How to Save Money on Your Wedding with Windy City Live!

Planning your big day? Nervous about a small budget? Don’t be! I have a few fabulous tips and trick son how to save money on your wedding, and you can see all of them on Windy City Live today at 11am CST on ABC7! I join Val Warner on camera to show you how to get it done under budget!

The Dress

The dress is one item with a huge range in budget- from free (yes, free!) to tens of thousands of dollars, this is an area you can definitely save money.

• Borrow from a friend or family member– love your cousin’s gown? Ask if you can borrow it!
• Rent one!– Rent the Runway makes it possible to rent your wedding dress! Want to get it for free? Give friends $20 off their first order, and you’ll get $20 off a minimum purchase of $60.00 after it ships. Rack up the referrals and your dress is free!

The nha khan gown I wore on the segment retails for $945, but you can rent it for only $150 at Rent the Runway! Here is the link to start renting: get $20 off your first rental!

Cocktails

Food and beverage accounts for about 50% of most wedding budgets. Want to slash this percentage? Here are a some ways around blowing your budget on the booze!

• Find a venue that allows you to bring in your own alcohol (no mark-up/free booze!)
• Swap the expensive champagne for a less expensive prosecco! We conducted a taste test between Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label ($42.99) and La Marca Prosecco ($11.99); Val preferred the prosecco in a blind taste test!!
• Binny’s lets you return all unopened purchases, so don’t hesitate to buy what you need and return the rest

Invitations/Save the Date/Table Numbers

• Free online templates to print your own
• Make table numbers out of a painted wine bottle & contact paper
• Use mini chalkboards
• Pain a clothespin and write the table number on a gift tag
• Use an embossing tool to embellish to look more professional

Decorations

• Use Christmas lights and wrap around trees/icicle lights from branches
• Put candles in mason jars, spaghetti jars, pickle jars, etc.. Wrap them with lace, raffia, ribbons or burlap!
• I made my own cake stands using glasses and platters from the Dollar Store and glued them together. I then ordered cakes from Sam’s Club with our monogram on them and put on each table instead of one big cake DIY Cake Stand

Flowers

• Grow your own or pick wildflowers; my mom grew big pots of annuals to place around my ceremony location (I forgot my bouquet for photos and cut hydrangeas from our yard to use)
• Grab them after a holiday from a church/baptism/etc…
• Make your own tissue paper or fabric flowers
• Share flowers with another bride that weekend

Photo: Tom Kachadurian

Photography

• Use the app WedPics to set up a free account where guests can upload photos
• Use a hashtag for your wedding and create an “InstaBooth” as opposed to paying for a photo booth Hashtag signs

Communication

• Download and use the FREE Tengi app and win money! App is the only messaging app to give away money to users; they give away 50% of ad revenue in the form of prizes to their users
• Message globally for free- we had a groomsman in Ireland and a bridesmaid in Italy for our wedding and it would have been so much easier to use this app to communicate

Wedding Planner

• Megan Estrada of North Shore Weddings & Events gave me a lot of insider tips; she has received many awards from Make It Better, The Knot and more
• Hire a Wedding Planner for FREE Example- they can recommend a less well-known $4,000 photographer vs. a popular $10,000 photographer and save you $6,000; they can also find less expensive venues, vendors, etc… and can save you enough money to cover their cost (so, FREE wedding planner)

How did you save for your wedding? Please share your best tips for your special day!