A couple of cost saving tips for your wedding:

Ranking Vendors: Arrange your vendors in order of importance to you.  You can’t rank everything as a ten!  Try to carve out more of your budget for the vendors most important to you.  Maybe you’re really passionate about having good wine at your reception but don’t care about a limo.  Instead of ok wine and a limo – have great wine and a friend drive you on your big day. 

Champagne Toast – Replace with a cheaper cava or sparkling wine or eliminate by encouraging guests to toast with what is already in their hand.

Bar - Replace a full bar with wine, beer and two cocktails – the bride’s choice and groom’s choice.

Flowers – Downsize the number of arrangements or order them from a store like Whole Foods and have a dependable friend be in charge of delivery.  Ask for leftover petals for free for the flower girl to throw down the aisle.  Order potted plants from a nursery to double as favors for guests to take home.

Ceremony Location – try your local park!  Seattle Park & Recreation

Negotiate – Don’t be afraid to say to a vendor, “I love what you do, but we’ve decided we really can’t spend more than $x.  Is there anything you can do? or anyway we can creatively cut cost?”

Ceremony Music – You must know someone who plays an instrument?  if not, try a local high school or university – students would be glad to put their skills to use.  I hired a wonderful guitarist from www.gigmasters.com.

Bride’s Shoes – Don’t buy them at the salons, they’re always overpriced there.  Instead try DSW or Nordstrom’s Rack often Nina shoes are there and they come in great colors for weddings.

Something Borrowed – Borrow that veil!  chances are someone you know has been recently married and would be honored to have you use their veil. 

Date Flexibility- Often peak Saturdays in the spring and summer are the most expensive and booked dates, not only will your date affect the reception price, but also the prices for other vendors.  For example, a photographer will be more likely to flex on price on dates which he/she knows are less popular.

Go Online – Buy and sell new and pre-owned wedding items on Craigslist or BravoBride.

Finding an Average Wedding Cake Price

Budgeting is one of the most difficult aspects of any wedding, and so if you are presently in the process of planning your wedding now, you are going to want to make sure that you get your budgeting done and over with as soon as possible. Read further  Wedding Cake Price

Wedding Cake

For those on a budget or uninterested in a sugary tower

Time to find the obligatory wedding cake! After a couple of trips to some wonderful bakers my fiancé and I were surprised by how apathetic we were towards the cakes we saw and tasted.  Classic or contemporary nothing seemed to interest us or make us excited about cake.  We thought to ourselves, why have a cake we’re not excited about and why pay so much for cake stacked on cake?  Luckily about that time there was a family birthday and a beautiful cake was purchased from a local bakery (with a French baker) that was elegant and delicious.  It was a simple, round cake.  The light bulb went off and so did I to the little neighborhood bakery who’d been baking my fiancés birthday cakes for 15 years, unbeknownst to me.  The result was 5 simple, but elegant round cakes on tiered pedestals and 2 sheet cakes in the back!  It fit our casual attitude towards cake and we were able to focus on other areas of the wedding that we were excited about like finding an energetic flamenco guitarist!  An added benefit to having sheet cakes (pre-cut and plated) was that once we cut the cake the caterers were able to serve our guests right away - then everyone got back to dancing.

The info on our cakes: