Money Saving Wedding Tips - Keep Costs Down and Get Married on a Budget Even in Peak Fall Season!
Location, Location, Location! A boho-chic rustic farm vibe
If you're planning a wedding, you've already noticed that a large part of your budget will be allocated to the venue! When considering expenses, where to have the wedding will dictate the style of the event, the overall vibe, and how many people can attend. Logistics on what is possible can happen from there. But Location (venue choice) is always the first step in wedding planning (assuming you are newly engaged). On private land, at a friend's beautiful farm, a small group of close family members gathered to witness the vows of Jasmine and Kevin, creating a boho-chic rustic farm vibe for their guests, with a forest for their first look, and elegantly decorated reception tables set up in the main horse barn. Using ordinary fall decor such as mums, hay bales, and pumpkins can control costs. Sometimes simple is best, with one of Jasmine's guitars being used as a unique sign-in option. And a center chandelier with some twinkle lights elevated the rustic beauty of the ceremony location. Creativity and a network of friends pulled this all together for a magical evening to remember.
A Smaller Bridal Party
These kids! They were so amazing. They were the entire bridal party and frankly, everything Jasmine and Kevin needed. So sweet and supportive! Having fewer members of your bridal party will always reduce expenses since the wedding couple often pays some or all of the bridal party expenses like florals, hair and makeup, attire, thank you gifts, securing lodging or travel to and from the event, and sometimes breakfast and lunch along with dinner. Jasmine used fall flowers in an eclectic loose-bound wrap for the bridal bouquet and a minimal silk flower bouquet for the kids.
The Forest First look - Keep everything in one location to minimize costs
Who could wish for something more romantic than a first look in an authentic on-site pine forest? The sunlight filtered through the leaves, creating a dappled light effect, and Kevin was overjoyed to finally see his bride, pre-ceremony. If you weren't aware, keeping everything onsite is another huge money-saving trick. Not only does one eliminate the worry and stress of travel from location to location, but you also tighten up your timeline this way! Most photographers, videographers, content creators, and even DJ's or ceremony musicians charge by the hour, and so every hour matters. So keeping things all in one spot can easily be the difference between needing to hire vendors for 6 hours rather than 8 hours! Jasmine and Kevin kept my photo + video service within a FOUR-hire timeframe! This made it possible to commission an elopement package rather than a full-day price point. That's several thousands of dollars saved!
The Formal Barn Ceremony
Soft arena sand covered the floors, and a wall of round bales created a lovely backdrop. I brought large video lights to add warmth and ambience from the left and right sides, and the talented Kalamazoo-area violinist Josh Holcomb provided the ceremony processional and recessional music. A cleansing smudge stick ritual was added to give a moment of preparation before the ring exchange. I loved hearing their story. As the officiant told it, Jasmine and Kevin had “matched” online for quite some time before they began writing to one another and eventually meeting. They each thought the other was probably a bot since the profiles seemed too good to be true.
The Guest list matters! Barn Reception Space - elegant table decor, and market lights!
The catering was provided by Green Fork Food, an elegant, artistic variety of locally sourced West Michigan dining options. They can create dishes with vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and other food sensitivities in mind, and the food was phenomenal.
After location, the second best indicator of how much you will spend on your wedding is this simple equation: Guest Count x Catering Price. Feeding your guests is almost a given, but a $150 plated entree times 25 guests is $3750 (before tip and tax), whereas a $45 per person tapas-style buffet spread for the same number of people is just $1125. For a guest count of 175, these numbers are now $26,250 and $7875 respectively. Guest count matters SO MUCH. By all means, make your dream guest list, but don't forget to reach out to a few caterers for pricing BEFORE sending save-the-dates or invites. Every area, season, and market is different, so pick your date, lock in your location, then, getting your mind wrapped around dinner thoughts and for how many people is the next step in wedding planning.
You can see more DIY decor here. He left her a note when he was first falling in love! Such sweet vulnerability. This is the stuff of dreams!
