No other time in your life will you spend so much money on one single item of food. Imagine spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a cake! Many brides do! In fact, according to the Bridal Association of America, the average cost of a wedding cake is almost $600.

There are several ways you can cut the cost of your wedding cake in half – without providing your guests with half a cake!

First of all, don’t go to a baker! By going directly to a bakery or someone who specializes in wedding cakes, you are going to pay significantly more than you would by going to someone else. If you are getting your wedding catered, talk to the caterer. Either they can create a cake for you, or they may have connections with people who produce discount cakes.

If the food for your wedding is being provided by the venue, going to them for the cake is almost always a big mistake, too They will simply be farming out the cake to a baker and marking up the price. Make sure your wedding reception venue allows you to bring in your own outside cake.

Many brides are now opting for smaller, individualized cakes. Maybe the bride likes chocolate but the groom doesn’t. Maybe someone love nuts and someone is allergic to them. By providing multiple, smaller cakes, you can make everyone happy and cut the costs as well!

If you have been to a bridal fair lately, you will notice that many of the bakers are specializing in box-shaped cakes. They are incredibly designed, and look like pieces of art – but they aren’t cheap! By going for a more traditionally shaped round cake, you will get a cheaper price.

Did you know that you can rent cakes? If you don’t really want cake for dessert, you can rent a cake just for the looks and provide everyone with a dessert they will really love. Use the cake for the photographs and then return it at the end of the day. You may save several hundred dollars by doing this.

Don’t splash out on decorating your cake, either! The cost of elaborate decorations can eclipse the cost of the actual cake. Insist on decorating it yourself with photographs or symbols of your relationship.

Be creative – a cake doesn’t have to be a giant, white, 3-tiered monstrosity to make the wedding complete.

Remember the days when a man was supposed to spend three months’ salary on a wedding ring for his bride? Well, those days are over. Times are tough and no one has three month’s wages sitting around to spend on a small piece of jewelry.

If you are purchasing a ring based on a fixed dollar value that you THINK you should be paying, you are wrong. It is more important to get a ring that is within your budget and that your bride loves. Don’t get yourself into financial trouble even before the real expenses (the wedding!) begin.

So, is it possible to find a beautiful wedding ring without spending a fortune? Is there any way to find a ring that is beautiful, appropriate, and has intrinsic value without mortgaging your soul?

The first place to start is to find out what she wants and what she likes. Does she absolutely have to have a diamond or will cubic zirconia do for now? Remember, you can always replace the stone later.

If a diamond or cubic zirconia is the stone of choice, figure out what cut and style she likes and then start looking. Find the “perfect” ring in a traditional jewelry store and then try and find a ring just like it somewhere else. Start by looking at the jewelry in large department stores (Penney’s, Sears, etc.). It might seem tacky to buy a wedding ring in a store such as this, but a diamond is a diamond. The rings in these stores are far cheaper than what you would find in a jewelry store and they are generally the same quality.

You can also search online for bargains. Many large-scale jewelry outfitters will display very similar rings like you have seen in the jewelry stores at rock-bottom prices. Of course, you have to go with a reputable store, but the merchandise should be of equal quality to what you would find in your local store.

Online retailers such as Amazon.com now offer discount jewelry. One advantage to shopping with Amazon is that your ring will be guaranteed for quality and shipping is almost always free as well!

Don’t forget Ebay and other online auctions. They are great places to find super discounts on used or vintage rings. Local auctions and estate sales are also options for finding a discount ring. Look around, and you will find just the ring you want at the price you need!

The rule of thumb used to be that a man should spend three months’ salary on an engagement ring. If you’re lucky, he may do that. However, that is one part of the wedding cost that you can’t do anything about. It’s over and done. But there are plenty of other ways to save money without compromising your dream wedding.

The first large expense in any wedding is the dress. With the average wedding dress costing upwards of $1,500, this is your first opportunity to make a major positive financial impact on the day. By choosing your dress online, either directly from the manufacturer, an online bridal shop, or by purchasing a used (vintage) dress on Ebay, you can save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Only a fool pays retail, so shop around for your dress.

The reception is almost always the most expensive part of the wedding. Providing food and drink for a large number of people is never cheap, and places that hold wedding receptions take full advantage of that fact. Make sure you choose a reception venue that does not require you to utilize their kitchen, their cooks, and their food. You also don’t want to be tied into their bar. By choosing a venue that allows you to cater the event yourself, you will save an enormous amount of money. Further, by providing your own bar, your costs will be significantly reduced.

When it comes to the bar, you have several choices. Open bar – which means everyone drinks until they can drink no more; Cash bar – where people pay for their own drinks; and No Bar – a non-alcoholic wedding. Because the cost of an open bar can be surprisingly high, it is not a wise choice. A friend of mine recently told me of the “surprise” he got when he paid for his daughter’s cash bar at her wedding - $5,000 worth of booze! Cash bar allows the heavier drinkers to drink as much as they want, but without you paying for it. Non-alcoholic weddings are also becoming popular, primarily because no one wants to drive home drunk.

