Planning a social event is never as easy as booking the venue and associated amenities, and wedding planning is certainly not the exception.

A very large wedding industry has been developed around outsourcing the whole preparation and event planning process to professional wedding event planners. You can even find many wedding planning books online that will help your through the whole event planning process.

If you’re planning on setting up your own wedding, expect a lot of stress and aggravation over the project. Sometimes this is to much weight to carry for newly weds when starting the married life that some couples may want to bear.

Here are some wedding planning tips that will help take the burden off you and hopefully make the whole process of planning your wedding a little easier.

1) Keep the venue numbers down and the options up. Two or three locations at maximum, should be your limit as to how many venues are needed to host the wedding itself and the reception after, anymore than this can turn wedding planning into a nightmare of needless complications.

Where will the Wedding Ceremony take place, at a Church or at a hall?

Where will your wedding pictures be taken, in a park?

There are a number of key questions that need to be answered so as your big wedding day unfolds, everyone knows where they need to be and at what time they need to be there.

2) Wedding Guest lists and invitations. Planning who you are inviting to your party is as crucial as what they will find at the party. The guest list defines to a large extent what kind of party it will be, how complicated the wedding will be, and the theme of the wedding reception party (if you want to be that meticulous).

An intimate wedding ceremony is impossible if the list goes beyond a few dozen people. Conversely, a grand ceremony will give the appearance that the wedding planning was overdone if the turnout is meager. Give careful consideration to why you are inviting party X but not party Y to your union.

3) Do the details match? The wedding and reception events do not have to be complicated, but the material fine points should be harmonious. Wherever possible, keep the resources ordered in sync with one another, and the instructions to the guest’s uniform.

Yes, the silverware should match the plates, the dress code should be formal, the bride and grooms outfits should mesh together, the music played and food served should be fitting for the design of the setting, and so on. Will party favors be the part of the wedding planning, or will this be a frugal affair with no mementos distributed? A mish mash will look like a mistake, and a mark of bad planning.

4) Is the getaway planned? Good wedding planning involves not simply ordering the resources, but structuring them to give a sense of the beginning, middle and end of the event.

Is the transition time between the wedding ceremony and the start of the reception sufficient?

Is there a program or menu for the reception?

Is the transportation arranged for the couple thought out so they can leave the reception at the appropriate time?

Putting the schedule of the wedding and reception program together in a logical way will go a long ways towards easing the minds of both the couple, friends and relatives attending the ceremony.

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When my husband and I first started planning for our wedding, we knew that we wanted to have our wedding on a small budget and finding tips to make this happen was not that easy.

I want to make this much easier for you by giving you 10 tips that I learned that will help you save money on your wedding budget.

Here are some quick wedding budget tips for planning a wedding on a small budget.

1 - Plan an off season wedding

Planning your wedding during the off season can bring down your wedding budget considerably. You might be able to pick up better deals on services. The wedding seasons (spring and summer) tend to see higher prices for limousine rentals, florists and venues.

2 – Shop wisely and don’t be afraid to ask for deals

Shopping wisely at stores that can provide you with candles, lights and other wedding items for wedding table centerpieces and wedding accessories etc. can cut down your wedding costs very easily. Asking for deals is something that you should do for the simple fact that you will be spending a great deal of money in that store.

3 – Your wedding venue location

Choosing your wedding venue location with care when planning low budget weddings can have a huge impact on your wedding budget. You can actually have a wonderful wedding party at a family members or a friend’s house if they have a nice sized yard. You can also try looking for local churches or public parks and gardens to hold your wedding party. Sometimes local parks will give you the best deal. Having a home wedding could also be a great idea.

4 - Do you need to buy wedding decorations?

When it comes to your wedding decorations, do you really need to purchase them? I mean, why not make your own decorations. This is very easy to do and can be lots of fun working with family and friends. Decorations can be a very expensive purchase if you decide to have someone else make them.

