How I Saved Thousands on My Wedding

WEDDING & ELOPEMENT TIPSWEDDINGSELOPEMENTS
Written By Lyndsey Greene

My husband and I had a pretty interesting wedding planning process. When we first were engaged in 2019 we started to create a vision for our wedding and we wanted something small and intimate with good food. But, like a lot of weddings, the guest list started to grow each week, and all of a sudden we had a 100+ person wedding. With that larger guest list came a more traditional wedding and we ended up booking a venue and caterer that could accommodate an event this size. Now, I want to preface this next part. If we would have ended up having this larger wedding I am confident I still would have enjoyed myself and been happy with our wedding day. However, my husband and I are much happier with how our wedding ended up happening.

Fast forward a few months and I have pretty much planned every part of our wedding down to the florals months before we actually needed to be done. What can I say, I love event planning! Then… March 2020 happened. Then March turned to April… then May… and as all of us remember it was summer 2020 and we were all in isolation laughing about how we all thought we would work from home for two weeks and COVID would be over. What a horrible joke.

So, a month before all our final payments were due for our wedding we had a decision to make. Go forward with our planned wedding and just cut the guest list down and hope that COVID was over by October. Or cut our losses aka lose our deposits and just elope. We ended up choosing to elope so we didn’t have to worry about taking a chance of paying even more money and having to cancel completely in the event that COVID got worse (spoiler – it did). This ended up being the best decision we made and is really the reason why I became an elopement photographer. I dove headfirst into the world of elopements and replanned our entire wedding from scratch with a couple of months to go before the big day. Not only was this so freeing to be able to plan our day to be exactly what we originally wanted but it was a huge stress reliever because we finally could have an affordable wedding. There were many things we were able to save money on by going a less traditional route and with that savings we were able to spend more on some of the things we loved and didn’t want to compromise on. Below is my list and tips on where we chose to save and splurge. Hopefully, you find it helpful in our own planning and budgeting!

Here are some things I personally did to help lower our overall wedding costs:

  1. Venue

  2. Food

  3. Wedding size

  4. Ceremony decor

  5. Wedding cake

  6. Thrifted decor

 

Venue

Our biggest cost savings was in our wedding venue. We chose to elope at my family’s home on Vashon Island as it is a special place for my husband and I. If you are able to I highly recommend opting for a location that is meaningful to you as it just makes it that much sweeter. Now, I understand that couples may not have a resource like this but even just opting for an Airbnb would have given us significant cost savings over the traditional venue we originally booked.

 

Food

Once we decided to elope we knew we had so much more freedom when it came to the food that was going to be served. We originally wanted to have pizza at our wedding but ended up booking a traditional caterer as it was just going to work better for the event we originally planned. However, when the pandemic made us change everything we knew we had an opportunity to go back to what we wanted. PIZZA! We only spent $200 and got pizza from our favorite pizza place on Vashon Island, O Sole Mio. If you are on the island you have to stop and get pizza here. It’s literally the best I’ve ever had outside of Italy!

 

Wedding size

Because we opted for an elopement/mico wedding we kept the guest list small and to just our closest friends and immediate family. We had a total of 11 people including my husband and me in attendance which made it cost-effective to feed everyone and provide alcohol for the day. It was so special sharing the day with just our closest people and we didn’t have to worry about going around and saying hi to this uncle or this great aunt. It was just the people closest to us in attendance and it was such a laid-back day because of it. Well, it was laid back minus my bridesmaids and I almost missing the ferry and delaying the entire day by hours. But other than that little bit of stress as we sped to the ferry it was very relaxed!

 

Ceremony decor

When we changed direction and decided to elope we knew that we wanted to get married on Vashon Island and we knew we wanted to find the best spot on the island for our ceremony. Luckily, I grew up in the area and already had a spot in mind that would be perfect. Because we found a location on a cliff that had an amazing view we decided we just wanted to go simple with the décor. For us, it was more about the location and celebrating it. We went simple for the décor with a rug and some candle holders. We had planned to have pampas grass that we picked from the backyard in a few vases but it was way too windy that day so we just left that back at the house. By just letting the view do the work for us we saved a ton of money here. It was also much easier to get these items too and from the site and we didn’t have to worry about a ton of logistics.

 

Wedding cake

The price of a wedding cake is pretty much tied to the size of the cake i.e. time to make the cake in my experience. So opting for a single-tier cake is the way to go if you want to save money. We had a 9” cake and we could have easily gone with something smaller OR we should have forgone getting additional cupcakes for our guests and just give them a slice of our cake. Basically what I’m saying is I ended up with a ton of cake and cupcakes that I ended up eating. Sure I gained some weight but our cake from Sweet Themes Bakery was delicious.

 

 Thrifted Decor

I thrifted the shit out of our wedding from the beginning. Thrifting is something I enjoy and wanted to incorporate it into the décor whether we eloped or had a traditional wedding. I knew I wanted a classic simple look and tons of candles and glass hurricanes are something you can find at pretty much any goodwill any time of the year. I spend a few Saturdays going to my favorite goodwill’s purchasing every hurricane they had in the store and I spent about $1-$3 per hurricane depending on the size. I got the candles from Ikea and we collected pampas grass from the backyard and hung it to dry. By getting creative and spending a few days thrifting I was able to get a really high-end décor look for super cheap.

 

Here are things that I personally chose to splurge on:

  1. Dream Dress

  2. Photographer

  3. Florals

 

dream dress

I had my heart set on a particular Jenny Yoo dress for about a year before I got married and as soon as I put it on I was sold and knew I had to have it regardless of the cost. And I still don’t regret it to this day. We also wanted a nice investment piece for my husband as he has NEVER owned a suit. So we were happy to spend the money on something he can wear over and over again in the future. In my experience, if you fall in love with something or feel strongly about including something on your wedding day, just do it. You won’t regret spending the extra money on something you love.

 

Photographer

We booked our Photographer, Mayfield Photo and Film nearly 2 years in advance because we wanted to work with them that badly. We were pretty much going to pay any price to have them shoot our elopement and were so happy we did. I mean come on… look at these images! Our photographer was worth every penny. Savana and Trey were with us the entire day and it was just so fun having them there capturing the entire thing. I will cherish their friendship and these images forever.

 

Florals

Part of my vision for the day was a large and luxurious bouquet. I just wanted to be holding a ton of flowers of all different varieties and I just wanted it to be large. I don’t really know why I’m obsessed with large florals but they just hit different for me. It’s just so luxurious and I love them. This was 100% worth the extra money as it made me so happy to have a huge bouquet that literally weighed like 5 lbs. Plus I pressed and dried my flowers and set them in resin so I get to have this beautiful bouquet on display forever.

Lyndsey Greene
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