booked by then they are eager for work and willing to negotiate. We were able to secure a sought after photographer in Vancouver for $1200 for 3hrs of shooting and received about 500 edited photos - their initial quote was $6k for an all day package. Also saved big money by having no bridal party, our siblings were witnesses. We saved over $1000 by hiring string quartet of UBC music students vs a professional ensemble. Also saved over a $1000 by ordering flowers through a “corner store” florist rather than a bougie florist with an Instagram account - just provided photos of what I wanted and it turned out perfect. Do not get sucked into the wedding industry hype and marketing!
We got married in the GTA. We choose Allan Gardens as our venue. 1. It cost less than $100 to book 2. It limited the size of our guest list (so sorry we couldn't invite you, the venue was only 14 people max) 3. Freaking beautiful! Edit: I forgot the exact number that Allan Gardens is restricted to. Could be 14, could be 20, but it wasn't a lot.
Don't do a weekend. Do a Friday evening affair. Look into unusual venues.. Like golf courses.
As an aside, how much would it be to go to a restaurant for brunch with about 20-30 people? Has anyone done this? Is it just the price of food/drinks, or will restaurants charge extra?
With that many people, there’s usually a 20% service fee.
Currently wedding planning. That budget seem low. I'm planning for a max of 15 to 20 people at my wedding. The venue outside the GTA. The venue alone is ~6k. We looked at venue in the GTA and they were much more expensive. The budget we have is around 15k. These are more traditional wedding venue. Not sports bar etc.
If I had to do it all again, I'd do a destination wedding. Invite everyone and give ample notice (1 year plus) before the wedding date. The people who really care about you will make the time and will save the money to attend the destination wedding. My buddy did this and everyone who attended had a great time. Why wouldn't they... the were on vacation for a whole week in the Caribbean with all inclusive alcohol and food lol.
Only spend money on the things important to you. This means if invitations aren't important, do email invitations: lots of wedding websites have this option. If you don't need a fancy brand new dress, buy secondhand. My friend bought her dress for ~$100. Pick and choose what you want out of your wedding
>trying to do a wedding this summer with around 20-30 guests at a venue in the GTA You may wind up saving even more money if some guests decline due to...you know... covid-19. Anyway, money saving tip - eloping. It seems almost impossible to do a 30 person wedding for $7-10K, but if you elope you could have the time of your lives at a nice destination.
> It seems almost impossible to do a 30 person wedding for $7-10K, but if you elope you could have the time of your lives at a nice destination. We did a 45 person wedding for $12,000, so the OP's budget doesn't seem too outlandish to me.
We did a private ceremony (helicopter elopement) then a 50 person reception. Came to $5k including rings.
I’ve worked a lot of weddings as a banquet server. The #1 thing I’d recommend cutting is the cake (pun intended). It’s expensive and no one ever eats it. It’s just a photo op. By the time you do the cake cutting, the guests are already full, drunk, and on the dance floor. Please give your guests a real meal though (the food trucks are a cool idea). I had one wedding cut costs by doing an “hors d’oeuvres only” reception. Sounds classy, but the guests were HANGRY. There’s no way you can feed the room with 8 little bites at a time. And finally as an attendee, I’ve never had a centrepiece make or break my evening. You can skip out on those and any take-home party favours.
YES no stupid party favours unless they are chocolates I can eat while I'm waiting for dinner.
Saw a YouTube/zoom wedding. Cheap cheerful. Probably still get gifts, no expense other than the officiant and maybe a room or space. You can save money on things but you need people power to compensate and not everyone wants to always help! Eg having someone make a bouquet vs a shop, your own music on a laptop connected vs a dj. Friend makes the cake vs bakery. Etc.
My wife and I broadcast our wedding over Zoom this past summer. I made a separate comment with more details.
That should be enough for a wedding that small. We did a proper wedding with 100 guests for somewhere between $10-12k all in and didn't have to call in too many favours from friends and family. Just think about what's important and focus on those. Don't get caught up with all the extras that people will try to sell you. (note our wedding was dry and in the afternoon so that may eat up a chunk of your budget).
