CAG Wedding Planning Thread

Thought I would create a thread for this since a good amount of CAGS are engaged and of course, we want to save some money on the big day . Any tips from those who are married are welcome as well!

I'll start with a tip that's come up as my fiancé and I plan our wedding for next year. Friday weddings are much cheaper than Saturdays so make it a Friday if you can!

You may also end up with a decreased guest count if you have it on a Friday in something other than the evening, so that's another way to save money with a Friday wedding.

The ultimate tip, don't get married.

We had our wedding at the courthouse. We both figured why waste money on party, clothes, food for party, etc when we could save it for other stuff like potential house, furniture, cars. It's been 5 years since, no regrets on that decision.

Meanwhile we have friends who have gone BANKRUPT doing their weddings

It really all depends on how big you want to go. Some people do nothing at all. If you want tips on how to make it feel like a "real wedding" without costing a fortune, find a place where you can hold the reception that will let you bring in your own catering AND alcohol. My wife and I actually had our wedding and reception at a local county park that had a really nice banquet hall with a really big kitchen. 

They were very flexible and didn't have all the dumb restrictions that a lot of places have that work hand in hand with caterers, bartenders, etc (a lot of them will make you hire somebody off of their preferred vendors list if you want to have your reception there...what a freaking racket). 

The other trick to saving money is doing as much as you can yourselves/with family help. I'm a musician and have a ton of audio equipment, so we didn't even hire a DJ. I basically made a 3 hour playlist of our favorite songs, connected my laptop to a mixer with some PA speakers, and had a friend do some basic "emcee'ing" ("Now introducing Mr. and Mrs...", "The Bride and Groom are going to cut the cake", etc).  Unless you're very into theme dances, and not-so-witty between song banter, you won't be missing much.

The wedding was probably more work for us than for people who just pay to have others do everything for them...but it was also probably more personalized...and was significantly cheaper without feeling ghetto too, haha. But yeah, depends what you and your fiancee want...and what is within your capabilities.