{IWS Note: Miss Indian Bride shares her years of Indian wedding planning experience with you on IndianWeddingSite.com. There is nothing she hasn’t dealt with, and no wedding planning topic she doesn’t have a strong opinion on. Get ready for her very candid tips!}
There are gazillions of articles with instructions on cutting your wedding budget. “Cut your guest list,” they say…uhhh….duhh… can’t really do that if you are of the likes of a Patel, Shah, or Singh, where the guest list is usually a 500 person minimum. Unfortunately, the majority of the advice out there does not apply to big-fat-Indian weddings.
MIB to the rescue! Yours truly has rounded up 5 very applicable tips on saving on your very wallet heavy, South Asian celebration:
1. Food: Depending on your families, opt for an all vegetarian menu. Include enough paneer dishes, and most of your meat eating cousins won’t miss the non vegetarian food too much. If an all vegetarian menu isn’t an option, try concentrating most of the non veg options at the cocktail hour instead of in the main course.
2. Bouquets: Forgo the bridal bouquets. Not only are they costly, but they look out of place at Indian weddings. A classier and more cost effective option is for the bride to enter with a garland or decorated coconut; and for the bridesmaids to carry diyas.
3. Wedding Sites: Surprisingly, the nicest wedding sites (museums, public gardens, etc) can be the most affordable. Make sure to consider alternative locations before opting for your closest 5 star hotel.
4. Alcohol: Sigh, Indian weddings and their alcohol. Omitting alcohol at an Indian wedding is often out of the question. However, you do have two options on cutting the alcohol budget: 1) Do not serve alcohol at the Sangeet. It’s not necessary, and often not expected. You don’t want drunk guests dancing around with wooden dandia sticks. 2) Limit the choices or hours of availability, not the amount. You can get away with eliminating hard alcohol and sticking to champagne, wine, beer and a signature drink. An alternative is to limit the hours on the bar.
5. Centerpiece: Stick to seasonal flowers, and alternate costlier high centerpieces with less expensive low centerpieces.
Read more posts like this one on the Miss Indian Bride Blog.