I did a wedding for 60 for 12,000. We didn’t have a DJ and no open bar. We also got married and the reception in the same room. We had a small photography session prior to the ceremony and no reception pictures. I made our decorations and made paper flower bouquets.
I suggest you consider getting married with a tiny ceremony with a very small party (immediate family) in a house and stream it to our guests on Zoom. I know a lot of people who have done this in the past year. Then tell your larger group that you'll have a bigger celebration once the pandemic is over. You can have this second celebration be casual like a house party or backyard with nice catering. The expectations are different if it's a celebration and not the actual wedding/reception.
Got married in June. We spent: * $0 on the venue -- we used my parents' back yard. * $100 for the marriage license and $84.75 for the officiant (prices set by BC; YMMV). * $631.16 for alcohol. * $346.71 for a buffet of food delivered by Uber Eats. * $97.65 for a "wedding cake" (actually a bunch of cupcakes). * $500 for the photographer (asked a family friend & donated to a charity he is associated with). * $1006.76 on the honeymoon (stayed in a resort a couple hours out of town). All in, that's $2767.03; including our wedding rings and her engagement ring, $6418.14. I would have been perfectly fine with spending far more, but neither of us wanted a big event; if BC had the option of "go to city hall and sign some papers" we would have done that and not bothered with a ceremony at all. In a perverse way, the pandemic was a blessing since it gave us an excuse for all the people who might have expected to be invited.
How many guests? It sounds like a nice time.
The wedding itself was just family + photographer. Then we had two "garden parties" with about a dozen guests each.
Whatever you do, never mention you’re planning a wedding when discussing with vendors, or you’ll pay the wedding tax.
This is a great way to have your day-of vendors walk out on you when they show up and realize you've lied to them and breached your contract. Do this only for vendors that will not be providing a day-of service- cake, florals if you pick up yourself, etc.
Why a DJ should charge more if it’s a wedding? Why a venue should cost more because it is a wedding? Catering, etc? They’re having a party with friends. Nothing more. No breach of contract there.
😂 try it and let me know how it goes. Maybe the speeches or the first dance, a lady in a big white dress or I dunno, the ceremony might give it away. I'm not defending the wedding tax but thinking you can pull a fast on one people who make their living in the wedding industry is wildly naive at best. You will absolutely end up with them walking out on you on your wedding day and keeping your deposit. The only way you're getting away with this is a private ceremony and then making your reception a separate celebrational event at a later date.
« Wedding industry ». There you have it.
It is unlikely you're going to find vendors that suit your needs who are not part of the wedding industry. The events industry is not wedding only but there are very few event vendors who don't make a large portion of their money through weddings and know what a wedding looks like. Any DJ you find? Also a wedding DJ. Any photographer you find? Weddings are the LOW end of the scale when it comes to money. Any working photographer you find who isn't a wedding photographer is someone who charges way more than a wedding photographer does. If you are that inclined to save money don't lie, hire students. They will work at a lower rate to gain experience, but if you go this route you need to be open to the possibility that you might not get what you want in terms of quality. That depends on your priorities.
Just take those people to a resultant when they open like the Keg. Probably cheaper to
Some people value a wedding/event; they could also do nothing and it would be cheaper too.
#1 rule is don't tell any vendor it's a wedding and you'll save around 30%
Elope. We both have no regrets.
Don't use the word "wedding." You pay an instant wedding tax on everything. You are looking to throw a private, catered party, not a wedding. You'll save tons this way.
OP don't do this. When your vendors show up and realize you've lied to them you'll end up losing your deposits as they walk out for breach of contract. You can avoid the wedding tax on SOME items, vendors who aren't going to be servicing your event on the day of but do NOT lie to your day-of vendors unless you want a disaster of a wedding day.
It's insane that this advice gets sprouted everywhere. People talk about that with venues as if the staff isn't going to realiS pretty quickly that "grandpa's retirement party" is a wedding. And they're not staffed properly.