There are many opportunities to save money at any point in your wedding. Don’t forget about ordering invitations and announcements online, creating your own flower arrangements and table decorations, and thinking about alternative venues for your reception!

Every bride wants every part of her wedding to beautiful, and the table decorations are no exception. Depending on the size of the wedding, table decorations could cost up to several hundred or even thousands of dollars, so this is a great place to cut costs if you can.

Traditionally, brides have had floral arrangements on every table with a small “favor” for each guest. With modern-day floral arrangements running upwards of $50 each, this can be expensive. Surely, there are cheaper ways to beautifully decorate a table without seeming cheap.

Table floral arrangements are very easy to create yourself (or by members of the bridal party) the day before the wedding. A quick trip to the local farmer’s market will enable you to choose flowers you love. Another stop at an arts and crafts store and you can pick up small vases or other types of creative containers to hole the flowers. People will respect your imagination so feel free to express yourself.

Many brides do not even opt for floral arrangements anymore, preferring centerpieces that include a picture of the bride and groom, candles, or even live plants. Remember, there are no hard and fast rules so go ahead and think of something that reflects you, as a couple, and use your creativity to save money. A candle with a small display of flowers or foliage can cost a fraction of what a professionally-designed floral arrangement would.

Party favors can be expensive if you are inviting a lot of guests. A small bag with mints or chocolate is traditional, but many couples are now adding a small disposable camera to the bag. By lettering guests take their own pictures during the event, they add a personal touch to the “wedding photos” that will be remembered long after the day is over.

Remember that table decorations really are not that large a part of your wedding. Yes, you want everything to look right, but keep your priorities in check. Is it really worth spending a month’s mortgage just to have attractive tables? Probably not! Use this is a great opportunity to save money in what will probably be the greatest (and most expensive) day of your life.

The largest cost of any wedding is almost always the reception itself. Even more than the price of the ring, the price of the dress, or the honeymoon, the cost of the reception eclipses these. So, how do you have a memorable and enjoyable wedding reception and save money?

The first place to start is with the venue itself. If you are trying to save money, stay away from country clubs, resorts, and hotels. Not only is the rental fee for these types of places overpriced, but they often do not allow you to bring in your own food or alcohol. You may be extremely limited in what you can serve and the amount it costs.

Many alternatives are available to such high-price venues. By choosing a smaller hotel, a lodge or meeting center, or private home for a reception, you can save a lot of money. You may also choose to have your reception at a completely alternative type of place such as a baseball stadium, park, or museum. These types of venues will almost always require you to bring your own food and drink, saving you a lot of money. In addition, non-traditional venues add a lot of personality to a wedding.

If you can, it is almost always cheaper to hire an outside provider of food rather than going with the reception venue’s in-house catering. Choose your favorite restaurant and have them cater the event if you can.

Open bars are a thing of the past. No one wants to encourage excessive drinking at a wedding, especially if people are going to have to drive home. Limit alcohol to one champagne toast, or a glass of wine per person. Provide a cash bar, if you must, so that people who want to drink more can – but on their dime.

Save money on centerpieces and favors by creating them yourself. Or better yet – make it the job of the bridal party to put them together (after all, you’ll be pretty busy). By creating homemade pieces, you will save money and bring even more personality into the reception.

You don’t have to spend tens of thousands on a reception to have a good time. Look for imaginative and creative ways to save money every step of the way!

With the average price of a wedding reaching up into the tens of thousands, saving money is essential. No one has the funds, in these hard economic times, to be wasting it. When planning your wedding, there are a number of ways to save money just by using the internet.

From beginning to end, from the marriage proposal to the actual wedding day, you can save money every step of the way.

1 – Wedding invitations – You can save a lot of money by ordering your wedding invitations online. Many websites are available that allow you to choose either traditional or custom designed wedding invitations. You can add a photo of the happy couple and customize the invitations to your occasion. Forget about going to a local stationery store for wedding invitations – you will pay two to three times the price than you would online. And online delivery is almost always quicker than a traditional printer.

2 – The dress – Go ahead and try on dresses all over town, but when it comes to actually purchasing one, do it online. If you are looking at new dresses, there are plenty of wedding dress stores that offer the same dresses you see in bridal stores at discount prices. You can also check sites like Ebay for vintage, used, or even new dresses. With the average wedding dress costing over $1,500 these days, there is an opportunity to save a lot of money here.

3 – The venue – By shopping online for a reception venue, you can compare and contrast multiple bids without having to leave your home. Use information you get online to help you leverage one venue against another and you will be able to bargain effectively.

4 – Food and cake – There are a lot of websites that give you ideas on how to save money on the reception. From making your own food and cake, to having it catered by a cooking school, you can find lots of novel ideas to save money.

