Wedding Reception on a Budget

Budget Receptions

Celebrating your marriage with family and friends is one of the best ways for you and your spouse to start on the journey of your married life together. Unfortunately, a wedding reception can equal high stress and an even higher price tag. Use this guide to plan your wedding reception on a budget with helpful tips and tricks for you to consider before you drop large amounts of money. You can make wonderful memories without breaking the bank. By having a budget reception, you can stress less, and use the money saved for your new future together.

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What is important to you?

Just like with your budget wedding, you need to figure out what aspects of your wedding reception are most important to you. Once you have your main goals, you can make the rest of the decisions based on whether they will help you meet those goals. For Danny and me, we wanted to focus on spending time with our family and friends during our receptions. We also did not want the events to be a financial struggle for us or our guests. With these points in mind, we decided to have two smaller receptions in the locations where most of our family and friends lived and made sure that each event would give us several hours to socialize.

Guest List

How many people do you want to come to your reception? Is your reception immediately after your wedding? Many times, the wedding couple will invite more people to the reception versus the ceremony even if they are scheduled on the same day. This may be due to things like the restrictions of the wedding venue, or if the couple prefers a more mature audience for the ceremony.

If you are sticking to a budget, be aware that the number of guests invited will affect what venues are available and the cost of food and beverages (if you decide to provide them). Keep in mind, that you can also have more than one reception and that they do not all need to be equal in money spent. This is important in case your family has some feuds going on that may prove to be less stressful if you split them into different gatherings.

Since Danny and I had a small wedding ceremony, we decided to open the receptions to any and all family and friends that wanted to come to celebrate with us. We decided to cut costs in other ways so that the events would still be budget-friendly but allow us to be open with our guest lists.

Budget Friendly Reception Venues

The venue is typically one of the more expensive parts of your reception.  Like wedding venues, you can save quite a bit of money if you choose to host your event outdoors or at a park. Many parks have buildings that you can rent if having A/C or heat is important to you. Another option is to shop around to find the best price for community halls or centers to rent. Depending on the number of guests and the city you select to celebrate in, you could even host it in a home if you have one that someone is willing to let you use. If you choose to host outdoors, be aware that seasonal weather will be a factor.

If you are renting a venue, make sure to see what rules they have regarding decorations, food options, and the time constraints you will face with having to set everything up and break it down. Remember that in general, renting a location will always be more expensive on holidays and weekends compared to the middle of the week.

Ways to Save Money on Invitations and Thank You Cards

In this digital age, there are many options to choose from on how to invite your guests to your function. There are several websites that you can pay to set up electronic invitations and gift registries. You can buy or create your invitations, mail them out, and include an RSVP. Or you can choose any combination of these.

Another great low-cost option is setting up your receptions as a Facebook event. This was a free option that will make it easy to keep track of how many guests were coming. It also gives your guests an opportunity to change their response if something comes up with minimal effort on their part. This increases the number of RSVPs that you will receive without having to send out reminders.

For those that do not have Facebook or any close family and friends that you chose, you can have physical invitations made and sent out. For some family members, it might be quite meaningful to receive a physical invitation. Costco has quite the selection of cost-efficient Invitation and Thank you Cards. You can include an email address for people to RSVP in the event they did not have access to Facebook. This system will save you a lot of money on extra invitations and stamps, not to mention the time spent trying to keep track of who was coming and who had not responded yet.

Reception Event Details

You have your reception goals, a guest list, and your venue was chosen. Now it is time to start planning the event itself. Did you want a more typical reception with a dance floor and a DJ? Did you want to serve a full meal or just food to snack on? How much did you want to socialize? Did you want activities available or set up for your guests? All these things will come into play as you start creating the outline of your event.

If traditional reception events like formal dances and cake cutting are important to you, make sure to organize your reception around those things.

For us, the main goal of our reception was to be able to talk with everybody that came for as long as we wanted to. At most receptions, guests are only able to speak to the bride and groom briefly. We wanted to take full use of the opportunity for Danny and me to visit with people that we hadn’t seen in ages. This meant that we also wanted the events to last for several hours.

With that goal in mind, we knew that we would need to provide food and beverages, especially since the venues we selected were at parks. We chose not to have the typical events like organized dances and instead focus on activities that the park already offered like volleyball, horseshoes, and walking trails. To help keep all the children occupied, we also provided several yard games and fun things like bubbles.

Be sure to also plan to give yourself plenty of time to set up and break down whatever you need for your reception, so you don’t have to pay any extra fees for going over your time or the facility having to clean if it is not included in your rental agreement.

