How to Plan a Big (& Beautiful) Wedding on an Affordable Budget
Getting married is such a joyful thing, but everyone knows that wedding planning is stressful. You’re planning the biggest and most expensive party of your life with a person who, in the grand scheme of things, you haven’t actually known for that long.
One of the reasons planning was particularly stressful for me is that I have a large family. I knew from the start that we were going to have a big wedding, even though we still weren’t able to invite everyone we loved. Big weddings are so fun, but even small weddings are expensive. A big wedding? It can feel impossible to achieve on a reasonable budget. But we worked hard and it ended up being a truly magical day.
I hope this post is helpful if you’re trying to plan a big wedding on a budget that is still beautiful! Here are a few tips that helped me.
This post contains affiliate links that earn me a commission. For more information, read my disclaimer.
1. Understand typical wedding expenses.
According to a recent study by Zola, the average cost of a wedding has risen to $33,000.
You may have an idea in your head what weddings cost, but it might be completely unrealistic. For example, Spencer was mistakenly of the opinion that invitations would cost around $100 total including postage (cute). In reality, they ended up being several times that, even with our cost-saving measures.
Remember that the wedding industry will always try to get you to spend as much as possible. If you’re comfortable, ask friends who have gotten married in the last year if they would be willing to share some of their costs. Do your research and review all of your options so you have an understanding of what you will realistically have to spend.
Many of the wedding planning resources I found said the best way to save money is to have fewer people at your wedding. But if you’re having a big wedding, that’s not very helpful, is it? When you can’t cut your guest list, it’s important to keep the cost per guest as low as possible. Our venue was all-inclusive and the cost per guest was within our budget, which was one of the main reasons we chose it. You do have options, even with a large guest list.
2. Agree on a realistic budget.
Before you fall in love with anything, create a budget that both you and your fiancé are happy with. We were fortunate to have generous support from our parents, but we still needed to create a budget we both felt good about.
This is a decision that you and your fiancé must agree on. Many people differ on how much they are willing to spend on one day — even if it’s the most special day of their life — so you may need to meet in the middle. Unless you both have exactly the same views about money, this will probably be a difficult conversation. However, once you agree it will make the many other financial decisions much easier.
Keep in mind that your budget will probably end up being slightly over what you planned. You may not remember to allow for everything, and will likely face some unexpected expenses.
One of the reasons our expenses ended up being higher is we overestimated what we were able to accomplish. In your initial pass on your wedding budget, did you assume you could coordinate your own wedding, bake your own cake, and build your own bouquet with wildflowers you found on the side of the road on your way to pick up Grandma from the airport? If so, you may want to add some buffer in case you realize (like we did) that there is only so much you can accomplish on your wedding day. Lastly, don’t forget about tips!
3. Prioritize what’s most important to you.
To create your budget, you need to prioritize what’s most important to you. As part of our wedding planning spreadsheet, we created a budget tab that calculates budget percentages. For example, if your venue costs 20% of your budget, you have 80% to spend on everything else. If you are able to cut the venue line item down to 15%, you now have 85% left to work with.
This method really helped me feel like I had control, because I could choose to spend less or cut things that didn’t matter as much to me, and allocate more to the things that were important.
Want our wedding budget template spreadsheet?
Here’s a snapshot of what we prioritized.
Invitations
We skipped printed save the dates so we could do nicer printed invites. I designed ours in Canva and printed them as postcards through Moo because their quality is outstanding but their prices are reasonable. We also did DIY wax seals (more on that later).
Cake
We saved money on cake by doing an epic Nothing Bundt bundtini tower (10/10 recommend).
Dress
I didn’t want an expensive dress, and found a dress and veil I loved for a bargain at David’s Bridal.
Flowers
We had originally planned on doing our own flowers, which is certainly feasible. However, after considering the stress involved as well as the actual cost, we decided we wanted to hire a florist and found the amazing Blushing Florals. Yoli worked with our budget and helped us get the most value out of our flowers. For example, we repurposed the arbor decoration for our sweetheart table and instead of centerpieces, we did candles with loose flowers. It was even more beautiful than we had imagined and ended up being very affordable.
Candles
Speaking of candles, they’re an easy way to make an event feel magical and are one of the best investments I’ve ever made! I ordered a couple sets of candles and vases from Yummi Candles. At first I tried to track down items from different locations such as Dollar Tree and Michael’s, but I had trouble finding a good deal on what I wanted. While the sets I purchased weren’t cheap, they provided tremendous value considering the essential role they played in our decor. After the wedding, I flipped half the candles but kept the other half and use them regularly in our interior decor and for parties.
Photos
We ended up choosing to focus our budget on photography instead of videography, and I honestly don’t regret it. My friend Corrine Frances Photography is amazingly gifted, and she flew out to California and gave us a discount. We will treasure the photos for years to come!
These are some of the choices we made, but the fun thing about wedding planning is there’s no right or wrong in what you choose to prioritize — it’s about what matters to you.
4. Get your DIY on.
DIY can be great, but be warned that it does not always save money. I tried to be smart about what I purchased vs. what we DIYed and kept track of how much materials cost. Even when it is cheaper, DIY is a lot of work. Fortunately, we had so much support from our amazing friends/wedding party — we could not have done it without them! Here are a few things we DIYed.
Wax Seals
I really love wax seals, so I ordered a custom stamp with our wedding logo on Etsy and found wax glue gun sticks on Amazon. We used these seals on our invites, as well as our favors and some of our signage. They were a lot of work but were very beautiful and inexpensive to make.
Signage
We DIYed all our signage by using acrylic sheets and glass from frames. We created designs in Canva, printed them on copy paper, and traced them with paint markers. Again, our friends (special shout out to Cate and Bella) painstakingly supported this tedious process and we could not have done it without them!
White Wagon
Spencer and I bought a used Radio Flyer wagon on Facebook Marketplace for $50 and spray-painted it white! The ring bearers pulled the flower girl down the aisle in it, and it was so cute. We are not pro painters but were really happy with how it turned out!
Place Cards
I purchased Avery place cards on Amazon and printed them using their free template. It’s a little tricky to get the hang of at first, but once you do it’s cheap and easy!
Planning a wedding that is both big and beautiful is difficult, but it is achievable. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by wedding planning stress, I hope a few of these ideas help!
Looking for More Wedding Planning Ideas?
Check out these other posts for more planning tips!
