Planning a wedding is an exciting time in just about anyone’s life. After all, it’s the ultimate culmination of your love for another person and likely to be one of the best days that you ever experience. But the build up to that day can be incredibly stressful, especially since so many people – brides in particular – can feel the need to make their wedding as perfect as possible. However, it’s important to remember that the only two people who need to feel that the wedding is perfect are the bride and the groom themselves – after all, it’s their day and no one else’s.
However, budgeting can also prove to be stressful even aside from the desire and the push for perfection. Weddings, of which there are nearly two and a half million of each and every year in the United States alone, have become more expensive than ever before, costing, on average, more than $35,000. Some weddings are quite a bit more expensive even than that already incredibly high sum of money and over the course of just one year, more than $70 billion collective dollars will be spent on weddings in just this one country alone, let alone elsewhere in the world (where, of course, various types of weddings are also very common).
Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to cut down on costs, steps that are likely to lower the financial burden of your wedding as well as lower your stress levels simultaneously. For one thing, you can make your wedding smaller and more intimate. Though the average number of wedding guests is 136 in the United States, this does not mean that your wedding needs to be nearly as big, as more guests means needing a larger venue and spending more on whatever catering service you ultimately choose. Paring your guest list down can be ideal not only for costs but for how engaged you ultimately feel at your own wedding, as you won’t need to bounce around between all of the guests and can instead enjoy your close friends and family members at length.
Also consider elements of your decor. Wedding dinner plates and cutlery for example, can make a bigger impact than you realize. And wedding dinner plates can be more expensive as well, especially since the vast majority of people will need to rent their wedding dinner plates simply because they will need so many of them. Renting wedding dinner plates and other such wedding silverware is certainly more cost effective than buying all of the wedding dinner plates and silverware that you need, but using disposable wedding dinner plates is likely to be the best solution of all for the typical bride on a budget.
Disposable wedding dinner plates can look far fancier than many people realize, as can disposable aspects of dining ware like plastic champagne glasses and, of course, plastic serveware. When it comes to wedding party supplies, the disposable wedding dinner plates have really stepped up their game and now look just as good as wedding dinner plates made from more traditional and long lasting materials. However, when you use disposable wedding plates and other disposable party supplies, you’ll need to buy enough for everyone – and this means more than one per person in the vast majority of cases.
For instance, you’ll most certainly want to have enough napkins. Typically a good ratio will be four napkins for every one guest who attends your wedding (or any other such event). However, over preparing and having too many napkins is far more ideal than not having as many napkins as you need. After all, eating and drinking (especially alcoholic drinks) can be quite messy, and people in formalwear will want to make sure that they can clean up any minor mess that they create.
You’ll want three disposable cups for each glass as well, and this is not counting plastic champagne glasses and wine glasses and the like. Staying hydrated is key while drinking and even more key while dancing, two popular wedding activities. Aside from this, being thirsty is just no fun, and is likely to lower the overall fun.