How to Save Money on Wedding Items: 11 Brilliant Ideas
I’m going to share with you the understatement of the year: Weddings are expensive!
From the venue to the food, and all the nuisance items a wedding entails, the cost of a wedding can add up very quickly.
Today I want to share with you how a few mindset shifts allowed me to save a ton of money on 11 common wedding items, to the tune of almost $600!
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When I started planning my wedding, I had no idea of how weddings worked or how much they cost. I had never been a bridesmaid or otherwise been involved with weddings. Needless to say, the costs took me by surprise.
We saved a lot of money on the big-ticket items like the venue and the photos by doing things a little less conventionally.
You can read all about it in this post! But today I wanted to share with you how I saved a whopping $595 on small, and often-overlooked items just by thinking outside the box.
Let’s get started!
How to Save Money on Wedding Items
The savings per item that I’m going to share with you today may not seem that big, but they definitely add up!
All it took was small mindset shifts and learning some lessons as I started shopping for these common wedding items, which I’ll share with you today.
Shop Online for Wedding Items
One of the first “revelations” I had as I started pricing out some common wedding items was that I could buy some of them online.
At first, it hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t limited to my local bridal or wedding supply store for the most common wedding items.
It wasn’t until I was shopping for my wedding veil that I realized this.
In fact, it was one of the attendants at the local bridal store who suggested I look for a veil online for big savings.
Once I realized that I could get a high quality, and much cheaper, version online, I went all out with the online shopping!
After that, I checked online for every. single. item that I needed for the wedding.
Here’s some of the wedding items we bought online for huge savings:
Wedding Ring Box
We considered getting a ring pillow which was up to $50 locally.
We figured there would be lots of chances of something going wrong with a pillow, so we settled for a ring box. However, the selection of ring boxes locally was basically non-existent. The three or so we found were some odd colors and just plain ugly 🙁
The Wedding Ring Box was definitely easier for our ring-bearer to handle, and at less than $20 online, it was much cheaper than a local ring pillow or box!
Guest Book
We also got our guest book online mainly because we couldn’t find one locally that would have all the fields we wanted.
We were able to find a beautiful one online that not only matched our theme but also came with all the fields we wanted, and a pen!
Wedding Veil
This was a big win for us. When I first started looking for a veil at my local bridal shop I almost plopped when I saw the prices!
The most affordable veils started at $50 for a tiny veil that wouldn’t even cover my face! Longer ones started at $130 and were completely plain.
I wanted something with more bling.
Thankfully, I was able to get a rhinestone edged veil online for $20 after the attendant suggested I look for a veil online. I don’t know what her name is, but I’d like to send her a thank you card!
After all, a comparable veil at my local bridal shop would have been $250!
Unity Candle
We settled on having a Unity Candle ceremony, and we were able to get the candle set AND the stand online for about $25.
This alone would have cost twice as much at the local stores plus another $20 for the stand!
Bridal Robe
I had no idea you needed a bridal robe until the day I went to get my dress and the attendant offered me one.
The cost caught me completely by surprise! A simple looking robe was $50+ at the bridal store!
In my mind this was outrageous, so I started searching for a comparable one online.
Thankfully, I was able to find a beautiful personalized robe online for half the cost!
Wedding Jewelry
I purchased my jewelry set online for $20 and it looked beautiful with the dress!
A comparable jewelry set at my local bridal shop runs about twice as much!
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Buy in Bulk
We also saved a lot of money by purchasing items in bulk or bundles whenever that option was available.
Not only did buying items in bulk save us money, but it also helped keeping everything coordinated. Here’s some of the wedding items we bought in bulk to save money:
Wedding Sign Bundle
We used a welcome sign as well as a small sign directing the guests to sign the guest book. We also got a few signs providing directions for the guests around the venue.
Each of these signs cost about $15 at our local hobby store and they were inconsistent in color or design. Instead, we purchased a wedding sign bundle for $30 and got all our signs to coordinate with our theme 🙂
Candle Votives
We had four votives per table plus several votives surrounding the cake table. Given that we were using quite a few, we purchased them in packs.
Whereas a set of 12 would run us about $20 locally, we were able to get a set of 48 for less than a dollar a piece!
Party Favors
We didn’t find a lot of variety in the local offerings for wedding favors. Mostly, they were tin boxes at $20 for a set of 30 or even more expensive trinkets.
We opted for party favor boxes that looked like a wedding dress or a tuxedo and filled them up with candy. We got 100 for $20!
I must confess that they were a pain to put together, but they came out really cute!
Be Flexible
Being flexible with what we wanted and not being too “set” on any one particular item also made a huge difference on our overall wedding cost.
Here’s how being flexible with the following items saved us a ton of money on our wedding:
Money/Card Box
We decided to go with a cardboard box that would be easy to carry afterwards. However, locally, the boxes available were bulky, ugly, and upwards of $40.
Although we really wanted our money/card box to have our names embossed on it, in the end we chose not to personalize our card box. This allowed us to get a generic card box for a fraction of the cost we had originally seen.
There are plenty of ideas here for a beautiful card or money box!
Flower Arrangements
The one item that surprised me the most in the wedding planning process were the flowers. I had no idea how expensive real flowers are!
We were able to save money on wedding décor by choosing a venue that included a floral package, which covered the table centerpieces and the floral arrangements around the venue.
However, it did not cover the bridal bouquet, corsages or any bouquets for the bridesmaids.
I also wanted an extra, smaller bouquet to throw for the single ladies 😉
Since I skipped the bridal party, I didn’t have to buy those bouquets.
The one mind-shift I had to make with this was that I wasn’t going to have a bouquet with real flowers. If you think, like I did, that fake flowers won’t look as pretty, I encourage you to rethink this!
The cheapest bouquet of real flowers I could find locally started at $50 and it was really, really, tiny and plain.
A comparable cost locally for what I ended up getting in terms of flowers would have run about twice that much.
On the other hand, I could get a lot more options and customization online for a fraction of the cost!
Being flexible with the kind of flowers we wanted allowed us to save a lot of money, and the fake flowers looked just as good as real ones would have.
Have a Wedding Item Budget
Having a budget for our wedding items also helped keep us focused and aware of how much money we were spending and where we cut something we didn’t really need.
For example, to stay within our budget we opted for not sending out formal wedding invitations. Since my husband had a background in marketing and design, he created a website with all the wedding and venue information as well as a digital wedding invitation directing guests to the site.
Other items that provided smaller savings included the cake topper, picture frames for the welcome table, and the table runner for the cake and gift tables since those were not included in the decorations provided by the venue.
As we shopped for these last items we kept our wedding budget in mind. All in all, we were able to do the entire wedding for LESS than what we had budgeted, which gave us warm fuzzy feelings 🙂
If you’d like to learn more about how to come up with a budget, and stick to it, download my free Guide to Budgeting here.
Final Thoughts
There you have it!
These items, as small as they may be individually, saved us nearly $600 on our wedding!
By being flexible and open minded, shopping online for discounted items, and buying items in bundles whenever possible allowed us to stick to our wedding budget without having to dip into our savings!
Think about the box and get creative when trying to pinch those wedding pennies, and enjoy a wedding that won’t break your bank!
Time to hear from you! What wedding items have you found online for a deep discount? Share them with us in the comments below!
