If there are a few things that are certain in this world, then they are death and taxes. It is also the fact that weddings are expensive. There is a lot to plan and organise, and the cost of it all adds up. The thing is, it doesn’t have to too expensive. There are plenty of ways that you can save and cut costs when planning a wedding. You can still have your dream wedding, without having to sacrifice on quality or style. Here are a few ways to think about.

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The Reception

One of the biggest costs at a wedding reception is the number of guests. When you are providing food and favours for hundreds of people, it quickly adds up. So think carefully about who you want to invite. You can’t invite everyone, so cut the list down to the people that you want there the most. One other way to save money on the reception is to avoid having a wedding at the weekend. Choosing a Saturday wedding costs much more than it would for a midweek wedding. The guests that want to be there will take the time off work to be there. So don’t let that fact put you off choosing a wedding in the middle of the week. As you can literally save hundreds of pounds by choosing a midweek wedding over a weekend one.

Stationary

One of the biggest ways to save when you think about your wedding stationery is to make it all yourself. When you don’t have the cost of a designer than the cost does go down. You will need some crafting equipment to do that, though. So if you aren’t fully equipped, then it might be a better option to order them in. You could look online, at somewhere like Pure Invitation wedding invites, to see some styles. Then you can decide what style you would like to either make or order. You could print your invites onto one piece of card, making it a postcard style invitation. If you don’t have lots of large pieces of card, it will work out cheaper. You could also make the name cards and menus at the reception, double up as the same thing. Saving you costs of printing and paper. If you are planning on sending save the date cards, then it could be worth emailing them instead. It will save a lot of money on printing, as well as postage that way. You can check out some great wedding invitation designs at https://www.brideandgroomdirect.co.uk/wedding-invitations!!

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Food and Drink

A wedding menu for your food and drink is a key part of your celebration, demonstrating your tastes and creating a memorable dining experience. It should include details of the courses available through various designs that can be explored. These Loom Wedding Menus can be a good example of how to present your selected wedding meal.

When it comes to things like the wedding cake, there are ways to cut costs. If you have a good friend of yours who is a keen baker, would they be interested in making the cake? You could also opt for an alternative to cake. Some people have a tower of doughnuts or even cupcakes. These often work out as cheaper alternatives. The cupcake option could double up as their wedding favour too. You could skip using champagne for the toast and just choose a cheaper sparkling wine. You could even skip the toast altogether. It is your wedding, so you can make it as you would like it.

McKenzie Stalkenburg is a new contributor to zenruption and is an expert in doing all things cool on a budget. We thing that Martha Stewart is just a poser next to her and McKenzie will never do jail time. Her favorite drink is a Blackberry Mojito. That makes perfect sense.

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license