5 – Wedding announcements – If you have saved money by not inviting everyone you know to your wedding, you may want to send out wedding announcements. You can do this entirely online by sending electronic wedding announcements with our wedding photo. By doing this, you will save both the cost of printing and postage.

There are many, many more ways to save on your wedding by surfing online. Simply go to Yahoo or Google and search for “save money on wedding” and hundreds of websites will come up to help you.

The Bridal Association of America states that the average wedding dress costs over $1,500. This is for a dress that you will wear one time, for a couple of hours, and you will store it for the rest of your life.

The average cost of an entire wedding is now $30,000. Again, this is for a celebration that lasts only a few hours.

The average cost of wedding flowers alone is over $700. The bride’s bouquet runs, on average, almost $150 in addition that cost.

Where else in your life, do you spend such an exorbitant amount of money for such s short time? Think where else that money could go! Could $30,000 make a dent in a house payment or pay off a student loan or by one (or two!) new cars? Of course it could! Could $30,000 be a nice start to a couple’s retirement plan? Yes!

Most couples waste more money on their wedding than they will at any other time during their life. Whether they are plunking down a grand for some flowers, or several thousand dollars for photographs, the waste is substantial.

In addition to flowers and that dress, the cost of the reception’s food and alcohol is usually the largest cost involved in the wedding. By making the mistake of inviting every friend they’ve ever known, most couples are increasing their costs by leaps and bounds. With catered weddings ranging from $50 to $150 per plate – plus alcohol! – the bill can run up very quickly!

There is an unspoken rule in weddings that the gift you receive from someone is a fair exchange for the cost of providing them a meal. Well, this almost never is the case. If you add up the price of the gifts you receive, rarely will they even come close to the amount of money you paid out. So, don’t expect to recoup and justify your expense that way!

In economic times such as these, unless you have a bottomless pit of money somewhere, you have no need to plan a wedding of such extravagance. Take pride in saving money, and see what corners you can cut without your guests knowing. Make it a challenge! And put all that extra money to work – after your wedding day!

It’s true that a wedding day is an extra special event, perhaps a
once in a lifetime occasion.  However, the same could be said of
your first honeymoon.   These are memories that will never be
replaced or forgotten.  Yet, what frequently happens among
newlyweds is that they spend so much money planning the wedding
ceremony and other preliminaries, that they skimp on the honeymoon
vacation.  Why not balance the engagement, the wedding and the
honeymoon so that each phase of this new marriage can be
celebrated properly?

The engagement phase of a couple to be should be a highly personal
one.  This is a time of inner celebration, and of all things to
skimp on, the engagement is the least of evils.  Save money by
taking personal photos during the engagement (or digital photos if
you have a new camera).  Don’t pay for professional engagement
photos since they are a rather pricey trend.  Theoretically
speaking, you could try and skimp on the engagement ring and or
wedding ring, but could you really get away with it?  It’s best if
you devote some funds to these treasures, but try and take it easy
on the wedding ceremony and wedding reception.

For starters, don’t feel obligated to buy a new wedding dress.  
Even a modest wedding dress could cost you hundreds of dollars,
and though it makes for a pretty picture, this is going to be the
most minimally used expense of the entire marriage to come.  Many
couples have found great deals on bride rental dresses or even
used dresses off of auction sites like EBay.  Online shoppers have
stated that they have purchased quality dresses at about 50% off
of retail price. Even veils can cost a lot of money these days, so
why not make your own veil and put flowers in the bride’s hair as
a cost-saving alternative?

The most important tip that can be given to is put more money in
reserve and spend less money on the wedding reception.  Literally
thousands of dollars can be saved by asking friends to make
favors, have guests bring dishes and ask a friend to perform the
ceremony.  Even if you don’t have a preacher friend on call, you
can still ask someone you know to be a deputy marriage
commissioner for a day.  One modern trick to save on reception
costs is to hold the event in mid-daytime, like around two or
three PM.  When you hold the wedding at a neutral time, then
guests won’t expect a heavy dinner or a full lunch.  Just brunch
snacks and deserts will suffice and everyone can better focus on
the matter at hand.

Obviously, music is one area that inflates your budget quickly.  
Couples who are trying to cut on cost have found benefits in
hiring only one musician to play a keyboard, or perhaps use no
live music at all.  You don’t have to hire a live band when you
can hire a DJ or create your own selection of songs and have
friends gather your equipment together.  In short, the more
networking you do amongst friends and family, the more you can
save.

The benefit of having an “affordable” wedding is that you can use
that extravagance to pay for nicer honeymoon amenities.  You could
check into a nicer hotel, stay longer, or perhaps attend more
exciting events in the travel destination you attend.  It’s very
trendy these days to save money on weddings, and it’s a good trend
that will hopefully continue.  Just because you could afford a
spectacular wedding doesn’t mean it’s in your best interest to
have one.  An affordable wedding can extend your honeymoon and
start off the rest of your life comfortably.