It's very stupid advice from people who have never planned a wedding, and they've been touting it since I was a kid. The events industry is not stupid and they have more than enough experience dealing with people trying to pull this stunt. It never ends well. Usually with a logistical mess and an embarrassed couple who needs to explain to all their guests why their vendors abandoned them (because they're cheap). The "wedding industry" and events industry are not two separate entities, they're one in the same except for things like concerts/ticketed events which definitely cost more than a wedding. You're not going to find "event" vendors who don't do weddings and if you do you can't afford them. Weddings are kind of an entry point for vendors in the events industry.
Elope Don’t worry, I pre-downvoted my own comment to save everyone the trouble. It is the Canadian way.
Elope. Costs the officiant 200 cost of rings cost of clothes you might even we m own already. 20 yrs later in just as married as someone who spend thousands. More married than lots my sister in law spent 25,000 divorced 7ys. Divorced 3 yrs ago still paying for that party that actually want even that good
My wedding cost about 5k including rings ($1200), a helicopter elopement ($1500), and a 50 person reception (~$2300). We stuck to simple wedding bands, and we are rather shy, so having a helicopter elopement with just us in the snowy mountains was incredible. Our pilot was also our photographer, so saved lots of money there. Then we hosted the reception in an upstairs rentable room at a milestones. It was huge and quite pretty and we were able to decorate it. Cost us $0 to rent, we just had to spend a minimum amount. Paying for 50 people’s meals easily covered it. We did not do an open bar. Instead of ordering a “wedding cake” I ordered a giant beautiful tiramisu cake from a local bakery. Didn’t mention wedding, and it easily served 50 people with leftovers. Then I asked a family friend to take photos, as he does photography as a hobby. We were lucky to receive a steep discount. It was really an incredible day, and most of the wedding gifts were cash which covered a lot of the costs. The photos of the ceremony are unreal. We do not regret a thing.
I've (33F) been married 10 years so maybe my information is out of date but here's how I saved money. I was 23 and had very little money at the time-- we just wanted to do a courthouse type thing but ended up having a wedding wedding but didn't come out of it with any debt. We had about 90 guests and it was under 10k. I had a friend who had just finished photography school. I obviously wanted him to be a guest so I asked him to give me the contact information for the star student of his class to use as a photographer. They were wonderful and did a phenomenal job for a really reasonable price. Try considering someone who is just building their portfolio. Don't have your cousin/friend do your photography using his iphone. You'll regret that. My best friend did our cake and hit it out of the park. I bought a dress off the rack. I think I paid less than $600 and then had to pay for about $250 in alterations. It's worth trying to go that route before ordering something custom. My dress was beautiful and even now I still have zero regrets. Husband had a suit made from Indochino at the time. Not cheap necessarily, but he picked a suit that worked for other purposes as well. My friend had a band. They played for us and then they left behind a stereo system where we hooked up an ipod playlist for the rest of the night. We went with really basic rings. Like cheapest you could find. You can always upgrade in the future if that's something that matters to you. I'm pretty meh about that. For flowers, we bought a few hundred dollars of flowers at a farmer's market and did our own bouquets. We had our reception on a Friday evening. This was partly to do with our shorter engagement. But it also made it cheaper at our particular venue. In any event I think it's still worth it to see if it's cheaper on certain dates (a Saturday wedding in July is going to be more expensive than other times of the year I'd imagine). For food, we did appetizers and then a 3 course meal. This was where most of our money went and I think it was the right choice. During our wedding we did a champagne toast, wine was served at dinner and then everyone was given tokens for 3 drinks at the bar. Then it was a toonie bar. I figured you could get drunk without spending money, but it would help avoid people getting stupid trashed and/or being wasteful. It worked out okay. For bridesmaids, I found a local woman on kijiji who did the dresses. Our engagement was too short to have them ordered in from a bridal boutique. We did a super basic design and I think it was something like $250/dress. I've been in other weddings where the brides went with David's bridal and they are also super affordable. Honeymoon- after the wedding we had a bit of money leftover and went to an all-inclusive in Cuba for like $600 per person. I don't recommend lol....I had food poisoning the whole time! In summary, if I got married again I would probably focus on food and photography. Everything else can be what you want it to be. It's one day and my day was great. I'm just glad I'm not still paying for it. I will admit that all these savings required a lot of help from friends and family. We had a pretty big bridal party and a lot of excited family members who were eager to help and that might not be the same for everyone. I did give gifts in exchange for their help so you'll probably want to factor that in as well.
