Hi all! I’m Matt, one of Medean’s founders, and I also happened to get married recently. Instead of going on a honeymoon like a normal human being, I decided to write about how I planned my wedding without breaking the bank.
Weddings can be expensive. In 2018, the average wedding costs $33,931, while in Chicago (where the wedding was and Medean is headquartered), people spend over $60,000! Our final cost? For 100 guests we spent just a bit over $15,000. And we had an absolute blast from start to finish!
Hopefully this helps you learn a little about wedding planning, how to avoid major expenses, and how to have an amazing wedding at your own budget-friendly price point.
Let’s start at the beginning. I proposed to my wife over a year before we got married, so we had a lot of time to plan. A friend gave us a wedding planning book and my sister sent her spreadsheet to track spending which helped us build the idea of our perfect wedding.
Guidance By Principles and Shared Priorities
My sister’s biggest contribution, though, was a great piece of advice. She simply said, “before you start planning the actual specifics of your wedding, think about the emotions and feelings you want your wedding to evoke.”
That became our guiding light through this process. Everyone’s wedding is different, and we had to decide what we wanted ours to feel like and what we wanted our guests to walk away with. With that in mind, we started asking ourselves questions. Did we want a formal feeling? Did we want guests to be amazed by the food? Should it feel more like a party or a relaxed get-together?
We decided we wanted it to be fun and relaxing, and I started referring to it as “backyard barbecue meets wedding”. Once we had identified what we wanted people to think and feel about our wedding, as well as ourselves, it made it much easier to plan.
One of the keys to planning a successful wedding is being a team. My wife and I were very upfront with our expectations and agreed we didn’t want to spend a lot of money, but we also did not set a hard budget. We believed we shouldn’t go into debt and didn’t want to ask family for money. We did have an ideal price range, but at the start, it’s hard to know exactly where you’ll end up. We ran a lot of different scenarios, especially as we started talking with venues, and little by little we found our price point. The key was to have shared expectations and values rather than hard lines not to cross.
The Big Three
As the planning progressed, we quickly learned there were three big expenses: the venue, food and drink, and entertainment. My advice is this: if you want to have a cost-effective wedding, you need to ensure at least two of these are affordable if not all three.
The most expensive is typically the venue. And after talking to some friends, going to other weddings, and looking at venues ourselves we realized most venues fit into one of three categories:
The “all-inclusive” venue. This place will do it all for you. Venue, chairs, tables, food, drinks, sometimes even photographers and entertainment. Most likely, this is going to be the cheapest and least amount of effort on your part.
The “nothing-included but lots of requirements” venue. They won’t be providing you much except the space, but they do care a lot about what you do. These venues will typically require you to use a caterer from a list and will have many dos and don’ts. This is the most expensive option and, in my opinion, should be avoided for a budget-friendly wedding.
The “nothing-included but they don’t care” venue. They won’t be providing much except the space and they don’t really care what you do. They’ll let you bring in your own food and alcohol and won’t have many restrictions on other aspects. This is a great option to keep costs down but does require more work on your part.
Our venue was mostly the third with a little of the first. The wedding was held at a brewery that provided beer, bartenders, and the tables and chairs. They let us bring in our own wine and use any caterer we wanted so long as they met basic licensing and insurance requirements. It was perfect.
Know When to Say No
The brewery wasn’t our first choice, however. We initially found an amazing historical home built by a famous American architect. It was beautiful, had an amazing backyard (yay backyard BBQ meets wedding!), and at first, they were very relaxed and didn’t have many restrictions.
As the planning took root, little by little things became restrictive. First, a $500 wine deposit, no problem. Then a $250 security guard charge, again no problem. Then wanting us to use a caterer from their list, we successfully negotiated this one away. But they then wanted us to use a bartender from their list. When we contacted the cheapest one on their list, it was $4,000 just for the staff and setup. We said no and walked away.
