Tips For Making Your Wedding Affordable For Your Guests

We recently came across a news report from ABC 7 Chicago that researched how 20% of declined wedding invitations (recent study by bankrate.com) from guests is due to financial reasons. They weren’t sick, or out of town, they were simply just out of money. Weddings, as we know, are costly for the soon to be bride and groom, but now for their guests as well. Wedding guests spent an average of $628 on the wedding and associated pre-parties for close friends and families in 2018. To save money, more couples are offsetting wedding expenses by putting some of the costs in the hands of the guests. Like buying airfare tickets, (if it’s a destination wedding) accommodations and attire. This leaves guests responding to invitations with an unwanted “no, can’t make it.”

Your guests are an important part to your wedding. What good is it having a wedding if you can’t share it with your family and friends? We know it can be hard to pay for every component in your wedding, but alleviating some of the expenses can make the difference between your guests coming or not. To help, we have shared a few tips to make your wedding more affordable for your guests below:

1. Rethink Your Destination Wedding

Destination weddings are popular and seem to be less expensive as you can combine your wedding and honeymoon together. However, when considering your guests, the farther the destination, the more expensive and perhaps less likely guests are to attend. If you are leaving the travel expenses to your guests maybe you can alleviate some of the costs by covering their hotel accommodations. Find a solution that works for your budget, and your guests as well. Remember your guests will be taking time out of work, making arrangements for sitters and a list of other obligations that go along with traveling to a distant location. Make sure you consider all of these factors when planning your wedding.

2. Don’t Be Too Picky On Dress Code

Some couples decide to have a theme for their wedding. An all white wedding, a 20’s cabaret theme or even a Halloween theme. And with each theme, comes additional expenses for your guests. Modify how elaborate you would like your guests to be dressed up. For example, if you want all your guests to dress like Harry Potter characters (dressing like a wizard is expensive), maybe you can buy a bulk of Harry Potter’s iconic glasses and lightning bolt stickers for your guests to put on their head instead.

And if you have bridesmaids and groomsmen, it can be expensive for them to buy their own dress or tuxedo. Especially if you have $300+ matching dresses and tuxedos with matching leather crocodile shoes picked out. Many couples can’t afford to buy their guests attire, which leaves guests expected to pay for it on their own and this isn’t including hair, makeup and transportation to the wedding. If you are going to make your guests pay for their dress, try finding more affordable options. You can even share with them a range of possibilities. For example, 3 different dresses – one priced at $100, the others priced a little higher. This gives your guest some flexibility and gives them the chance to make it work with their budget.

You can also allow your guests to rent their attire as well, because many bridal shops offer the option to rent bridesmaid dresses like Rent The Runway, or Union Station. This makes things easier on the guest as they don’t have to buy a dress they will wear only once. Same for tuxedos as well. Retailers like Men’s Wearhouse or JoS. A. Banks offer rentals at a discount.

3. Make Your Wedding Venue Convenient

We understand that you can’t make your wedding location convenient for everyone, as you may have people traveling from out of state. But for those that do live in town, how accessible is the wedding venue? All of your guests may not have cars. Is the location Uber or Lyft friendly?

Couples also make the mistake of having their ceremony and reception too far apart from each other. The commute between the two should be less like a road trip and more like a walk or 5 minute drive. Don’t let your guests question whether they have enough gas in their tank before attending your wedding.

We hope that these tips makes things easier for your guests wallets. If you want to know about extra ways to save during your wedding, we would also consider you get Wedding Insurance with Eventsured. Your guests can also be an expense to you if things go wrong at your wedding. Lawsuits or medical expenses can fall in your hands and not your guests. So insure you are protected by giving us a call at 888-882-5902 or check out our website at https://www.eventsured.com/.

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