How To Plan A Low Budget Wedding (Part Two)

Mark Wealth

The Big Day of most ladies lives is their wedding day. It’s a once in a lifetime event so they want to make it count. Men think like this only when there’s money to boot. But the recession is real and everybody is feeling it.

Here in Nigeria, we now blame everything about the economy on a certain “Buhari” like he invented the recession. But we can’t go and ask him for some financial assistance for our wedding so let’s learn how to plan for one on a budget.

Continued from part one

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Catering Services

Some catering service providers are very expensive especially when they know it’s a wedding. I you have kept your guest list to the minimum, friends and family members should be able to cater for them. You could even get creative and package the food in take-away packs instead of paying for fancy plates and cutlery. Did you hear of the couple that didn’t serve wedding guests but served homeless people instead. They did the serving themselves still dressed in their wedding garments. I thought that was a noble and frugal way to celebrate your wedding.

Photography: Saving Memories

Have you seen some of these pre-wedding photographs? Some are classy and nice and look like some good money was spent judging from the photographer’s signature. Some are really silly from the concept to the presentation. But this is by the wayside. You really cannot avoid taking pictures for posterity sake. Let your younger sister or brother take pictures with their phones.

Some phones nowadays have good picture quality. You could tell close friends to take pictures from wherever they are and upload to a Facebook account or send via whatsapp or instagram . You can then select and delete those ones that were taken from unflattering angles. No need to hire a professional wedding photographer.

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Groove Time

Are you going to hire a DJ when you’ve got an ipod, a good sound system (yours or a friend’s) and a playlist. Now all you have to do is press play to get your wedding groove started. Of course, this would work where the hall isn’t so large. Otherwise have a small dance area so that everyone can dance to the music of your celebration. If of course you have a DJ friend, he could do the gig for a discount or for free. Same goes for if you’ve got an artiste friend, he/she or they could provide some live music for a token.

You’ve also got to know how to negotiate when hiring or renting space, equipment or services. You could cut deals or remove perks in the packages that is on offer. For instance, a photographer says they would save all your photographs on a CD and a flash drive and also make framed pictures. Ask for the flash drive alone and remove some figures from the total cost. You could also offer to give them some publicity in exchange for a discount.

For instance, the wedding program could be on one side of a single card while all the businesses that provided one thing on the other are listed on the other side of the card along either their contact details. With some creativity and brainstorming support from close friends and family, you could still have a beautiful and memorable wedding ceremony on a budget. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, we know but you don’t have to spend the next few years broke or in debt because you wanted to impress your selection and those guests, right?