5 – Selecting your wedding flowers

The best way to save money on your wedding flowers are to select flowers that are in season and easier to get. Avoid orchids and roses if you are planning a wedding on a low budget. Opt instead for traditional daisies, carnations, chrysanthemums, baby’s breath and gladiolus. For your table center pieces, instead of using real flowers, I’d suggest that you use either silk or dried flowers, or you can use both.

6 - Save on your wedding cake

Wedding cakes can be pretty pricey, so if you don’t need a multi tiered wedding cake don’t get it. Your wedding cake shop should have a fake cake for you to use just for the picture taking of you and your spouse, then your real wedding cake can be a simple slab cake with maybe two tiers.

7 - Don’t cater your wedding dinner if you don’t have to

Having all your guests being served at the tables will cost you more money for your wedding catering. If you want to have a wedding on a budget, why not have a buffet style wedding dinner?

I have been to many weddings where they have this same type of thing, and I must say that it was actually real nice. This gives everyone a chance to mingle with each other a little more.

8 - Your wedding guest list should not be too high

We all know that the more people that come to your wedding, the more your wedding will cost you. Do you really need to have everyone that you know attend your wedding? One of the biggest tricks to low budget weddings is keeping your guest list down to a minimum. Only invite real close friends and family members.

9 - An online wedding budget calculator can do wonders for your wedding budget

Doing a simple Google search for online wedding budget calculators will find you multiple wedding websites that will help you calculate your wedding budget. Make use of them.

10 - Wedding photography

With the quality of the HD and digital cameras anyone can buy these days, why not have one of your friends take your wedding pictures for you?

Hiring a wedding photographer is something that you should think about if you want to have your wedding on a small budget.

I hope these wedding budget tips help you out with thinking of new ideas for you to save money on your wedding.

Since 1990, wedding costs have almost doubled. The average cost of a wedding today is getting close to $30,000, a significant difference in the average cost of $15,000 for a wedding in 1990, a price increase for something that many people were certainly not ready for.

Since 2000, the number of marriages has increased by well over 200,000 new couples getting married per year.

Wedding tradition and wedding cost

For many years now, it has always been the tradition that the bride’s parents have always had to pay for the wedding costs. Today this is not necessarily the case. A recent survey shows that only 30% of the parents of the bride now pay for the wedding, leaving 70% of the brides and grooms paying for their own wedding, with a little help from the parents .

With destination weddings becoming increasingly more popular in the last ten years or so, about 16% of new couples getting married have chosen to have a destination wedding which costs an average of $26,000, this is why having a wedding on a small budget is on the mind of almost all newly engaged couples.

All wedding expenses have increased

According to research that has been done, wedding costs have increased by just over 20% for all wedding expenditures in recent years. These include the clothes for the bride and groom (up to 30%), engagement rings (up to 25%), and wedding rings have increased by a huge 60%.

But despite a strong increase in the cost of a marriage, an average of 2.5 million Americans still get married each year.

A customary wedding in the past was a simple trip to the altar and a simple low cost wedding reception, which made it very easy to have a wedding on a small budget. This is definitely now a thing of the past because the bride and groom want the complete works, great location, wedding flower bouquets, a huge cake, bridesmaids and flower girls, fancy clothes, fancy catered reception, etc, all amounting to a very large sum of money.

Some of the extras that are must haves for any new bride and groom for a typical wedding today that will raise the cost of a wedding by an average of 25% now are:

* Photography and/or videography, which costs on average $2,500
* Rehearsal dinner, which cost on average of $1,000
* Additional flowers, which has an average cost of $1,200
* Limousine service and car rentals, which costs on average $800

Simple ways to cut wedding costs and hold a wedding on a budget

Many brides and grooms now choose to ask their family and friends to help organize and plan many different parts of the wedding planning. For example, asking a friend or family member to help with the flower arrangements, having a simple one or two tier wedding cake and creating all the wedding decorations and table settings.

Many brides and grooms now have also chosen the option to rent their wedding dresses and tuxedos and along with the bridesmaids, best man, flower girl and ring bearer clothing for the big day. This can be an average savings of $4,000 or more off the total wedding cost.

Cutting the cost of your wedding does not mean that you have to do without some things.  You can still have a beautiful wedding on a budget as long as you know where you can save the most money.

