Budget Wedding Tips - part 1: The Reception

Bridal Table Set Up

The Reception:
from my experience, the most expensive chunk of the wedding budget seems to go to the reception.  It makes sense - as soon as the word "wedding" enters a conversation with a vendor, the price seems to increase!  That, and you have a list as long as your arm of people who are dear to you that you'd like to have present.

As with most things wedding-related, it really comes down to what you want.. you can make things as simple, or as complex as your heart desires.
I really wanted to have a sit down dinner with our friends and family at our reception, and we chose to keep the numbers low with 44 people including ourselves.

1. The Food/Drinks
One of my biggest money savers was discovering after a lot of research, that it was less expensive to have a lunchtime wedding reception - almost half the price.  We had our ceremony at 10am, then lunch at 12pm - which meant our guests weren't waiting around for hours for us to leave and have photos and return.  It also meant that finishing up at 3.30pm, we had the evening to relax after a pretty full on day.

The downside is that the photos ended up being a little rushed, but all in all, I think it was probably worth the saving of a few thousand dollars.

We were married at Ballara Receptions who were just gorgeous, very accommodating, and the food and service fantastic.

I guess you could save even further by having a morning tea after your ceremony rather than lunch (for example, at the church where guests bring a plate to share), or by having a cocktail function, where you serve finger food without seating your guests as opposed to a full sit down meal which requires more resources on the part of the function centre.

The Grounds at Ballara Receptions - you can see the chapel in the background on the right

2. Ceremony
A bonus of having both the ceremony and reception at the one venue is that the cost of the ceremony is included in the reception - there is no extra fee for the hire of a church or hall.  Of course, I suppose you could save even more by having your ceremony in a park or at the beach for free!

3. Music
It would have been lovely to have a string quartet, but as this was on a tight budget, we chose to go with a DJ.  We chose the music we loved, advised them of the few songs we really didn't want to hear, and gave them a copy of our wedding dance song (as it was a little unusual).. we used DJs Alive who were fabulous, and very reasonably priced.

4. Table Decoration
The function centre we used supplied table decorations, which we used on some of the tables, and I made my own floral arrangements as well.

Heart Lollypop Bonbonniere

Bonbonnieres can cost an arm and a leg, so I decided to go for something simple and inexpensive and sourced some heart shaped lollypops from a local confectionery warehouse, and sourced cellophane bags and ribbon in bulk from eBay, and attached a little cardboard tag with a love quote to each - this was not too labour intensive, as there weren't too many guests!

DIY Table Centrepieces and Candles

The budget didn't stretch too far for the table decorations, as to us the food and entertainment was more important, so I spent about $6 per table and fashioned a box from cardboard, covered it with chocolate coloured fabric and wide lace, trimmed with ivory ribbon.  The tea light candles sat inside shot glasses!  They were trimmed with faux pearl strings that I attached with a hot glue gun (a DIY bride's best friend!).  Our guests took them home after the wedding.

Next: Part 2&3  Photography and Videography