The First Dance and Evening Wedding Romance
When I was first beginning to learn the craft, a photographer I greatly admired once told me, "A couple should be able to get married at high noon in broad daylight in a parking lot, or a florescent-lit grocery store, or on a crowded public beach, and I should be able to make it look amazing. That's our job. That's what we do. Anyone can take a picture." I found it inspiring, and ever since, it has been my goal to create magical and compelling images in any venue and at every price point. The light was harsh this day, and since it was a four-hour commission, we couldn't wait for golden hour. To solve this, we stepped outside into natural light, leaving the barn doors open behind us. The shade from the building provided even, low-contrast ambient light with minimal face shadows, and the twinkle lights deep in the recesses of the barn made an elegant drape of texture across velvet shadows. We used the same trick for the first dance (leaving the doors wide open), only I moved the video lights to create two warm spotlights and some gentle rim-lighting. For romance, I combined the use of shaded areas with creative posing, using Jasmine and Kevin's own bodies to block out the harsher light where shade wasn't possible. Creating a silhouette by stopping down to f16 also brought out the gentle colors in the sky, and so early evening begins to look like twilight even though it was still an hour before golden hour. Also, look how wonderful their amazing doggo is at posing here!
Wedding day Gifs
So, this is a thing: Kevin has a collection of images of him jumping - and he's GOOD at it - so he wanted to add the "jumping on his wedding day" picture to the collection. Lol. This is me, supporting his dream. Here's Jasmine trying to keep up and also supporting his dream. If you ask me, "Jump of Joy" deserves a Gif!
DIY Wedding VIDEO options
After portraits, we returned to the reception venue to listen as Jasmine picked up her guitar to jam with the other musicians at her event. The music was relaxing and intimate, and the kiddos lit sparklers and played with my action cameras while the adults enjoyed the songs. Why did the kids have my action cams, you might ask? That would be because I support other artists – including the tiny ones. Jasmine went to film school, and knowing she can edit video let us negotiate a “footage only” collection for a DIY video. She made her OWN film with footage I (and guests) collected throughout the day. How cool is that!? In addition to it being completely inexpensive (no editing time to cost-quote for) it is also undeniably fun to see what someone else will create from your files. Quite a few of these were tripod shots from our a7siii, and for the B-roll, two DJI Osmo Pockets, and an Osmo Action passed around! The kids loved it! If you're on the fence about adding a video, but know how to edit your own, you can always consider a DIY Raw Footage option. It's not for everyone, but for a select few, it makes a perfect compromise!
Doing the sparkler exit and bouquet toss early
My absolute favorite wedding emotion is wonder/awe. Can you see it in her eyes? I can. Where there's such a flood of love beyond tenderness because all your people are HERE, they are all cheering for you, and this entire celebration of joy is because your found your person and he/she found you. It's amazing. So touching and real.
My last money-saving tip I have to offer is that if you are using a professional photographer who can make evening look like twilight and dusk look like dark, you don't have to wait for nightfall to capture the sparkler exit. Ending coverage earlier might mean that you do the bouquet toss right after cake if you want a few photos, but for the money you can save, it's well worth readjusting the typically late or typically early scenes to fit inside of a smaller collection.
It is also time to normalize the option of guys tossing bouquets too! Due to the history of the garter toss, I've seen a greater number of people skipping it altogether. But being all about equality and fun, a groom having a toss bouquet of his own is a win-win. More flowers and more luck to share - I'm in!
Sometimes as I leave an event, I shoot just a few more pictures on my way out the door. It's a fun end way to close the evening, and there is something special about the sky on the night you were married. I wonder if the image will inspire. If it will hang over a crib someday with a sweet inscription, and some precious hopes. Or if the color palette will find its way into the sofa pillows in the living room without the couple ever knowing why they are drawn to those tones. These things. It's these things that make me another one of the hopeless romantics on the planet. I know I'm not alone.
Jasmine and Kevin - for you - the moon on the night you said: "I do".
