10 Ways To Find Extra Cash to Pay For Your Wedding

10 Ways To Find Extra Cash to Pay For Your Wedding

Its unreasonable in today's economy to expect your parents to foot the bill for an over the top wedding. If you are working and on your own, you'll need to come up with ways to find some extra cash to help pay for your wedding. It CAN be done and it can be done without a lot of sacrifice.

Set up a wedding fund with your fiance and both of you add to it on a weekly basis. Discuss ways you both can cut expenses and find extra money to put into your wedding fund. All good things come with some form of sacrifice, but these suggestions really won't hurt. Bonus, you are working together towards a common goal, spending the rest of your life together!

Cut the fat from your daily expenses. This means forgoing the daily double latte frappachino from your local coffeehouse and brewing your own coffee at home. You can easily save up to $5 a day by doing it yourself. That's an extra $150 a month into the wedding fund per person.

Use coupons when you go grocery shopping and for personal care items you buy at your local pharamacy. Put the savings in the fund.

Drive less, carpool or take public transportation to save on gas and car expenses.

Save on energy costs at home by changing your light bulbs to CFL's., winterizing your home, lowering your thermostat in winter and learn to cut energy costs.

Rent a movie and pop your own popcorn instead of heading to the movie theater. Savings around $35.00. Bonus, you get to snuggle with your honey on the sofa.

Stay away from the bars on your night out. Savings can go up to $200 per night. Invite friends over to your house to play cards and have dinner instead. Or rotate houses with your friends, have a potluck dinner and and BYOB drinks. You may be surprised to see that your friends enjoy these nights in more than hitting the clubs.

Eat dinner at home and brown bag your lunch at work. Savings will mount up. Plan a once a month splurge by buying a pizza or eating out at an inexpensive family restaurant.

Sell your clothes, purses, shoes, electronics and other unused things on eBay or have a garage sale to get rid of things you don't want or don't fit into your new lifestyle.

Get a part time job or get paid for a skill you already have. If you can design web sites, offer your services to small businesses. If you have friends who need a babysitter on weekends, offer to babysit for a fee. Are there senior citizens who need to be driven to the grocery store? Start a service with your fiance to help seniors on the weekends. Clean their house, mow their lawn, help them do home repairs, drive them to the doctor, grocery store, beauty parlor or pharmacy. Make phone calls for them, help them write checks or take them to the bank. It’s a way to feel good about yourself and make some extra cash and they'll be so appreciative. Can you entertain children? Organize children's birthday parties for working parents. Use your imagination and fatten up your wedding fund.

Cut back on your manicures and pedicures. Beauty expenses can add up fast. A trip to the salon can easily blow $100 without much effort. And that doesn't count buying the salon products. You'll save if you do them yourself at home and it will add cash to your fund. Splurge before the wedding on your beauty regimen because you deserve it on your wedding day!

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Slash Your Wedding Costs

With the cost of an average wedding in the USA at $23,687, today's wedding couples are looking for ways to host their dream wedding at an affordable cost. Besides the obvious of working with your budget, it is possible to have an amazing wedding using common sense, cutting the fat, setting priorities, and having a plan.

Set your priorities: What is important to you? A large wedding reception? Dancing? Alcohol? Music? Your dress? A big wedding album? Write down the priorities in order, budget the largest amount to that category and then cut the fat. Have the wedding you can afford without going into debt.

The day of the week and the time of day will raise or lower the cost of your wedding. Saturday evening is the most expensive time to host a reception, since its the most popular day to have a wedding. Scheduling the wedding on a Friday night or Sunday afternoon will significantly lower your costs. If you aren't planning on serving food, don't schedule the reception for meal time or your guests will expect to be fed.

Cut your guest list. You will pay a per head cost per guest, so cutting your guest list to a manageable list will save you thousands.

An open bar will raise your reception costs. Consider instead having a champagne toast, putting bottles of wine on each table, having a spiked punch fountain, or limiting the open bar to one hour only.

A disc jockey will cost you less than a band. Some disc jockeys will also include dinner music and a video in the cost of their fees. A good DJ will keep the party going, ask for references.

A buffet is less expensive than a sit down dinner. Two main dishes will be less expensive than three main dishes.

Wedding flowers in season will be less expensive than just having to have your favorite flower flown in for your bouquet. Ask your florist to substitute your favorite flower in silk. The savings? Priceless, and you still have what you want!

You can save hundreds to thousands of dollars on your wedding dress by buying a dress on sale or on clearance. All bridal salons have clearance sales usually in the summer and inventory reduction sales in December. Ask if there are any discounts available if you take the stock dress. You can also check eBay for bargains on new wedding dresses. If you are having a destination wedding, consider ordering a bridesmaid dress in white, ivory or champagne for huge savings and the look is the same!

Consider a destination wedding. Destination weddings are less expensive and there's no travel time to your honeymoon, you are already there!

Instead of hiring a wedding planner, do it yourself. Use web sites such as Weddingloco.com for tips and help in your wedding planning.

Cut the fat: Ask yourself if you really need certain items such as wedding favors, elaborate invitations with all the enclosures, china or elaborate floral decorations on every table. If the answer is yes, then cut the cost.

There are inexpensive wedding favors in the market or make your own. Candy kisses wrapped in tulle make cute inexpensive favors. Buy the candy in bulk, buy the tulle and tie with ribbons from the craft store. You can print tags on your computer with your names and wedding date, put in a hole with a paper punch and tie it on the ribbon. You savings? A lot! These can be done in advance using your family or friends as helpers.

Wedding invitations don't need to be costly. You can buy attractive invitations online for $58 per hundred. This is a significant savings over printing them yourself. Add up the cost of the blank invitation, the printer ink and factor in your time and having them printed can be a big savings. Remember postage costs have gone up, so make sure your invitation will not have oversize or overweight postage. If you invite everyone to the wedding and the reception, you can have your reception printed on the invitation as a footnote. This saves you the cost of reception cards, which is a big savings on the card AND postage.

Flowers at the reception can be a huge budget buster. Every table doesn't need an elaborate floral arrangement to make a statement. Use some ingenuity for your centerpieces and think outside the box. You can float flower heads you buy at the market in a fishbowl from the dollar store and add a floating votive candle. Or order an assortment of 3 to 4 inch blooming potted plants in season from a local grower and have them put in a colored pot cover to match your wedding colors. Group them on tables, varying the heights or put one on each table. You can give them to the guests to take home or take them home and plant them in your own garden after the wedding.

Use bridesmaid bouquets on the head table instead of buying large floral arrangements. Buy large potted ferns for greenery and take them home for your own house after the wedding. Intertwine clear holiday lights at the head table to give the table a festive look without a lot of expense.

Use common sense and don't second guess your choices. There is less chance of going over budget if you keep to your original plan.

Thanks to Wedding Loco for this post!