As I shared on Facebook a few months ago, I plan to share some of our money saving wedding planning ideas here on the blog. Most of our wedding plans are complete and one item we recently finished planning was our honeymoon. Can you believe our week long honeymoon cost us a total of $250? I am going to share how we were able to plan a honeymoon for a low cost as well as other ways we have chipped away cost.
Contests & Giveaways
One of the easiest and cheapest ways to save money for your wedding day is by entering contests and giveaways. There are a ton of wedding related contests and giveaways available online and at bridal shows. About once a week since my engagement, I have googled current wedding giveaways to enter. Since our engagement, I have won two giveaways.
- Round Trip Plane Tickets - I won two round trip plan tickets while attending Blogalicious back in October. This video chosen by ORS Hair Care won the contest!
- Toss Bouquet - I participated in a Twitter chat held by Natural Hair Bride and won a toss bouquet from Blinged Bouquet.
Groupon
If you're like me, you may already be a huge fan of Groupon. Groupon is an awesome website that allows you to purchase anything from dinner for two to actual products at a low cost. The gist of the website is paying the low price up front and redeeming your coupon later. My fiance and I have used this website on plenty of occasions so it was a no brainer that we would try to look at their Getaways section for low priced vacations. We ended up finding an amazing deal!
- Palms Place Hotel (Las Vegas) - We found a five day, four nights special at the Palms Place Hotel for only $50 a night. Yes, $50 a night! We altogether paid $225 for our honeymoon hotel.
- Manicure & Pedicure - I found a local spa with great ratings selling a manicure and pedicure package for $19. I purchased it and scheduled it for the week of my wedding.
Online Shopping
Online shopping has saved us a great deal on our wedding planning. From purchasing wedding invitations online to my wedding dress, it has saved us hundreds!
Do you have any wedding savings tips to share? What was the best deal you got during wedding planning?
God bless & stay fabellis,
Best deal we had was choosing to do cupcakes instead of a cake for everyone. Had four tiers of different flavored cupcakes (strawberry, lemon, snickers, vanilla) to have variety and for everyone but the icing was still the color theme of the wedding. Our top layer (our own personal cake) was decorated by the cupcake baker/designer using supplies we picked out from Hobby Lobby and was the flavor WE picked for ourselves without subjecting everyone to our favorite flavor (chocolate cookie dough). Before choosing this route, the average cake we priced that WE liked, was over $500. This route cost us $140 (cupcakes, stand, decorations) and was awesome... :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, one of my former students did the photography. Find an amateur photographer that needs to build their portfolio and they'll probably do it for free if you agree to let them feature you, letting them plan a lot of the photography poses, and if you blog about them afterwards :)
ReplyDeleteVery good information for when that day comes for me:) thanks!
ReplyDeleteWhen planning our wedding in 2011, we choose to get married on a Sunday, saving us over $300 alone on the venue. We also did without certain typical wedding things and in the end, are wedding cost a little less then $4,200.
ReplyDeleteWow!! Those savings are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteThis is fabulous! Saving money on your wedding, is always a good idea. I used fake flowers instead of real ones for our bouquets (made by my Mom). My Aunt made the chocolate bar wedding favors (I got married b4 Hershey changed their packaging from from foil to plastic), my wedding dress was less than $500 (including alterations), and I did not have an open bar at my wedding. Thanks for sharing ;)
ReplyDeleteThese are great ideas! I'm in the process of starting to plan a wedding. Groupon Getaways always make me want to speed things up.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! I may have to tuck these away for the end of year since that "M" word is starting to pop up in more and more of my convos. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome that you won two giveaways!! I tried during our engagement...didn't win any. Although that was almost 6 years ago. Maybe there are more now? Great tips!! :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pic! You got this girl! Things don't have to cost that much.
ReplyDeleteLove the Pic!!! Great Tips!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Reggie! You are so right. We are doing something similar. We are having a two tier cake and cupcakes along with it. Such a savings! :-)
ReplyDeleteIt will come! :-) Thanks for stopping by! Also, don't forget that Groupon is great even if you're just looking for a vacation or treat for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThat's an AWESOME tip! If we didn't have so many out of town guests, that definitely would have been a route I considered. Thanks for sharing that with us!
ReplyDeleteThanks Christy! It's definitely a blessing. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Carissa! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Trina! I'm trying! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Shonda! You and I must totally be on the same page because I had fake flowers in mind as well as the chocolate bars! Instead of the chocolate bars, we opted to give slices of our wedding cake to each guest with a note on it. I had never heard of it but it's definitely an affordable option. Thanks for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I love reading money saving tips! Congrats on winning the giveaways, I'm sure the plane tickets helped reduce a big chunk of your honeymoon costs! I think I'd be so nervous about buying a wedding dress online. I'd love to read more about that process!
ReplyDeleteStopping by the SITSGirls!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Ordering a dress online can be a little scary, but what eased my thoughts was that Simply Bridal offers you the option to send your exact measurements or order a straight sized dress. Plus, they are in California so I felt comfortable with their sizings. My bridesmaids got their dresses and they fit well. :-)
ReplyDeleteWow, you won plane tickets?? That would be an awesome money saver!!
ReplyDeleteLol! Believe it or not, yes. That's exactly how my reaction was. :-) Thanks for stopping by Rachel!
ReplyDeletegreat tips Ash!!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! When you take the time to plan, the results are amazing. Congratulations. #SGBC
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Kimberly!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ash! :-)
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Marquita! I'm still shocked myself!
ReplyDeleteThanks Bailey! It could be that there are more now. It seems like so many people have created businesses around weddings. It's crazy! I appreciate you stopping by!
ReplyDeleteThanks Tara!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathryn! :-)
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