Aussie bride reveals stressful wedding dilemma she didn't expect: 'People laughed'

When I was 27, I got engaged. It was a super romantic proposal in the middle of the lake in New York's Central Park on a gorgeous summer's day, and, at the time, it felt like an exciting milestone. Being someone who loves throwing parties, I couldn't wait to get planning.

As it turns out, I'm not the "marrying kind", and I quickly discovered that while I love weddings for other people, it's just not who I am. However, the several months I did spend planning my ultimately doomed nuptials opened my eyes to just how freaking exxy the whole 'til death do we part' thing is. And this was back in 2008, before a pandemic and subsequent cost of living crisis.

Now, I can almost hear you rolling your eyes and saying, "Thanks, Captain Obvious, we had no idea that weddings were expensive. What a news flash." I appreciate the disdain but did you know that the average cost of an Australian wedding has risen 4.5%, and couples are now spending an average of $35,315 on their wedding? That's more than 6000 oat lattes or a brand new 2024 Volkswagen T-Cross!

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According to data from Easy Weddings, getting married costs 28.6% more than couples budget for - so it should come as no surprise that sticking to a budget is the number one stressor of planning a wedding.

"I was hoping to do it [plan a wedding] in the most affordable way possible," one Sydney bride told Yahoo Lifestyle. "Everyone did laugh when I suggested a budget of $10k! Turns out it’s going to be more like $12-14k because there are so many unknown costs."

Those unknown costs could be anything from paying for the marriage application and wedding certificate, tailoring a dress or suit or even hiring portaloos if you’re having the wedding somewhere more remote.

How to save big on your big day

Having said that, there are ways to make and stick to a budget, as our bride - who wished to remain anonymous told us.

"The venue is my parents’ house - this is a huge cost we were very lucky to avoid," she said of her cost-saving tactics for her 90-person wedding. In fact, according to Easy Weddings, she has dodged a hefty bullet here as the venue typically makes up 45% of their total wedding spend, with an average guest count of 88.

"However, because it’s there, we do have to provide all the food, catering, furniture, and so on that may have come with a venue," she continues. "To keep on budget, we’ve tried to focus on what was really important for us to have at our wedding and not just what we thought was ‘expected.’"

For example, although $2,444 is the average cost of wedding flowers in Australia, our bride spent over $2000 less than this by getting creative with the arrangements.

"I DIY’d over 20 bouquets to decorate and tried to save money on florals by getting artificial flowers. While it did take a bit of time, it only cost me around $200 for all the florals," she reveals.

"Plus, we have been using op shops obsessively - going almost every weekend to find second-hand items we can use. Anything from decor to vases, to all our champagne and wine glasses."

Spend vs splurge

One of the measures our bride used to keep within her budget was deciding what to splurge and save on for the big day.

"We knew we wanted to splurge on the most special parts of the day - for us, that was our wedding rings and our photographer," she says. "Still, they weren’t really splurges. I think the most we’ve paid for something so far is $2,900 - this was for the food truck for 90 people."

Although $2900 is still a lot of money, it is $3408 less than the average spend on catering for an Aussie wedding. According to Easy Weddings, traditional alternate-drop meals make up the largest portion of catering styles among Australian couples, at 42%. The next most popular request is the sharing/feasting style at 27%. Together, the more casual catering styles such as the buffet, roaming cocktail food, grazing tables, and food trucks make up 29%.

Weekdays for the win

Another length couples are going to in order to make their special day more affordable is forgoing weekend weddings and opting instead to get married on a different day. While Friday weddings are usually a similar price per head to a Saturday event, they usually come with a lower minimum spend so you can save a few bucks that way.

However, if you really want to go for budgeting gold, a Monday to Thursday shindig is considered a weekday wedding, which is where a significant discount is found.

For our Sydney bride, the decision to have her wedding on a Tuesday made sense for her and her fiancé, but it was met with some surprise from guests.

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"It was the main question we got as soon as we sent out the save the dates - even my vendors were shocked," she explains. "The date is special to us, so we didn’t think too much of it and didn’t expect such a reaction. I think it’s become a lot more common recently for mid-week weddings, but we definitely still got a lot of confused guests asking why we’d chosen that date."

As for whether having a smaller budget wedding also attracted any scepticism from friends and family, our bride said there were certainly some raised eyebrows,

"We got a lot of scoffs or laughs from people who didn’t think it was possible to have such a small budget," she says. "They’re right that there are a lot of hidden or unknown costs, but if you plan it right, it can be done."

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