How to Get Married on a Budget

Planning a budget wedding does not mean you have to sacrifice the things you value most in a wedding. It means you need to harness your creativity, as well as that of your friends and relatives. Aim for simple elegance.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Decide what wedding traditions you feel strongly about and want to keep; dispense with the traditions that are not important to either of you. For example, email wedding invitations eliminate the paper, printing, and postage costs associated with sending invitations. If you can't bear to give them up, then look for other places you can trim on costs.

2. Borrow what you can borrow. It might be a wedding dress, decorations, silk flowers, vases, or a relative's lovely backyard. Talk with people who have recently had their wedding and see if they have any items they'd be willing to let you put to use one more time.

3. Make what you can make, with the help of friends. Keep your flower arrangement simple, and select flowers that are in season. Center pieces, such as baskets of apples, are easy enough to arrange, and the fruit is something you can eat later. Perhaps there is a baker in the family who can make the wedding cake, or wedding cupcakes.

4. Enlist the help of several people to take photos. With digital cameras, you should be able to get lots of candid pictures during the ceremony and reception. This way, you can either schedule a professional photographer for a short session, or skip it altogether. Just be sure you have several people you trust assigned to the photo-taking task.

5. Be creative: there are lots of things you can do to simplify your wedding and still keep it memorable. Ask your grandparents about weddings back in their day. Their descriptions should give you several ideas on how to simplify things. Most weddings back then took place on a budget.