Budget Friendly Reception Decorations

Just like with your wedding, the decorations for your reception will depend on where you will host the event and the rules they may have in place. This is an easy area to get carried away in. If you are having your reception on a different date than your wedding, it is most cost-efficient to reuse your wedding decorations. Consider using your bridal bouquet and guestbook as part of a table display.

If your reception is right after your wedding, save money by keeping it simple. Think simple enhancements, rather than full-on detailed decorations. Focus on the areas where you plan on having pictures taken such as the main table and centerpiece.

Keep an eye out on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or wedding groups for people that are selling their own wedding decorations for even more savings. Even if they do not match exactly with your color scheme, you might be able to make a few low-cost adjustments and find a perfect fit for less than you would have if you created it from scratch.

Your guests won’t remember the finer details of your decorations and honestly, neither will you. You will however remember the stress of trying to make everything look perfect. Make it easy on yourself and do not get too caught up in the details of decorations.

Budget Reception Food Ideas

The cost of food will mainly be dependent on the number of guests you will have attending and the choice of food you will have to pick from. Remember that some venues restrict what companies you can purchase from. If all options are available, you can choose to have the meal catered by a company or prepared by friends and family depending on how much work you want to put into it. If you have the food brought in by a company, you may have the choice of having them set up, serve, and do the cleanup afterward.

If you choose to host your reception in a park or community center or hall, you may have the option of providing the food yourself. This can offer you significant savings. If there is a grill available, you could do a very budget-friendly old-fashioned barbeque. A simple meal of hamburgers, hotdogs, condiments, potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, and chips can be simple to put on. Beverages can be a wide selection of soda, water, and/or alcohol (if allowed). You can find great savings on these items at Costco, Sam’s Club, and Walmart.

If you choose to provide and create your own food, keep an eye out for sales. Holidays like Labor Day and Memorial Day are great opportunities to stock up on things like plates, napkins, drinks, and anything for a grill.

The best part will be that the leftovers will belong to you to send home with your guests or take back with you and you will have more time to adjust the amount of food you buy to your most current guest list.

When using a catering company, many times you are not able to keep the left-over food. You also must give them your guest number in advance so you may lose out on money for each guest that doesn’t come. I remember my mom lost several hundred dollars due to the number of guests that ended not going because of the cost per plate she had already paid.

For the items you will need like food platters and serving utensils, you can bring your own or borrow some from local friends and family.

Dessert

What is a wedding reception without dessert? These days it does not need to be a cake. You can choose cupcakes, mini pies, any number of desserts if you do not want a wedding cake. Be prepared for the price of the deserts to be a bit on the pricey side, especially if the bakery knows it is for a wedding. Costco has wonderfully priced dessert options; especially their famous cakes!

Wedding Favors

It is customary but not required to give your guests wedding favors at the reception. If you do choose to go ahead with this tradition, remember that you do not have to spend a lot of money. Guests typically forget about whatever they received shortly after your event.

The wedding favor can be something you DIY, or for an easy and affordable option, you can buy something off Amazon like these cute key-shaped bottle openers with a tag attached. You can buy ones that have a saying on them, or they can be blank so you can fill it out however you like. We liked them because it was a cute and small gift that people would find useful.

Photographer

If your reception is on a different day than your wedding, it may be easy to forget to book a photographer. Don’t miss the opportunity to catch the special moments with the people who have come to celebrate your marriage. If you choose not to pay for a professional, make sure to provide disposable cameras, or organize a method to collect pictures taken from your guests. It will also be helpful to request certain guests to be in charge of taking more organized photographs of things like food and group photos.

Travel

Should you choose to host your receptions away from you where you are living, make sure to budget for your travel costs. If you are in a position to drive, you can save money by being able to bring supplies with you, and not having to pay for transportation once you get to your destination. You can save money by using these Low Budget Travel Tips.

DIY Reception Tips

-If possible, have some sort of activity (coloring books from the dollar store, dancing, etc) to keep the children occupied.

-If you are responsible for the cleanup of the venue, clean as the event is happening. This will encourage others to pick up after themselves and save you time when your reception is over.

-Appoint a ‘runner’, someone that is able to freely come and go to address whatever problems may arise

-Double check everything the day before (outlets at venue, your list of food, utensils, decorations, etc.)

Conclusion

You can have the perfect wedding reception for a fraction of the cost. Once you realize what is important to you, you can focus on prioritizing those things when you plan your event. Celebrate your marriage with your loved ones while sticking to a budget. Imagine making wonderful memories while putting your finances first so you can start focusing on future milestones like your honeymoon or a house.

For further proof, here is the breakdown of the cost of our two receptions, proving that you can have a great time for a very affordable price!

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