10 Ways to Save Money on Your Wedding

Weddings are expensive affairs. In fact, they seem to get more expensive year on year.

Here are 10 money-saving tips for grooms and brides to be who have a firm wedding budget. These strategies are so discrete that you can cut costs without anyone noticing.

Guest list

1\ Keep your wedding day a cosy and intimate affair with close family and friends.

If your parents want to invite their friends, neighbours or colleagues, by all means respect their wishes but ask them to give you the exact guest count instead of an estimate.

This ensures you're in control of the turnout and prevents over-assigning of seats.

Payment

2\ Maximise credit card rebates.

Personally, I find American Express and Standard Chartered cash back cards to be most rewarding.

Ask your wedding venue coordinator to split payments so both of you can use your individual credit cards and get double the rebates!

Cocktail reception

3\ Limit the free-flow alcohol bar to the first two-thirds of the reception duration and usher guests into banquet hall in the remaining one-third.

Why?

You wouldn't want guests abandoning their drinks when banquet doors open only to order a new one as they take their seat.

Banquet

4\ Negotiate with your wedding venue to waive alcohol corkage fees.

Then, purchase your own wine from bars or specialty stores hopefully with a bulk discount.

The bonus? Serving your favourite wine to guests makes for a good conversation starter.

Flowers

5\ Substitute costly or seasonal flowers with less expensive ones with similar colour shade and bloom size you're looking for.

E.g. Eustomas for roses.

Stationery

6\ Go paperless and save on postage and card printing!

While elders generally prefer printed wedding invitation cards, the younger generation is open to receiving digital ones.

So go ahead to email electronic save the date and invitation cards to your friends.

Dress

7\ Consider renting instead of buying.

It is tempting to keep your made-to-order wedding dress, but chances are it will never see the light of day again in your wardrobe.

By renting my made-to-order wedding dress, I saved 30% of the cost!

8\ Also, keep a lookout for bridal shops' sample gown or off-season gown sale.

If the gown looks a little worn or is less fancy than envisioned, use it for your pre-wedding photoshoot or tea ceremony!

Bridal accessories

9\ There are items that are specific to a wedding that once bought, would be hard to repurpose like a ring cushion, veil and bridal robe.

Borrow such items from someone who's recently had a wedding.

Also check if you have heirloom items in the family that you can use. It's sweet to have "something old, something borrowed" at your wedding.

Decorations

10\ Recycle alcoholic drink bottles and food jars as decorative vessels to dress up your reception. Not much styling is required - they look good when filled with loose flowers or dried botanicals like cotton, eucalyptus and wheat.

Myself - I started collecting liquor bottles a year prior to my wedding (family and friends would clean and keep consumed bottles aside for me). For those with hard-to-remove labels, I spray-painted them in a shade that matched my wedding colour palette.

On my wedding day, my venue looked like a botanical garden with rustic greenery and florals all around!