Money Saving Ideas When Planning Your Wedding

Money Saving Tips – Save a FORTUNE !!

If you are reading this, Congratulations!

Here at Caterhire we LOVE weddings and enjoy helping our Brides and Grooms in any way we can.   If you are reading this you are obviously looking for some tips and we are happy to share our experience with you.

Our forthcoming Blogs will discuss all steps relating to organising the preparations for your BIG day.  From venue to guest numbers, creative linens, seating plans, photography and much more.

To start off with, we are going to give you some money saving ideas that just might come in handy as you plan your Wedding and all that goes with this massive, exciting, time in your life.  We appreciate what an expensive time this is and how you want the day to be just “perfect”.  Cutting costs does not mean cutting style.

You CAN enjoy planning your wedding, and manage to save money at the same time.  Here are some tips that really are very practical to start you off.

Invitations

Make your own printable invites (diywedding.ie, vistaprint.ie, smilebox.com) – there are loads of websites offering this service.  Even more euro savvy would be to make paperless ones and email them to your guests (all except Great Aunt Mary of course who doesn’t have email !)  .  It can be a lot of fun designing your own invites.  If this is a step too far for you, you could always hand deliver as many as possible.  Depending upon the number of guests – could be a saving up to €500

Church Missals

Making your own Church Missals really is very easy today – if you are not so hot on the laptop yourself, get a tech savvy pal to do it up for you with all your own readings, music choices etc.  Download a template from the net and when you are done get them printed in a print shop – add your own ribbon and a harder cover for a nice touch – Saving approx  €200

Flowers

You could DIY the flowers.  Make sure you rope your pals in who are green fingered or design savvy if you don’t have a clue yourself !  Pop along to the flower market in Smithfield and get a feel for the quality and ranges that are available. We have known some couples who have wedding dates a few months off who went on flower arranging courses !! Rent the vases / flower bowls from Caterhire at a fraction of the price than buying them.  Save approx €500

Make your own cake

A small fortune can be saved here – anything goes today – its not unusual to have a chocolate cake, cupcakes, traditional, biscuit cake …. Or each layer a different cake … We all have a great “cake maker” in the family or within our circle of friends who would be honoured to make your cake as their wedding present to you.  Saving up to €500

Photograper

A professional photographer is such a luxury today and great if you can afford it.  However, with the age of digital cameras, stunning photographs can be taken which are just as good.  Make sure the pictures are taken in high resolution and then they can be enlarged and reprinted after the day to create your wedding album.  Select a few close friends and family to snap throughout the day.  Saving up to €1,000

Haggle with the Venue regarding the Costs

Without a doubt the biggest expense is the venue itself and If you don’t ask you don’t get !  If you don’t expect to get a discount, this will be obvious to the decision maker at the venue so get savvy!  Build up a rapport with the venue – most people are in the wedding industry because they love weddings and they will warm to enthusiastic couples !  Saving up to €1000

Keep the Date Flexible

Think about booking your wedding on a week day instead of a weekend – Save up to €1,500.

Marquee Wedding at Home

If your family have a decent sized back garden a marquee wedding is always very special .  The costs are cut considerably and you can have the bespoke wedding you have always dreamed of.  You can rent almost everything at Caterhire for your wedding -  from the ordinary to the absolute lavish !! Rent the chairs, linens, candelabras, table settings, stylish glassware, crockery, dance floors, bars  and so much more.  You would be supplying your own chosen wine and catering also.  Save approx €5,000