How We’re Getting Married for Under $3,000

April 7, 2007 By Matthew Paulson

My fiancé and I are getting married in just about four and a half months now, and all of the planning is going surprisingly well. We’ve got a location, the wedding party, the gift registries, the guest list, the photographer, the clothes, the honeymoon, and the reception all figured out. All that’s left to do is make some food for the reception, send out the invitations, and have ourselves a wedding. We’re both very frugal people, so we decided to have a wedding as cheaply as possible. Originally we were hoping for a goal of $3,000, but we might actually be able to get by with a little bit less than that!

Normally I don’t share a lot of information about my finances, Here’s what our budget looks like!

Attire – Raelene was able to find a nice dress for about $250.00, and the bridesmaids are kind enough to pay for their own dresses, which aren’t more than about $75.00 each. My groomsmen and I will all be wearing black suits, which we already have, so there’s no cost for those at all! I actually got my suit for free for being in another wedding, which only sweetens the deal.

Photography – Getting photography for a wedding can be extremely expensive, but we shopped around quite a bit. We talked to a bunch of different photographers and eventually decided to go with the one that took care of Raelene’s sister’s wedding. We’re getting a very decent package for a paltry sum of $800.00

Facilities – We’re getting married in our local church, and they’re not charging us a dime. We’ll probably give some money to the pastor and throw some extra money in the collection basket at church on Sunday, it’ll probably be about $150.00.

Music – Some musically inclined girls that we know are going to be playing their instruments for us. We’ve even got a couple of girls that plan on playing their flute and violin for us, and we don’t have to pay a dime for them. I think we’ll have a couple of songs on CD that we’ll be using too.

Rehearsal Dinner – My parents have graciously agreed to pay for this. I think we’re just going out to a nice local restaurant, it won’t cost them more than $200 or so.

Invitations – We got a couple of kits at Wal-Mart for under $25.00, had them printed out for next to nothing, and mailed them out, very inexpensive.

Rings – We actually decided not to get my fiancé a wedding ring, her engagement ring fits just fine, and she doesn’t like to wear a lot of jewelry, so we decided that’s just fine for her. I was able to pickup a nice band online for $50.00

Reception – We’re not doing anything fancy here, we’re going to save a ton of money by doing this ourselves. No caterer for us, but it’s in the afternoon, so it’s not like we need to provide some fancy meal. We’re going to do some nice decorating, make some cakes ourselves with the help of my soon to be mother in law, and get some ice cream. The whole reception won’t cost more than $500.00.

Marriage License – This’ll cost us $40.00 in the state of South Dakota, no escaping that!

Honeymoon – Of course I’m not going to give away details about our honeymoon location, but it’s going to be a lot of fun for the both of us, and it’ll be less than $1000 for the trip.

I can’t imagine how some people can manage to spend $10,000, $20,000 or more on a decent sized wedding. It’s amazing how much money you can save if you’re willing to do a few things yourself. Remember, people remember your wedding by how much fun they have, not by how much money you spend!

You don’t really need to spend all that much money to get married, one girl that I knew was happy to take her husband and the parents to the courthouse and get the thing over with, and they paid under $100.00 for the whole ordeal! You can have a great wedding, but you don’t need to spend five figures to make it happen.

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