I think it’s already quite obvious that you will have to get help from your family, friends and connections whether you like it or not—you just can’t do everything on your own. But sometimes, a bride can’t help but want to do everything, or at least take part on each and every single aspect of her wedding. That’s understandable. After all, it’s your most important day we’re talking about here. Just don’t forget you have to walk down the aisle, and not rolled into the Church in a coffin

Planning a wedding is actually a bit similar to running a business—the lower the expenses and higher the profit, the better. You want to have the best wedding at the lowest cost possible. And just like in business, pulling a few strings can help you do just that.

Marc and I were lucky that we had a lot of friends and relatives who were willing to help us plan and implement our wedding. We’ve been quite active in our college organizations, so we met a lot of people adept at planning and implementing events who became our great friends. Just think of it this way. If you and your friends are able to plan and implement full-scale concerts, food sales, and fund-raising drives, weddings are easy.

Instead of getting a wedding coordinator or planner which could have cost us Php25,000, we asked help from our friends. They were glad to do it—it was like holding another organization event. Before the wedding, we sat down with them tackling the wedding program, the flow, who will be in charge of what, the music the band will play, etc. etc. I’m glad they did, because as I can recall, I wasn’t really thinking properly in the morning before I walked down the aisle. There was excitement, fear, and anticipation—three different feelings that don’t really go well when decision-making was required.

The best thing about your friends being your wedding coordinators is probably the fact that you know they know your best interests, and won’t screw you. But if you really need to get a wedding coordinator for your day (if you don’t have friends who have experiences in events planning), it’s best to just get one for the day. Wedding coordinators also offer On-the-Day (OTD) Coordination, where they’ll basically just oversee the implementation of your wedding plans on your day. However, it’s still best that you have somebody like a friend or relative whom you can trust to see how the coordinator is doing. I don’t know about you, but I really do find it hard to entrust something as important as my wedding day to somebody I don’t really know.

Wedding coordination was not the only aspect we got as a gift (or, in simpler words, free) on our wedding. A lot more have contributed to how we were able to get a US$3,000 wedding budget:

• Live band at the reception
  Marc and I had friends who performed regularly at bars, and they gladly performed for us during our wedding—as their generous wedding gift. I found out later on when I asked them how they felt about performing at other people’s weddings that they wouldn’t have charged us much if we didn’t really know them personally. So yes, their rates are very affordable, and depends on how many songs they had to perform and how long. If you’re interested, send me a message so I can help you get in touch with them.
• Photo and Video Coverage
  Now, this is where we lucked out—really lucked out. My dad is a photojournalist, but he used to work in the wedding industry as a photographer when I was still a kid. So yes, he had a lot of connections in the field. Two of his photographer friends gave us photo and video coverage as their gifts. I have to tell you, what they did totally helped our budget—photo and video coverage is actually one of the costliest expenses of wedding planning apart from food for the reception.
• Souvenirs (200 pieces)
  My cousins offered to provide the souvenirs for our wedding, since they were found of making them anyway. And yep, the souvenirs turned out pretty well! Take a look at this post’s photo and see for yourself.
• Bridal Car
  My mom’s old friend lent us her silvery white BMW. She was godmother, so she wanted to take part in the wedding other than the entourage. When we asked her if we could borrow her car, she was more than happy to lend us
• Audio-Video Presentation (AVP)
  Our primary business offers web and multimedia services, so obviously this one’s free since we made our AVP ourselves
• Wedding Guestbook (Magnetic Album) and Pre-Nuptial Pictorials
  Another gift from a long-time friend who has his own photo studio.

I can’t remember all the other stuff we got for free, but these were the ones that had quite an impact on wedding budget. Let’s say we had to pay for these, we’d spend:

Live band – Php5,000 up
Photo and Video Coverage – Php60,000 up
200 Souvenirs – Php7,000
Bridal Car – Php6,000 for the first 5 hours
Audio-Video Presentation – Php5,000
Wedding Guestbook – Php10,000
Pre-Nuptial Pictorials – Php5,000
OTD Coordination – Php8,000

So we saved around how much on free stuff? Just about Php106,000 We saved an estimate of 106k out of the kind generosity of our friends and relatives. That’s quite a lot, considering the fact that it’s not even an exact figure (I’ve forgotten the other stuff we got as gifts from family and friends that helped in the implementation of our wedding).

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Upon the many requests I’ve gotten through email, I am currently trying to get in touch with the suppliers I’ve had for my wedding for their updated rates and information. I’ll be posting the info soon, promise! Stay tuned!

Whenever you hire a service provider, you don’t only pay for the product, but the cost of labor and creativity as well. My husband Marc and I run a small design firm, so we kind of know this for a fact. We don’t just factor in the hours worked on a project, but the value of the design as well. When you do things on your own, you only need to consider the cost of raw materials—you won’t need to pay for labor nor for design value, because you’d be the one doing it. Unless, of course, you need to “bribe” a creative cousin or nephew to do some “arts and crafts” for you. But still, it won’t cost as much as hiring a pro.

Realistically, you can’t do everything on your own. If you’re not an owner of a catering business, you’d definitely need to hire a caterer (you wouldn’t want to spend the night before your wedding cooking loads of food, do you?). Same with flowers. Hiring a florist would be logical if you don’t own a flower shop. But there are things that you can do ahead of time. Here are some ideas…

Wedding Planner. Marc and I have considered hiring a wedding planner, but eventually abandoned the idea. My work was home-based, so I pretty much have control over my schedule. I was able to find time to do the canvassing for suppliers and the actually planning on my own, with some help from kind friends and relatives. A wedding planner here in the Philippines can cost you more than Php10,000 (approximately US$200), which you could have added to upgrade your reception menu or get an incredibly nice cake. If the circumstances are right, you can do away with a wedding planner and lessen your expenses.

