Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

It’s wedding fever at the moment. In the next year alone, my brother, 3 of my closest friends and I will be making one of life’s biggest commitments and saying ‘I Do’ to our partners.

It’s an exciting and daunting time; it seems that making the decision to get married is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wedding choices. Should we get married close to home or have a destination wedding? Should we have a big extravaganza or a small intimate occasion? What should we wear? Who should be in the bridal party? And so it goes on.

Of course many of these decisions are related to budget. As much as you might want a large, lavish affair with 500 of your closest friends, in reality it’s tough on a budget of $5000 (although some have done it!). And although we all might want to wear Vera Wang on our wedding day, can we really afford to spend up to $12,000 on a dress we’ll only wear once?

Although we might not be able to have everything we want, there are certain things we won’t want to sacrifice. For many, it’s more important to have lots of guests so you might cut back on the dress budget. For others, fancy weddings cars is part of the dream and of course for many, the honeymoon is one aspect that can’t be scrimped on.

So how do we afford these little luxuries? We save of course. Bankwest asked the Answers community what are the best ways to save for a wedding and here are some great suggestions:

Cranberry says:

Research  ways of how to “hit two birds with one stone” with your expenses. It could be buying fabric for your wedding table clothes that you can later turn into curtains for your new home, or choosing a bridal gown design so that you can remodel the gown afterward into a dress you can wear again.

Marie157 has a great idea:

Both my fiance and I each have $100 per week taken out of our paycheck and deposited into an account at a different bank (that way we wouldn’t think about it every time we logged into our online banking through our main bank). We also deposit any money that we get for birthdays and holidays into the account.

almarj70 believes the savings are all in the suppliers:

Avoid any vendor that claims to be a wedding “expert” or something similar. We used a small suburban florist for my bouquet, I got change out of $100 and it was just as pretty as something you would get from an expensive florist.

Bubble130999 cut back on her daily expenses:

I opened up a high interest offset account that was attached to my normal wages account, I called it my fancy account. I gave up buying take-away coffees every day at work and taking my lunch’s from home. Those two items alone added up to $55.00 per week, coffee’s $15.00 and lunches $40.00. I had that transferred in my fancy account. I did the same thing with my partner, another $55.00 a week. Without effort we were saving $110.00 per week, $5720.00 a year.

That’s just only the beginning of the wedding advice on Answers. Using Answers, I’ve managed to find readings for the ceremony, figured out some great colour schemes and even a song to do our first dance to. If only the community could work out my place settings, do the invitations and find me some inexpensive bridesmaid shoes that match green dresses then I’d be happy!

Caitlin
Community Manager