There are a few milestones in life and wedding is definitely one of them.
Yours truly had just completed the wedding ceremony recently and I wanted to share the costing with you. Please do not take it as a comparison. Our expenditure was neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. The intention is to share what we have saved on and where we could have saved even more.
This could serve as a useful reference for future weds. Also, if you have more tips to share, please do so in the comments below!
Breakdown of Costs:
- Lunch and Event Venue: $16,478 (60%)
- Bridal Package: $3,088 (11%)
- Pre-wed Photography: $1,463 (5%)
- Rings and Jewellery: $1,326 (5%)
- Ang Pao: $1,000 (4%)
- Attire: $822 (3%)
- Live Music: $750 (3%)
- Decoration: $748 (3%)
- Chinese Customs: $618 (2%)
- Beauty Treatment: $528 (2%)
- Administrative Charges: $471 (2%)
- Total: $27,291
Money Saving Tips For Wedding
If there is only one tip to share, it would be to know what are the must have’s and the good to have’s for your wedding. Money can be saved from the good to have’s since you can either do without it totally, or go with the minimum.
You will get many ideas from different people because each couple want different things. It is YOUR wedding so do not let others dictate or influence you.
Some couples cannot accept mediocre photography and are willing to pay more for aesthetics. Some couples are more concerned about food quality. Hence, you need to know what you cannot give up on and go ahead and pay for it.
For example, my wife knew she wanted a garden for our solemnisation ceremony, and we quickly narrowed down into a few venues like Faber Peak, Alkaff Mansion, and Amara Sanctuary. It saved us a lot of time and headache hunting down places. We also knew it would be a small affair involving family members and close friends, and we eliminated those venues that we could not meet the minimum pax. Venue was more important than food, and hence we saved money on avoiding expensive delicacies.
The caveat to the above is that your parents and parents-in-law must be agreeable. Thankfully, we have very understanding seniors who accommodated our plans. For example, we opted for an Italian lunch menu which most of them did not appreciate, but they respected our decision went along with it.
To prevent misunderstanding and mismatched expectations, it is important to engage the parents and in-laws on the marriage plans as early as possible. Sound them out and check if they are agreeable with your proposals. Don’t give them surprises. You would never want a marriage where the seniors remember you for the wrong things for the rest of your life.
Another saving tip is to challenge the ‘norms’. Everyone has been doing it doesn’t mean you have to do it.
I understand videography has become popular over the years. But we knew that we do not want it that badly. It was merely a good to have and something we can even do without. We had a lunch and not a dinner, the video would not be ready for the session anyway. Photos of our wedding lunch would be sufficient for us as a memory sake. Hence, we didn’t pay for a videographer. The bonus was that our wedding was ahead of schedule throughout the event as we do not need to retake shots.
My wife wanted to share a beauty tip with brides-to-be. She said you can skip the facial sessions and just order loads of ampoules online. Apply it daily for two weeks and your skin would look fabulous! I can attest to that 🙂
What We Could Have Saved More
We realised the attire for the groom and family members were poorly made and hence we ended up buying our own clothes. The focus is the gown for the bride and we should have opted to just rent the gown instead of the entire package. So, check the quality before you commit to anything.
In terms of the Chinese customs, we were not sure about what were the items and procedures to follow. We went to buy the items from those wedding shops and realised we did not use most of them. We could have checked with our parents and in-laws, and only get those things that they wanted, instead of going ahead with the entire packages sold in the shops.
Share More Money Saving Tips For Wedding?
How did you save money on your wedding?
I believe there are couples who have better and more tips to share. Please be generous and drop us comments below. Appreciate!
P.s. our writer, Bryan had also shared how much he spent on his wedding which was held during the Covid pandemic.
Hi BigFatPurse,
Congratulations on your wedding! I realise we share many similar tips. You may read about a post that I wrote recently as I also just finished my wedding not too long ago. Enjoy!
http://heartlandboy.com/reduce-wedding-expenses/
Alison aka Heartland Boy
Hi Alison, thanks for sharing! Wow, you even emcee-ed the event yourself, talk about breaking norms!
Hi Alvin,
Nice article on wedding expenses. I had my wedding last year, and we spent less than $20K gross, without including the ang pow collected. Some of our saving tips are:
1. We did not engage a bridal studio. I find that not only they are overly expensive, they are incredibly inflexible. We bought the wedding gown, 2 night gowns, groom’s suit, shoes, etc from Taobao. Cost us less than S$500. (And we sell them after the wedding, recouping some of the costs)
2. For pre-wedding photography, we went to Lijiang, China. We engaged a wedding photography studio over there. The cost is CNY 7,000 (which is about S$1,600. Include 5 scenaries shots, 3 photo albums, a large photo frame, and 3D2N accommodation. We paid for our own air tickets though – for both of us is abt S$1,500. So total cost of pre-wedding is abt S$3,100. We love the photos taken because of the photographer and make-up artist is good, and the scenery is awesome. Best of all, we got all the unedited photos back.
3. Our wedding is wedding lunch too. We did not engage a videographer as we do not find it a need. The wedding day photographer costs us about $800. Actual day make-up artist is about $300.
4. Ours is a simple wedding. The venue is a restaurant, small enough to be cosy as that’s what we like. Fortunately, our parents are agreeable to this arrangement, which help to keep the costs low.
I think my best advice is not to engage bridal studio if you want to keep costs low. The additional hassle is really not much. In fact, most of hassle comes in gown selections. My wife figured that since the gown only costs less than S$150, we are prepared to take the risk that she might not like the gown, and she would have to buy another one. We planned this way before our wedding, so we have time to rectify mistakes.
Hope these tips are useful for your readers.
Wow. Thanks for sharing 🙂 Who says wedding has to be costly
Alvin, a big Congratulations!
I had my wedding 12 years ago (time flies). Altogether we only spent four thousand dollars. Who said wedding has to be costly : )
1) We didn’t sign up for any package because most of the things we don’t need..
2) My hubby tailored his suit. I bought a 2nd-hand wedding gown used for fashion show before and a tailored evening gown. Both were sold online after the wedding.
3) No photography package. (No need lah so troublesome).. We hired a make-up artist and a photographer for our wedding dinner instead.
4) Hubby borrowed his daddy’s Merc as wedding car. A friend who owned a flower boutique decorated it and supplied flowers for the wedding at cost.
5) We were living together then. My ex-tenant just handed over the unit to me so I used my apartment to prepare for the wedding the day before.
6) We had our wedding dinner at a 4-star hotel because I like the Chinese restaurant there. The angbao money just covered the cost.
7) Our emcees and entertainers (a couple) were good friends of mine. Some guests volunteered to on stage to perform. Lots of fun and laughters!
8) The highest cost item was to fly my family of 7 to Singapore for our wedding. We pay for their hotel and flight (I used up all my Krisflyer mileage).
wow! Thanks for sharing 🙂
You should be a wedding consultant.