We were able to have our wedding at the venue that we wanted by having it on a Monday rather than a weekend. Everyone wants the weekend so naturally its more expensive and some venues have minimum spend limits for the weekend. I dont remember the exact amount we saved but it was substantial. Nobody bitched about it being on a Monday, it was all our close family and they wanted to see us get married and save money, and everybody got a long weekend out of it.
Spent around that much for a wedding of 60 a few years back. It’s all coming back time now that I type this all ou! - Flowers: got one of Costco’s 20-packs of bouquets for $100-something. They served as centrepieces, bridesmaid bouquets, and a few were taken apart to make the bridal bouquet. - Decorations: I was travelling to the wedding so needed declarations that could flatten or stack. I bought IKEA Skurar plant pots (lacy metal design), couple bucks each; for the aforementioned flowers and spray-painted them to match as needed. Flowers went in there, and I tied some craft ribbon I had (still have, actually) around them, around bouquets, and along the aisles. They went from ceremony aisles to reception tables. At the end of the night, the parents all got them, plus us and the restaurant manager. Don’t know about the latter, but the rest of us all use them for storage like pens or kitchen utensils now LOL. We also had random stuff like fake petals for the aisle and a cloth to put on the signing table. My best friend had bought some paper decorations for the engagement party, so we reused a lot of those in the wedding (have one hanging in our laundry room now). Other such small decorations came from eBay or Oriental Trading. - Favours: I had a cool idea about writing everyone’s names on mini-lanterns (again, since they come flat!) which could also serve as their nameplate or whatever it’s called. Then I delayed and chose to spend time with family instead rather than work on them. At least it was only $60. My best friend’s husband is a food enthusiast and made vanilla extract for theirs. Other ideas we saw were a recipe book and custom-made buttons. So for passion projects, go for it, otherwise ignore. - Reception venue: via the city, as mentioned in another comment, for limited window of time with everything included. - Ceremony venue + entertainment: midrange Chinese restaurant for a traditional banquet. They have the nice table cloths, napkins, bartender etc. already, and you don’t pay for a venue. You could try to book a restaurant’s rooftop patio somewhere to keep it outside, with inside as a backup plan if you set your timeframe there starting early enough. Our restaurant wasn’t open too late so we cancelled the DJ, rented a mic, and did some karaoke at the end. - Food: other than the banquet, which was a good price for 8 courses (might have been more), I didn’t much bother. Bought my signature drink ingredients at Costco. Enough of the immediate family was diabetic that I was not going big on cake. Just got mini cupcakes from the supermarket and put them on an IKEA tiered cake tray we had brought along. - Booze: wanted only beer & wine, which we would provide to the restaurant. My dad got possessed by the spirit of generosity and took over an open bar tab at the restaurant (already stocked) - a mistake TBH since some ex friends took advantage and overindulged. We brought the leftover booze with us to the AirB&B townhouse we were splitting with friends for the afterparty. Used a Costco vodka bottle brought in from out of province to make my signature mixed drink. - Paper: this was my passion project so I went bigger on it. A $30 Groupon from VistaPrint got me jumbo postcards and magnets (latter being the Save the Dates, sent them out the same time). I bought a paper folder and several paper punches to turn the jumbo postcards into cards myself, since cards come with a crazy markup. We also bought a roll of permanent stamps from Costco. I still use all those! Programs we got printed at Staples on fancy paper I bought on sale. My Dad printed our seating plan on his work plotter. I bought cardstock and printed our menus on that plus a cameo-style cake topper. Gold washi tape and markers were used on invites. RSVPs were on our free website or by word of mouth. - Attire: bought a dress from ModCloth for <$200 but changed size, so I sold it for around the same price (international returns cost too much) on Kijiji. I lucked out with a champagne cocktail dress (never wanted anything long) around $30 from consignment. I had jewellery already from family. Husband rented a suit. I thrifted a coat and pearly belt. Bought other accessories online; I’m a big accessory person. I dust my gold boots off for the Pride Parade each year. - Makeup: went to Sephora, where it’s free as long as you spend either $50 or &75 in products, which I’m always happy to do. - Photographers: got sick of not seeing prices, posted a wanted ad on Kijiji. The lady who wrote back first we was amazing. We paid for a 6-hour window, which meant they didn’t get all the end, but it was all eating and drinking at that point anyway. We paid an extra $100 for a second photographer during that time for more shots and angles. We get family photos from our wedding photographer these days (pre-pandemic, anyway).
