33 Money-Saving Secrets from Wedding Pros

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We want to let you in on a little secret: You can save major bucks on the wedding of your dreams without compromising style and elegance. Yes, you read that right. There are literally dozens of ways to cut costs on every detail, from your invitations and food to the flowers and cake—if you know where to look. Here, with a little help from some of the country’s leading wedding experts, we’ve rounded up the best budgeting and cost-cutting tips around, . Use these ideas, and watch the savings pile up!

Invitations

• It makes perfect sense: Stationers and printing companies have sales just like any other retailer. Very likely they’ll occur after holidays like Christmas and Easter, but it’s smart to ask to be alerted when sales come up at your favorite stores.
• If you buy all your paper goods—“save the date” cards, invitations, ceremony programs, menus, thank-you cards and so on—from the same stationer, you’ll probably be able to get a break on the price. If a bulk discount isn’t offered, just ask. If refused, shop around.
• Believe it or not, classic white or cream-colored invitations with black ink may be the most cost-effective ones you can buy. But you must select the details carefully: For instance, choose cotton paper, rather than jacquard or linen—it’s a lot less expensive, but it looks just as luxe. Thermography, a printing process that uses heat to create a raised-letter look, costs half of what engraving does, and it looks virtually identical. And forgo embellishments like colored paper, ink or borders. These “extras” will jack up the price.
• Design an invitation/response card combination, where the response card is attached by perforation to the bottom quarter of the invitation (guests simply detach that part to respond, postcard style). You’ll reduce the cost of the invitations because you’re using less paper. You’ll also save on postage costs: Lighter invitations require less postage, plus you’ll only need to buy postcard stamps for the response cards.
• Some stationers charge a fee just to fold an invitation, let alone stuff it into an envelope. So, assemble your own—perhaps with the help of your fiancé, mom or bridal party.
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Site Fees

• When you're shopping around for a reception venue, look closely at places that specialize in weddings. Often, they offer great package deals that include all the basic wedding costs, like flowers, food, decorations and a cake. You may even be able to use the services of an on-staff event planner, who can help you with creative and logistical details, says Diane Warner, author of How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget (Betterway Books).
• Many traditional wedding venues, like banquet halls and hotels, charge a fee just for the use of their space, above and beyond the cost of catering. So, seek out less common, though no less lovely, locations you can rent for minimal money, such as bed-and-breakfast inns, historic buildings or wineries (some of them stock tables, chairs, linens and tableware, which means you'll be spared rental costs for these items). And if you're marrying in a house of worship, find out if there's an attached or affiliated hall you can use for a reasonable price.
• Have a destination wedding—but do it close to home. For instance, if you live in the Boston area, hold your event on Cape Cod. You'll still enjoy the ambience of a beach wedding, but you and your guests won't have to shell out cash for airfare to, say, Hawai'i or the Caribbean, or for hotel accommodations for more than a night or two.
• Join a professional organization or club that offers members a discount on the use of its public space. "One bride told me she joined an arboretum in her town when she got engaged, and this allowed her to knock 60% off the site fee for her event," says wedding expert Sharon Naylor.

Centerpieces and Bouquets

• Here's a tip that could save you 50% or more on the cost of your centerpieces and bouquets: Choose blooms that are locally available, rather than ones that must be shipped in from afar. Go to the website of the California Cut Flower Commission, ccfc.org, to determine what flowers will be in season during the month of your wedding, suggests Leah Ingram, author of Plan Your Wedding In No Time (Que Publishing). Or, just ask your florist for help choosing blooms.
• Approximately half of your florist's bill will be for labor. So, select bouquets that are hand-tied—that is, wrapped at the base with a ribbon, perhaps one that matches the color of your bridesmaid dresses or the color accents on your gown. Elaborate, cascading bouquets cost significantly more because they take more time to make.
• Likewise, when only one type of flower is used in your bouquet, you will save on labor costs, because the florist won't have to spend as much time arranging these blooms as he or she would on a bouquet incorporating flowers of many sizes, shapes and colors. Calla lilies work well, because they're impressive, luscious-looking blossoms.
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Decorations

• Adorning your ceremony and reception sites with festive decorations can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Eliminate the expense entirely by holding your wedding near a holiday, like Christmas or Easter, when these places will likely already be festooned with greenery, lights, bows or other festive embellishments.
• Love nature? Pick a wedding site rich with lush flora, such as a botanical garden, country or golf club, or park. You probably won't need to enhance this "natural décor" with any extra flowers, centerpieces or greenery.
• Don't bother buying pricey flower arrangements or greenery to jazz up your buffet or cake tables. Instead, add visual appeal simply by choosing a colorful tablecloth and contrasting china, such as deep-blue serving platters on top of a baby-blue tablecloth. Mixing different tones of a single color creates depth and interest, explains Naylor.
• Ask your site manager to light fires in the venue's fireplaces, and to turn on the lights in a pool or fountain on the property (this may not be done automatically). Featured lighting like this helps create a warm, romantic ambience, and it won't cost you a thing.

