Who says your wedding day has to be a stressful, expensive mess? Sometimes simple and inexpensive (not cheap) options are far more beautiful and enjoyable than the latter. So as you prepare for your wedding day, here are some inexpensive and easy tips to save you money and frustration.
- Use Clip-In Hair Extensions
The time and cost involved with getting your hair done for a wedding is tremendous. This is especially true if you’re getting extensions. Instead of spending time with your wedding party and family in the hours preceding, you have to sit in a salon with a bunch of people you don’t know. Thankfully there’s another solution.
“If you’re a bride that doesn’t have time to go in days before to get your poor scalp tugged on, tortured and tenderized, then perhaps the clip-in extensions are the best for you,” suggests Mikey Moran of Private Label Extensions. “They work really well for all occasions. Once you are done with your wedding you can take them out and store them for any occasion.”
- Do Your Own Makeup
Do you really need to pay for someone else to do your makeup? You’ve done it every day of your adult life, so why stop now? If you simply want to feel pampered, ask your maid of honor to do it for you. But there’s no reason to pay for someone else to handle something that you can do relatively effortlessly.
- Have a Friend Take Pictures
Wedding photography is something else that’s really expensive. If you don’t have room in the budget, consider hiring a friend. As long as the individual has some experience and can get you some good shots, you’re all set. Everyone has a camera these days and you’ll have plenty of pictures from guests to go around.
- Choose a Unique Location
An event venue for your wedding and reception can cost thousands of dollars. The simple fact that you’re having a wedding is enough to raise the price. But who says you have to rent out a space that’s traditionally used for a wedding? One increasingly popular trend is to actually choose a totally random location.
“Guerrilla weddings are the way to skirt inflated location fees: at least one couple staged a flash mob ceremony on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Tyler and Andrea Winslow of Torrance, Calif., invited family and friends to the beach and married right there,” Forbes contributor Vanessa McGrady notes. “The caveat to just showing up somewhere is that places require permits for a reason, and you’re risking getting asked to leave, fined, or worse by bureaucrats on site.”
- Chill on the Flowers
Flowers for your wedding day can get really expensive if you aren’t careful. The good news is that flowers are naturally beautiful and simplicity is often best. Instead of spending an outlandish amount of money on wedding flowers, send a friend to a local market on the morning of your big day and ask them to pick up whatever they can find. Use them sparingly and you’ll save a considerable amount. (You also won’t be worried about whether an expensive investment looks absolutely perfect.)
Enjoy Your Wedding Day
It’s amazing how many brides spend the majority of their wedding day stressed out and anxious. They want every little detail to go right and fret over anything that goes wrong. It’s also astonishing how much some brides spend on their wedding day.
Wouldn’t you prefer to have a stress-free wedding day, while saving your money for the honeymoon? While you may be accustomed to seeing all of your friends overspend and stress out, you don’t have to. Using the hacks discussed in this article, you can make smarter choices that leave you feeling better about the big day.