Si­mone Sant-Ghu­ran

There's no doubt about it-wed­dings con­sume quite a bit of cash. For en­gaged cou­ples, cash is a pre­cious com­mod­i­ty since there are so many oth­er things to bud­get for af­ter the wed­ding such as: the hon­ey­moon, the pur­chase of a house, apart­ment rental, liv­ing ex­pens­es etc.

In fact, on av­er­age, most wed­dings I've heard about nowa­days can range be­tween $20,000 to $200,000 or more. Of course, this is just a range, gleaned from feed­back from vis­i­tors to www.trinidad­wed­dings.com

The fig­ures may vary, de­pend­ing on the type of re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ny, wed­ding ac­cou­trements cho­sen, re­cep­tion venue costs and so on.

How­ev­er, even with the es­ca­lat­ing costs (prices can in­crease as much as ten to 15 per cent an­nu­al­ly for some wed­ding ser­vices), it is still pos­si­ble for cou­ples who would like to go the more eco­nom­i­cal route and stick to a tight bud­get.

Here are some tips: Gown shop­ping

Check out the bridal clas­si­fieds on­line at www.trinidad­wed­dings.com-from time to time, these clas­si­fieds fea­ture gowns from brides whose wed­dings have been can­celled or from new­ly-weds try­ing to sell their at­tire at rea­son­able prices.

Go off the wed­ding racks. Search for a beau­ti­ful, white evening gown in place of a wed­ding dress or eth­nic wear that's not lo­cat­ed in the of­ten­times pricey bridal sec­tion of stores. You may be sur­prised at what you find.

Spruce up an off the rack dress. A sim­ple sheath dress can be a show-stop­per if you can find the right per­son who can em­bell­ish it with your choice of pearls, crys­tals, the right touch of lace, a silk sash, el­e­gant brooch or even fab­ric flow­ers.

Go shop­ping for brides­maids' dress­es af­ter New Year's Day. Prices are usu­al­ly much less than at oth­er times of the year. Avoid shop­ping for brides­maid dress­es, fab­ric or shoes dur­ing grad­u­a­tion or the Christ­mas sea­son, un­less you can take ad­van­tage of sales.

Cakes

Se­lect a plain fon­dant wed­ding cake and let your florist dec­o­rate it with fresh flow­ers, leaves, vines or fruit.

Have choco­late or sponge cake lay­ers. Al­though these will have a short­er shelf life, it will be a cheap­er al­ter­na­tive to fruit cakes.

Use tiers of beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed cup­cakes. This can dou­ble as dessert for your guests or they can be used as wed­ding favours.

Beau­ty

Try to hire one per­son or com­pa­ny that does both hair and make­up. You will get a bet­ter pack­age deal and some­times, a more co­he­sive look.

In­vi­ta­tions

Or­der a plain in­vi­ta­tion from a com­pa­ny and dec­o­rate it your­self us­ing pa­per punch­es, rib­bon, charms, seashells, raf­fia, dried flow­ers, crys­tals, faux pearls, se­quins or oth­er baubles.

D&ea­cute;cor

Can't af­ford a pricey dec­o­ra­tor? Con­sid­er hav­ing the cer­e­mo­ny and/or the re­cep­tion in a beau­ti­ful gar­den. You won't have need for much bal­loons, fab­ric or lights, since the nat­ur­al am­bi­ence will suf­fice.

Need to save mon­ey on an es­ca­lat­ing florist's bill? Then, buy your flow­ers from a whole­saler and your con­tain­ers from a dis­count shop; and find a florist who will on­ly charge you for ar­rang­ing and de­liv­er­ing them.

Food and bev­er­age

Book a venue that al­lows you to bring in your own liquor ver­sus hav­ing to pay high bar prices, or set­tle for the venue's se­lec­tion of bev­er­age brands.

If you're hav­ing a small wed­ding, con­sid­er hav­ing your re­cep­tion at a restau­rant. You will avoid rental costs for ta­bles, chairs, cut­lery, and per­haps, if the restau­rant is nice­ly dec­o­rat­ed, you'll even re­duce your own dec­o­rat­ing costs, too.

Pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy

Hire your pho­tog­ra­ph­er on­ly for the im­por­tant hours such as to cov­er the ma­jor cer­e­mo­ny and re­cep­tion events.

If you would like to have a video­g­ra­ph­er but you find the prices a bit steep, en­quire about go­ing with one-cam­era cov­er­age, in­stead of mul­ti­ple cam­eras. Nat­u­ral­ly, this will re­duce the abil­i­ty of the video­g­ra­ph­er to cov­er every de­tail but it will cut your costs.