Food and Drinks

• Have a cocktail "half-hour." It's time most guests won't miss anyway, say experts, and it'll allow you to cut your catering and alcohol bills for that portion of the evening in half.
• Opt for an ethnic menu, a popular food trend that can save you a bundle. For example, taco and fajita stations will cost a lot less than a fancy raw bar at the cocktail hour; a variety of pasta dishes can be passed around, family-style, during a casual sit-down dinner reception.
• Forgo an extra dessert course—a generous slice of wedding cake will satisfy most guests. You'll no doubt have to feed the band members, photographer and videographer. But multiply the number of pros you're hiring and your per-plate cost, and you'll see how this could easily add several hundred dollars to your catering bill. A budget-savvy solution: Serve them a paired-down version of your wedding meal. If your guests are feasting on chicken Française, for instance, ask the chef to serve your pros a simple grilled chicken and vegetables dish. This may cut the price of those meals in half.
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The Cake

• Make sure you're not paying twice for wedding cake. "Some catering sites include a basic dessert cake in their fee and won't automatically cut that cost from your bill if you decide to bring in a cake yourself," says Naylor. So, check your estimate—and bill—carefully.
• Love a DIY project? Make an elegant, but inexpensive, cascading cake in minutes. All you need to do is purchase a wedding-cake cascade kit from a discount craft store (expect to spend around $25), and place several nicely decorated cakes from your local bakery on the tiers. "My niece put hers together in 10 minutes," says Warner. "The kit included a strip of white satin to decorate the base, as well as artificial ivy to wrap around the support columns between each tier. The total cost for 120 people was $110."
• Borrow a decoy cake—for display only, of course. Ask your baker if he or she has a decorative cardboard cake (it could even be topped with real frosting, so no one will be able to tell it's fake) that you can place on the cake table. Or, consider a small, two- or three-tier cake for display rather than a seven-tier extravaganza. Guests can feast on a much less expensive sheet cake that's prepared, stored and sliced in the kitchen.
• Hire your baker to make a plain, frosted, three-tier cake, and decorate it yourself using fresh flowers. It's simple (really!), and you'll save a bundle on the cost of labor alone. Place flower heads—red roses look dramatic against a white cake, for instance—around the bottom of each tier; sprinkle edible petals (like hibiscus, nasturtiums or sunflowers) from a gourmet-food store on top of each tier. It'll look amazing, and no one will know you've done it yourself.
• Some cake ingredients are more expensive than others. For instance, you'll save money if your baker uses a "box mix" instead of creating your cake from scratch—in part because a pre-made batter requires less time to prepare. And consult with your baker about filling options: Raspberry or strawberry jam, for example, costs less than chocolate mousse.

Music

• Because many brides and grooms these days hire a band and a DJ, many DJs are now offering package deals that include both. For instance, your DJ might bring along a pianist, guitarist or flute player to perform during dinner, then spin CDs himself for the dancing portion of the evening. Of course, this means you'll save the cost of hiring a band—a potentially major expense—but you'll still have the ambience that live music brings to a party.
• Some DJs charge extra for an assistant who will cover his or her breaks. This is unnecessary- just direct your DJ to play a CD during those times.
• If you simply must have live music, find a band through a local music school or check out groups that perform in bars and coffee houses. They're almost always significantly less expensive than your average wedding band. One caveat: Make sure the group has performed at two or three weddings and is familiar with the pacing and routine.
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Photographs

• Many couples these days are choosing to have both color and black-and-white photographs taken of their weddings. But check your contract to make sure your photographer isn't charging extra to shoot in black and white. The truth is, it's easy and cheap to convert color film into black-and-white pictures during the developing process. (Note: It's even easier to do from digital film, which is what many wedding photographers are using today.)
• Negotiate to keep the negatives of your wedding photos. Since many photographers charge a premium for creating prints, you'll save a bundle by using the negatives to make copies for friends and family or even to create enlargements of frame-worthy images.
• When you hire a videographer, forgo special effects, like slow motion, freeze-framing or voice-overs. They're expensive—and not really necessary. Skip the fancy DVD or videotape case that your videographer may try to sell you. A plain one is just fine, and is more affordable. Besides, you'll probably store it in a drawer, where no one will see it anyway.

Favors

• Take advantage of those day-after-the-holiday sales at your favorite stores, where you can save up to 70% on all sorts of items to use as favors for a holiday-theme wedding the following year. For example, you can buy marked-down red candles on February 15 and tree ornaments on December 26.
• Comb the Internet for well-priced favors. Check out economycandy.com [2], where you can find all kinds of sweets, from dried fruit to chocolate. Partyblockstore.com [3] sells everything from beverage glasses and bottle openers to matchbooks and more. At theweddingshopper.com [4], you can purchase candles, playing cards and all sorts of fun items that can be personalized with your names, wedding date and so on.
• Another idea to consider is making a charitable donation in honor of your guests. It's a personal and thoughtful gift they will definitely appreciate. The I Do Foundation [5] offers a simple way to donate to your charity of choice. You can choose an organization from their list or suggest your own. Place cards are also available for purchase to let your guests know about the special gift.