Though we had spent a few months planning for this venue, working with their staff and bringing our parents by to see it themselves, we knew it had drifted too far from what we wanted.
This is key to recognize. Always keep your principles and guiding lights in mind, check in on them regularly, and know when to say no.
Have At Least One Thing You Splurge On
It is your wedding after all, you need to make sure you get what you want. That said, the way most people go broke is because they want it all. My advice to you: early on you need to decide what those one or two things are that you MUST have. Spend money on those and save elsewhere.
For us, we made two big splurges, if you want to call it that. We had to have a photo booth. My wife and I had many dates early on in our relationship that included a photo booth and we knew we needed one at our wedding. My wife also initially found and wanted a very expensive dress. We almost said yes but in the end made a compromise: she found a more financially sensible dress and instead splurged on designer shoes. She got to feel special and we saved money.
DIY and Know When to Ask For Help
Once you have your biggest expenses out of the way, you’ll find you have a lot of little things to take care of. Decorations, party favors, attire, hair and makeup, wedding cake, tips for the event staff, and much more. These little things can add up fast and you won’t even realize it. What’s $300 here and $500 there? It’s thousands when you add it all up.
This is where you may overspend suddenly or find an opportunity to save a ton. My recommendation is to find a few things you can do yourself or get your friends to. In the last couple weeks of planning, many family and friends reached out and asked what they could do to help.
Here are some areas where friends or you can make a big impact.
Music. We went with a playlist DJ. They bring the equipment and an MC, but you provide the music playlists. This saved us about 50% of the cost of a traditional DJ, and we asked our friends to help us curate the music.
Deserts. In my opinion, the cake and desserts are not that important. You could easily spend over a thousand dollars on a wedding cake but ask yourself, can you even remember the cake at the last wedding you went to? The desserts I have remembered and loved were all finger foods. Cupcakes, cake balls, cookies, you get the gist. Pro-tip: ask one of your friends who loves to bake to help out.
Decorations. This is another great area to have friends lend a hand. One of our friends sent us fabrics from Mexico to use as table runners, another friend painted vases and potted flowers for centerpieces, and a third friend made a piñata. Instead of spending thousands on flowers and a professional decorator, we only spent a couple hundred on supplies and built stronger relationships with those around us.
Photographer. You may have to ask around, but chances are one of your friends or a friend of a friend is a part-time photographer. Our photographer was my brother-in-law’s friend who is a schoolteacher by day and a photographer by night. He did a great job and while his rate was close to the quotes we got from full-time photographers, it still helped us save $200–300. This adds up.
Hair and makeup. We did use a professional for day-of hair and makeup, but I personally put the highlights in my wife’s hair. I’ve been doing it for her for a year now. When she initially told me that it was ~$200 to get highlights at a salon, I took to YouTube and Amazon. With under $100 in supplies, I’ve highlighted her hair a half dozen times already. If any of your friends are a makeup pro, you can save money by having them help.
What Would I Change?
There actually isn’t much that I would do differently. Probably the biggest surprise was the last couple of weeks' expenses. After we had paid the final invoices for the venue, food truck, and DJ, I thought the expenses were done but, in the weeks before the wedding, things started adding up. We probably should have planned the tiny things a little better, so I’d suggest you make a list a few months before and space out the purchases.
So Long and Thanks For Reading!
So that’s my story. My wife and I had an unbelievably fun wedding and didn’t end up bankrupt ourselves in the process. If I could give you any parting advice, it would be these:
- Start with finding your guiding light and make sure you’re on the same page with your partner
- Most people are more willing to help out than you think. It’s okay to lean on others, and you may find it brings you closer to them in the end.
- Find those one or two things that will truly make you happy and splurge on them. It’s your wedding, go have a blast!
Looking for more money-saving tips? Check out Medean, our app that’s using data-driven insights and financial challenges to help you accomplish your goals. You’ll learn a lot, save a ton, and have some fun along the way!