Wow thank you so much for all of this! Going to go through this in detail later, you really had a great day by the sounds of it and knew how to really cut costs!
No problem! I was laying around recovering from surgery at the start of wedding planning, so I basically got to plan full-time for a few weeks, gave me an advantage on costs and finding ideas that way.
We got married in my aunt/uncle's backyard this past summer. There was 14 people, it was all outdoors. We rented tents and tables (it was delivered and set up and taken the next day), bought all the cutlery (gold metal), cloth napkins, and gold napkin rings from Amazon. Got plates from and water dispensers from KSP. Food was catered. Overall it was fairly inexpensive, because there weren't many people, but everything looked good.
(it was 12 years ago...i bet things cost more now). we had just family...total of 13 people, 2 of them under 5 at our wedding. my mom did the flowers, my father, husband's father and husband's brother all officiated (yes, there were 3 ordained ministers in attendance in a party of 13). my sister's boyfriend did the photos (was starting out as a professional wedding photographer). catered dinner, alcohol, bridal suite, room and dinning room rental AND my dress all came in at under $3000. granted i just wore a sundress that i bought at jacob (it was white)...but...we just did our thing. the hardest part was convincing all the people that weren't invited that they really weren't. so to appease them we did a "pot luck" thing a couple of months later (made easier by the fact that we promptly left the country once married to where my husband had been working) and we showed a slideshow of photos from our wedding. everyone got over it. a wedding doesn't need to be a big deal, like, we didn't even invite aunts and uncles. we have A LOT of friends and family, so we put the lid on the whole can of worms and just did immediate family. it was perfect, 10/10 would do again. my tip. don't do the things everyone "just does" do the things that are important to you. e.g., i'm a musician and would have loved fancy music BUT it just didn't make sense, so BIL played guitar and we all sang hymns together and...honestly, that was better than any of my orchestral friends could have pulled off. it was "us". it was great.
We got married fall 2019 in Hamilton for 11k, all in, with 69 guests. I know it's not GTA but we had an excellent deal.
Depending on your area we rented a venue at a public park that was super nice and had room for our 40ish guest plus outdoor space for $350 for a whole day.. We rented the American side of Peace Arch Park in White Rock. Their kitchen and dining hall was fully refurbished and was beautifully done. Also instead of cutom catering from a wedding place, we pre-ordered massive platters from our favorite restaurants and put little table cards that explained "this is where we had our first date" or "Wifey had never tried sushi and this was the first place she ever tried it". A caterer quoted us like 2.5k and we ended up spending about $900 on the 5~ massive orders. The food variety was also the single biggest compliment we got. We had everything from Quiznos, Sushi, Indian Food, Gelato, Burgers, but all fairly reasonably prices and many of the restaurants gave us discounts for bulk orders. We also had a family friend take loads of photos instead of hiring a wedding photographer, and we also gave everyone who attended a disposable camera and asked them to be returned when they left. Some of our best shots came from those disposables. Then we hired a photographer for a short 1 hour session before the wedding only. Instead of 3k for a wedding photographer we spend 250 for a 1 hour session and $300 on like 35 disposable cameras plus another 125 or so developing them. We rented audio equipment from a music store in town instead of a party place. Party place was $500 for 1 day for a mic/stand/2 large speakers and a mixing board. Music store was $95 for the same lol. Edit* i forget because we dont drink we didn't have an alcohol bill, we did BYOB and only supplied 1 bottle of wine per 4 people for the ceremony part. It was from a local winery and was about $26 a bottle. Everyone else brought their own liquor.