Weddings on a Shoestring Budget

In my previous post, we discussed the different places to have the wedding ceremony.  This segways into where to have the wedding reception.  In addition – will your wedding reception follow immediately after the ceremony?  Or will it be held on a different day?  It may be strange, but I have heard of wedding receptions that happen on a separate day from the actual wedding day.  I’m not sure why, though.

I was going to start talking about decorating next, but then I realized I hadn’t discussed WHERE the wedding was going to be held! So, let’s talk about that now, shall we? Do you want a traditional church wedding? How about something outdoors at a scenic lake or mountains?  What about the beach?  There are probably hundreds of different locations to have a wedding ceremony, and all of them will have their own sets of fees, rules and regulations that will need to be researched and addressed long before the wedding date.  So this is one thing you definitely need to plan well ahead for!

Now, if your budget is really tight, you probably are going to need to find an alternative to having your reception catered.  All wedding food is, is food, with the exception of the wedding cake maybe, so you don’t need to have the fanciest foods from the most talked about catering company in order to have a successful wedding reception.  I took one of these routes and it worked perfectly well for our situation.  There certainly were no complaints that I am aware of.  And really, most people attend a wedding and its reception more for the event than what they put in their bellies anyway, so chances are hardly anyone will notice that you didn’t have your reception’s wedding food served by a catering company.

Wedding catering is probably going to be one of the more pricey expenses you will be paying for your wedding, particularly if you require quite a bit of food for a large number of people.  In this post we will discuss how to look for a good wedding caterer while doing your best to stay within your strict budget.

It is typical that your bridesmaids will be buying their own bridesmaid dresses.  However, there is no reason they should have to break their bank account to get their dresses.  So why not give them a break and loosen up the restrictions on what kind of dress you want them to wear?