Five Strategies to Save Money On Your Wedding Budget

Some couples have a bigger budget to spend for their wedding event but a majority of engaged couples are only willing to spend their hard earned funds to an allowable maximum. There are many ways to avoid unnecessary expenses for your wedding. I am going to reveal to you 5 things you can do to save that  thousand pesos from coming out of your pocket.


1. Start with the Guest List. This is a real simple equation: more guests = more heads to pay for. Here is a quick reference on how you can determine whether that person you have in mind should be invited or not! I found this very helpful infographic in this site: http://www.theoverwhelmedbride.com/the-blog/guest-list-in-30-seconds

2. Do-It-Yourself Crafts. There are many crafts you can search online to incorporate in your wedding. Although, this strategy can save you a lot of money, it will snatch all your effort and time and some money to buy the materials and resources. If you have been doing crafts before, then you are in for a great head start in saving money from your wedding. Crafts you can do for your wedding include invitations, save the date cards, wedding favors and even the wedding decorations.


3. Skip the Souvenirs. Unless your guests can use it, eat it or trade it for a money's worth, don't bother giving them wedding favors. Most souvenirs will just gather dust in the shelves especially little figurines and I really think it would just be a waste of money on your part. You already have paid somebody to preserve the occasion with your friends and family and that is your wedding photographer. Just upload the photos to your social networking sites and voilah! you have instant souvenirs a few weeks later!


4. Cocktails. These are like welcome food for guests who arrive early at the reception hall. The guests will be very hungry when they arrive in the wedding reception venue so they will devour every last bit of what will be served there. Well, most guests will not be able to have their share of the welcome food especially the VIP's because they will still have to remain at the church/ceremony site a little longer for the photo sessions. Allow the guests to have a little patience and discipline to wait for the dining part. Anyway, they can always have their fill mostly with the buffet set-up at most weddings. A thrift and savvy way to serve food cocktails is by serving them cheese and crackers! I found this great idea at this site: http://food.allwomenstalk.com/cheese-and-crackers-ideas-youre-going-to-love

5. Hire a Wedding Planner. Not to over sell my services but seriously hire someone who knows about the ins and out of the wedding industry! Hire a wedding planner. But take note, a wedding planner is not a wedding coordinator. A wedding planner will be with you from day 1 of your wedding planning while a wedding coordinator may only be there a month or a week of the wedding event. The advantage of hiring a wedding planner is that he/she will help you choose the best wedding suppliers that suit your budget and avoid getting yourself into fraudulent transactions or misleading marketing agendas. If you are unsure how to choose the right wedding planner for you, I stumbled upon this very detailed website about what to ask you wedding planner: http://www.weddingpartyapp.com/blog/2014/02/28/wedding-advice-questions-ask-wedding-planner/

These are just some of the many ways you can actually save money from your wedding budget. If you hire a wedding planner like me, you will get to know which things to eliminate and which things to spend for your wedding. What matters to some couples may not matter so much to you and what you value may not be top priority for some. It is important that you have someone you can rely on when planning this once in a lifetime event of your life!

Happy Wedding Planning!

Tips for Choosing a Wedding Venue

Greenleaf Hotel Gensan

Aside from choosing the date and time of the wedding, one of the most difficult to decide is the wedding venue. Some couples would take about 3 months before they can finally set their decision. This primarily because the wedding venue takes the largest chunk of the wedding budget and must be carefully thought of. To help you and future brides and grooms on how to narrow down your choices of wedding venues, I will shed some faint light to your decision making.





Here are some of my tried and tested methods in choosing THE perfect VENUE for your wedding event.

1. Ask the right questions. This is very crucial in decision making. The bride-to-be should not do all the decisions by herself because eventually the groom-to-be will have a big say on the matter especially if he is paying a big chunk of the wedding expenses. Here are some questions to ask yourselves:

Paseo del Sol Gensan

-- Who are we inviting and how many?
-- How convenient will the location of the venue be to the guests?
-- How accessible will it be to the guests?
-- How much of the entire wedding budget will it take?
-- Should we choose it for our wedding theme?


These are just some of the very basic questions you need to ask yourselves when deciding for the venue. Always remember that as much as you wanted to have a wedding somewhere in never ever land, you have to consider the people who will come to celebrate your wedding event. They will be spending money, time and effort to grace the occasion. Make it a little easier for them and let them enjoy the event without much hassle even at going to it.

2. Consider your wedding theme and motif. At the beginning of the wedding planning, I am very sure you have picked out the kind of wedding you want to achieve. You probably also created a theme for it and the color motif that coordinates with the wedding theme. The travel theme wedding theme should have hues of earth colors such as beige, peaches, browns and mint greens or perhaps the garden theme wedding should have dark greens and lots of blooms of yellow, lime and white flowery hues. Whatever theme and motif you decide for your wedding, the venue should at least set the tone of the wedding. This will reduce costs of decorations as it is naturally placed within the venue. But if it helps, suggest to the florist and set decorators to make the venue resemble the wedding of your dreams and at an additional cost for sure.

The Pinnacle Hotel Davao City

3. Food, Services and Ambiance. You must not compromise these three very crucial aspects in choosing the venue of your wedding. Most guests will come for the celebrations and the food specially. But there is no more frustrating and disappointing than when food is delivered late or by frowning, disgruntled and rude waiters. (It happens!) And no matter how palatable the food is and how courteous the service is, if the ambiance is too humid, too cold, too trashy, then expect the negative comments to rush in right after the event or the following days after. To prevent this from happening, ask the venue management if you could observe in one of the wedding events and see how things are going to be during the event.

Phela Grande Convention Center Gensan

4. Sound System Placement. I had a very terrible terrible experience with this one. There was one wedding when I hired a music spinner to control the music but the placement of the sound system was too far from the stage and elevated to the second floor of the same area. It was an overlooking room where the music console was placed. Now, the problem with this set up was that the management did not allow the music spinner to gain control over the music console so the emcee had a hard time giving instruction to the music spinner on the kind of music he wanted at the particular part of the program because the music operator was too far away from the music spinner and there was just no way they could set the entire music playlist. There was a total collapse of the program music and I resented that moment, that particular wedding event every inch of my life up to this very day. It happened in Gensan and the nightmare still resonates to my dreams at this very day.

Bellevue Square Davao City

5. Space. If you are going to expect 200 guests or more, choose the venue that can accommodate 20 big round tables plus some spaces to move around. I had one wedding when the venue was too small for the 20 tables and guests were literally squeezing their bodies in between small spaces of back to back chairs just so they could move around. If the venue management says it is good for 150, they usually mean less than that and to reach that maximum number of guests would mean an over crowded area. If you think your guests will reach more than you expected, it is wise to choose another wedding venue with bigger space and more room to move around.

These are just some of the wise advice I can give to all of you. Wise because EXPERIENCE taught me all these things. I want every bride and groom and their guests to have a great time and the wedding venue will be the avenue for that. If you want to know which venues are great for your dream wedding, that is the reason why you should hire a wedding planner!

I hope I have helped you narrow down your choices of THE perfect wedding venue for you. Happy wedding planning! All the best!!!