Cutting out the fat

There are essentially 6 areas where I think you can save a buck, not a small one, but a big buck

1) Venue - everything starts here. The venue sets the tone of your wedding and also dictates how your budget will go. You may save money if you can bring in an outside caterer or be locked in with in house catering.

2) Caterer - this all depends whether you are using outside or in house. If it is in house then it is hard, but possible to negotiate the price. Heck my friend confused her caterer so much that they put open bar for the whole night for the price for 1 hr. Outside caterers you have more leverage. There are so many of these guys that if you find one who has good food and needs business then it gives you the upper hand on what you can get out of them.

3) Photographer - this is the next biggest piece of the pie. There are a lot of photographers in the business now. You can tell who is cheaper by how long they have been shooting. The goal should be to find the next up and comer person who has been shooting for a year or two so their prices are still low. Negotiate them down, rework the packages, anything to get some dough back. I have seen packages from 1300-20K, so there is a large spread there.

4) Florist - people can spend thousands on some old lady to arrange your flowers. Find an aunt, a cousin, a friend, someone who can help you out. Make an arrangement of 5 flowers or something. Flowers cost money already, but another body just adds to the heartache.

5) DJ - ipod weddings are the cheapest. Get your brother to be your MC. Anyone who is social and loud can be your MC and move the party along at a decent rate. They only have to stand up and speak like 6 times or something for the whole night. Then for the dancing, go by a mix off one of those peepz off the street for 2 bones. Dilemma solved.

6) Videographer - is this really necessary? For some people it is, so one way to save a little cash is to have them shoot RAW footage only and then have you cut and paste. With iMovie or some of these other tools, your 5 yr old love child can cut it up and give you a watchable vid.

A honorable mention is Alcohol, but really, would a wedding be any fun without the boos? People go to weddings for 3 reasons - free food, free boos, and what they did in "Wedding Crashers".