Category Archive

Budgeting Advice

How to save money on your wedding and make the most of your wedding budget — plus budget examples from real couples!

how to have a micro destination wedding on offbeat bride alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

How to have an affordable destination micro-wedding

A destination micro-wedding is simply a wedding away from home with 10 people or less as your witnesses. Here are 8 tips for how to have one, and how to save money doing it!

unique LA wedding dress shops alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

A dress shop worker’s tips on how to get a better deal on your wedding dress

I’m a retail worker in the bridal industry in Australia, and I’m also a bride myself. Everyone wants a better deal on their dress, and for those of you shopping at brick and mortar dress shops, I wanted to offer some tips about how to talk to retail workers if you want to negotiate the price of your wedding dress down… from someone who works in the industry and knows. 

Don’t tell my boss, but I want you to get a better deal! 

wedding regret alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

My biggest wedding regret: don’t let someone else pay for your wedding!

It’s for me to hard to look at my wedding photos, because of wedding regrets. I have many regrets, but my biggest golden kernel of advice to couples is this: Never, never EVER let someone else pay for your wedding.

Not if you’re marrying a trust funder, not if your parents are insisting, not if you can’t pay yourself. Save up your dollars and have an extended engagement, then use those cold hard Benjamins to have the wedding YOU want.

Bait-and-switch brides: would you lie to vendors to get a better deal?

Bait-and-switch brides: would you lie to vendors to get a better deal?

If you’re planning a wedding, you’ve probably realized just how much wedding vendors will mark up their prices when they know it’s for a wedding. You may be pretty peeved that you’re having to pay a “wedding tax” for something that would cost less on any other kind of occasion. But in most cases, these extra costs are incurred with good reason. Despite this, some couples are trying to snag a better deal from their vendors by withholding the fact that the service will be used for a wedding instead of, say, a vow renewal, family party, or similar. We’ve heard these called “bait-and-switch brides.”

Our wedding was a financial wake-up call

Our wedding was a financial wake-up call (and our lessons learned!)

After catching up post-wedding and entirely overhauling our finances, I can see all the places we went wrong. Whenever people ask how we knew it was time to restructure our finances, I answer with one thing — our wedding. This one event clarified a world of issues with our financial well-being, or lack thereof. And so, in addition to the standard simplifying and DIY projects that helped me through the process, here is some invaluable advice with which we walked away…

hidden wedding costs that can blow your wallet

13 hidden wedding costs that can blow your wallet

Wedding budgets are the necessary evil of an already fraught-with-drama time in your life. There are all kinds of things that’ll balloon your wedding budget from necessary undies to last-minute tailoring to extra guests showing up. The best defense is a good offense by knowing what hidden wedding costs may sneak in and how to be ready for them.

Also, we have a quick one-question wedding budget survey that will help us craft editorial with you in mind!