Have a budget wedding of your dreams

Trying to stay within your wedding budget is a real tough thing to do when you are having a wedding on a budget.  I know it was for me. But the real secret here is for you to take charge of everything and just simply follow a few guidelines for wedding planning that actually work.

Should I hire a wedding planner?

Wedding planning is real easy for you to do  yourself.  There is no need to hire a wedding planner if you just stay organized.

Hiring a wedding planner in my mind is really not worth the extra money that they will cost you. You can put that money to better use towards your catering or venue.

The first thing you need to do is get a wedding budget planner book.  This can be something as simple as a scrap book.  Make yourself a list of all the wedding ideas that you and others come up with. Write them down in a checklist style, then decide on a reasonable budget for each item on your list. After your wedding planning checklist is made, read through all the wedding ideas and become familiar with what needs to be done and the time line that you have until your wedding to get it done.

Now begin contacting wedding vendors and venues to get prices and quotes. Make sure to also ask for references of other people that the vendor has worked with before. The last thing that you want to do is hire a vendor or book your wedding at a venue that many people are not happy with. Make notes about everything and keep them attached to your proposals so you can look back at them later when you’re ready to make your decision.

There is no better time than now while planning your wedding to practice your delegation skills. Your fiancé, wedding party, family and friends could and should also help you out during this time by playing an active role with negotiating prices. Make sure that you also put someone in charge of coordinating your wedding day, possibly the father of the bride, so you don’t have to worry about any of this on your big day.

Is cheap wedding planning really this easy without hiring a wedding planner?

All you need to do to be successful with planning a cheap wedding on a small budget is to stay focused and organized. Always keep your wedding budgets in mind when reading your wedding checklist and learn to save money where you can and you will be able to have an amazing dream wedding on a real tight budget.

I was able to save over $10,000 on my wedding, and I know that you can also.

When you first start planning a wedding on a small budget, most everyone, including myself, never really think about the wedding costs involved with what we want to have for our wedding, I know I never did. I wanted the best of everything when my husband Trevor and I first started our wedding planning.

I was totally set on; (I don’t care what it costs, this is how I want it), frame of mind. After all, this was the first and only time I was going to be getting married. We all want this one day in our lives to be perfect

Well this changed pretty quickly when we actually started getting wedding costs on what we wanted to have for our wedding. We never knew how to plan to have a cheap wedding and at the same time still have a beautiful wedding.

Along with all the wedding planning that we were doing with our family and friends, we started to find real easy ways to save money on our wedding. One of the biggest wedding expenses was our wedding hall for our reception.

We soon learned that just a simple thing like the wedding decorations that we needed to decorate the hall can add up real fast. The only way that we were able to get our wedding decorations on a budget was to make most of them ourselves.

Doing this was actually really fun and it brought us all together working on a project that we enjoyed. It’s not too often that we can get together with family and friends to do things like this. It was a real blessing to us all.

Just because you have a small wedding budget for your wedding, it does not mean that you have to sacrifice on the quality and style of your wedding. Anyone can still have a dream style wedding, even on a small budget. Planning a wedding on a small budget is actually easier than most people think it is.

Low budget weddings can still be dream weddings.

When my husband and I got married in 2000, we had an amazing wedding. It was the dream wedding that I had always dreamt about and our wedding budget was not that big at all. Everyone was so surprised that we were able to plan the wedding that we did with the budget that we set for ourselves to work with for our wedding day. With all our family and friends, we had roughly 200 people attend our wedding reception.

We had an amazing Ukrainian style wedding. We had all the great and tasty Ukrainian food, open bar, live band playing at the door when our guests arrived, live band for our reception, beautiful wedding decorations and table settings and a great catered wedding, not buffet style.

The one thing that we didn’t want was a buffet style wedding. Seeing our guests stand in line for hours waiting to get their food was something that we never pictured happening. My husband and I wanted everyone to be served at the tables just like we were. Our special day was just as important to everyone who was celebrating it with us, and we wanted to show our appreciation to everyone by catering to them.

This was a night that we’ll never forget.