Invitations. If you’re planning your wedding in say, 10 months, you can actually do this on your own. Seeing all those fancy invitations can be pretty intimidating, but don’t let those embossed text and shiny boards fool you. Invitations valued at around Php80 a piece will probably only cost less than (or even more) than the amount in raw materials. Most of that amount is attributed to labor and creative value.

You just need to do a bit of research. If you’re not confident in your creative skills, there’s always the internet. Do a search of designs you like. Print it out. Then create your version.

If you like the “traditional” vellum, you can get uncut sheets straight from the factory. Veco Paper Corporation manufactures huge sheets of specialized papers for you to cut to your liking. If you’re not looking for fancy cutwork, you can always purchase the packed and pre-cut papers from a local bookstore—fold them up, stick the parchment with text, and put it in invitation envelopes you can buy in packs of 5’s or 10’s.

Going for the handmade look? Then go get yourself sheets of handmade papers. Bulaon Novelty in Tiendesitas and SM Megamall sells really pretty papers. Since you’re going to be buying in bulk, you can even haggle for a discount. That’s something you can’t just do when you’re dealing with an invitations supplier.

The photo on this series’ overview will show you how our invitation turned out (my sister, our household help, and I made those). I laid out the text in Photoshop, printed it on a regular bond paper, and had it photocopied on Parchment paper. Our guests never saw suspected it was made like that, and even marveled at how we were able to afford such “specialized” invitation.

If you prefer to have your invitation text embossed, no problem. Design it, print it out, and bring it to the long street full of invitation suppliers in Recto. They can do the cutting and embossing for you at about Php1,200 (approx. US$24) for 150 sheets of paper you provide. All you’ll have to do is to combine it with a specialized or handmade paper cover, add a little ribbon, stick some fake flowers, and there you have it: a seemingly expensive invitation for your guests to marvel at.

Souvenirs. The same principle in cost computation of souvenirs is basically the same as invitations: you pay more for labor and value.

A lot of the raw materials for souvenirs can be found in the streets of Divisoria. You can even find a supplier for personalized ribbons there. The challenge for you would be how to combine those raw materials, which can easily be remedied by searching the Net. Use Google or Yahoo. They’re here for a reason: search!

Personalized Items. Those were the things that probably made our wedding “special.” Everything just seemed to match. Marc and I went for a “modern Filipiniana” theme with a color motif of aqua blue and silver—we decorated things as mundane as our wine, table numbers, wedding programs/missallettes. Since we got the raw materials in Divisoria, we didn’t have to spend much.

The key in doing wedding stuff on your own are organization, patience, research, and creativity. You pay for labor and value if you can’t do it on your own, but if you can manage your time wisely, it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, doing things on your own gives your wedding stuff a personal touch—trinklets made from your heart would be remembered and appreciated.

I don’t understand it much either, to tell you the truth. Weddings here are such huge events that even if a family isn’t well-off (like us!), they’d want an extravagant wedding (or “bongga,” in colloquial terms). A “simple” wedding here in the Philippines can mean a lot of things—having 50 guests instead of 100, or having a judge perform the rite and treat just about a dozen people to dinner for a reception. With all these different perceptions of what a “simple” wedding here means, allow me to just describe to you our wedding so you’ll have a pretty good idea of what came about with that Php155,000 (approximately US$3,000) budget.

My husband, Marc and I, had a church wedding in an air-conditioned parish. Our reception was held at a nearby clubhouse, with a band performing amidst bubbles and mood lighting while 200 guests were provided with full-course dinner and a chocolate fountain. We also paid for the gowns and Barong Tagalogs of our entourage including our own, and had 5 photographers and a videographer documenting the event every step of the way.

Our wedding was not as simple as going to the city hall to get hitched, but it wasn’t as extravagant as having fireworks or holding the reception at a hotel. BUT, we got some pretty good feedback from our guests. They actually thought we spent a lot for it, since that kind of wedding would usually cost around twice as much as our actual budget.

Although most of the entries I’ve written here in this blog are specific to having a great wedding without ludicrous expenses, I noticed that I haven’t really written anything that talked about how I was able to keep our wedding budget at around Php155,000 specifically. Thanks to this comment on my personal blog by Janet, I decided to come up with this blog series on how I did just that.

The thing is, there are a lot of factors to be discussed. Marc and I planned our wedding within the span of 10 months, so we picked up quite a lot of tips along the way. I initially intended for this to be just one long entry, but it’s difficult to squeeze everything in that I’d like to say. So there. I’ll just make it into a series of blog posts.

Before I get into the specifics, there are some important things that you need to take note of. Marc and I got married almost a year ago, and a lot can change from then till today—especially when it comes to cost. You really need to consider inflation. What cost us Php5,000 two years ago may cost more today. I won’t be able to guarantee that you’ll have your wedding at US$3,000 as well—it will also depend on you and the people you know.

What I will discuss in this series are mostly principles. I’ll probably put in some info on my suppliers too, but just don’t forget that we got their services almost two years ago. I’m no longer sure if they’re still the cheapest in the market—you’ll have to find that out on your own.

So… watch out for this series in the coming days. Subscribe to my feed if you have to, because I’ll be telling you how exactly we got our elegant wedding for only US$3,000.