Save Money With A Brunch Wedding

Weddings tend to be expensive. Spending thousands of dollars on one day may seem crazy, but it’s built up to be “the best day of your life”, so who wants to scrimp? We all want to feel beautiful, and we want our guests to have an amazing day. But what about the bill at the end? We had a fantastic day on our wedding day, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing! We didn’t have a super low budget wedding, but there are a few things we did to save a whole bunch of money, including eating one of my favourite meals, brunch!

The Dress

We bought my dress from a smaller local store. I did not want to look at prices when I was shopping because if I was stuck deciding between two dresses, I would have chosen the cheaper one. Luckily the dress I chose was $500! I felt great in it, and had some money left to buy a reception dress as well!

Less Guests / Smaller Bridal Party

This is a totally personal decision, and depends on the size of your family and friends circle, but we had about 85 people attend our wedding. This saved money on per plate meals (see below for how we really saved on food!), favors and invitation costs etc. The difference between 100 and 150 people can be a big difference in cost. Of course don’t cut anyone from the guest list that is important to you, but if you’re inviting your whole office just because you feel like you should, you might want to reconsider.

My husband and I each had 2 people standing for us. We paid for their dresses/tuxes and gave them some gifts as a token of our appreciation for standing for us. More people is a bigger expense on you (and them), so I would only ask people who are really important to you.

DIY

I made our invitations myself. They were a bit of work but it was a labour of love. I got the templates from Wedding Chicks in their free printable section, and printed/glued everything myself. Of course this cost me a bit in supplies and time, but it’s a great activity for you and your fiance, or bridal party to do together!

I also made our favors, by buying a mug for $1 and putting our wedding stamp on it. My husband mostly handled these (and they would have been much easier if I had my Cricut back then!) but I still love them.

This next one is the big one, this is how we really saved thousands…

We Had A Brunch Wedding!

This may not be for everyone, but it was the best decision we made! We decided not to get married at the typical 4pm, have dinner and then a dance. We got married at 10am, we had brunch with our guests and hung out with them, played some lawn games and then packed it up! My husband and I had dinner by ourselves at a fancy restaurant (still in our wedding clothes!) and then we had a bonfire party with our friends that night (not in wedding clothes!).

Brunch food is way cheaper than dinner food. We paid $18.95 plus tax per plate for brunch, and $6.20 per person for light refreshments to be served while we were getting photos done. This is a huge savings compared to dinner prices which can average $30-50 per plate for dinner alone.

We paid for our guests to have unlimited mimosas, but of course with it being earlier in the day, not many people drank more than one. In total we paid for 104 mimosas, and you can bet that if it was a dinner wedding and an open bar it would have been far more than 104 drinks!

One expense we got to skip all together was a DJ! By not having a dance we saved $500-$1000. We had some close friends MC the reception, and we rented audio equipment to use during the ceremony for $300.

Final Thoughts

I’ll finish this up by saying we did get married in a small town where we both grew up.The prices probably reflect the fact that we got married in a town of 3000 people and not NYC, but the principal still applies that pancakes and bacon are cheaper than chicken and steak. We had a brunch wedding because I LOVE brunch, and not to save money but if you’re looking for something different than the usual, I highly recommend having a brunch wedding!

Want to check out my hometown? Here’s all to do in Liverpool NS!

All the photos in this post thanks to Trevor Allen Photography. I still LOVE these photos, and they were the best thing we spent money on for the wedding.

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