Did you know that the right venue for the celebration will reduce the cost of wedding decor? And choosing a novice decorator, on the contrary, will increase them? Studio shared important secrets to saving money without losing the quality of the decor.

Choose the right venue

Pay attention to the remoteness of the site from the city. A distance of more than 20 km will increase the cost of transportation and installation. Often couples do not think about the additional costs that appear due to the peculiarities of the wedding venue. It is more expensive to decorate a marquee than a restaurant – its bare walls need additional decoration. Therefore, it is better to give preference to the hall of the restaurant or an open veranda. In an effort to save money on the site, many people choose a place for the price, forgetting about the cost of decor, which will cost an impressive amount. To avoid this, assess whether the intended style and color will fit in the interior of the hall – if it already has the right elements, it will lower the estimate. When inspecting the restaurant, pay attention to:

chairs. If the chairs look intimidating and the venue only offers to cover them with white covers, you’ll definitely be thinking about renting. It’s not cheap. Choose a venue with nice chairs, and make sure you know if you can use them for the checkout as well.

A marquee. Choose a marquee? It’s good if it already has a draped ceiling and walls. Draping the metal structures of the marquee with textiles is very expensive. Without it the marquee looks ordinary, and sometimes downright bad.

The background is behind the newlyweds. If the hall has a beautiful backdrop wall that doesn’t need to be completely “covered,” that’s a big plus.

Don’t invite extra guests.

If you have doubts about any of the guests, don’t be afraid to discuss them with each other. Unnecessary guests are unnecessary expenses! And not only for the restaurant, but also for the wedding decor: decorating an extra guest table or printing costs a lot of money. If the budget is limited, the number of guests up to 60 will be optimal.

Combine different areas

If you want a lot of interesting zones at your wedding, try combining them to reduce costs. The resulting space will look more advantageous. In addition, you can make one background design for several zones. Examples of successful “symbioses”: sweet bar+photo area, sweet bar+wellcom, photo area+wishes area, wellcom+wishes area. Sometimes move elements from one area to another – for example, large vases of flowers from the area of wellcome, in which the guests will not be, can be moved to the table of newlyweds. Do not abuse this, especially with large backgrounds – the process is time consuming and the result does not always look good. A successful example of moving a design from the reception area to the bridal table:

Time your wedding decorations

It takes a lot of time to prepare the decorations. Often you have to stop by the venue the night before or the day before the event. If it turns out at the last minute that this is not possible, you will have to hire expensive additional staff – florists, fitters, movers, etc. Immediately stipulate the necessary time for installation and agree it with the site, so that the ratio of people and amount of work was optimal.

Alternate elements

A large number of guest tables is one of the most costly items in wedding decorating. If there are more than six, consider alternating. You can alternate tall and lush arrangements with more budget-friendly low arrangements (or intersperse floral arrangements with candelabras). This method looks advantageous in the hall, creating volume at all levels, and candelabra with candles (if appropriate) will add solemnity and light. Even the tables themselves can be rotated – for example, at a nature-inspired wedding, round tables with flowers alternate with rectangular tables decorated with garlands of greenery.

Use a mix in floristry: large elements of decoration sometimes add artificial flowers of high quality (for example, for the exit registration or photo area). Good decorative flowers in such a mix are hard to distinguish from live ones, and you’ll make serious savings in the process.

How not to save on wedding decor

We’ve told you what to do to avoid extra expense in wedding decor. What’s not to do?

Don’t choose novice decorators.

Yes, you can get lucky – serious and responsible people who are just getting on the decorating path can get things done. But the risk is huge – at the beginning of any decorator’s career it is difficult to calculate the time and number of hands, the volume of flowers, to foresee all the complexities and correctly fix the designs. Do not take the risk if you intend to decorate on a large scale, otherwise there is a great chance of becoming an illustration of the result of “expectation-reality”.

Don’t “smudge” the budget.

You want everything, but it’s better to invest in one or two main areas (the registration ceremony and the honeymoon table with a backdrop). Let the photos of these locations be flawless! You can do without the gifts for the guests or the wish area. Listen to the decorator, he or she will help you allocate the budget correctly and focus on the main elements.

Don’t take it all on yourself.

Often at the beginning of preparations, the bride wants to do a lot of things with her own hands, but this rarely ends well. She already has enough hassle to additionally glue petal poulets or draw invitations. The design elements the couple makes on their own often end up not matching the size, quality or color palette the decorator controls. Leave the work to the professionals of your choice! If you want to get involved, take on small wedding accessories that you’ll enjoy making yourself.

Don’t strain your in-laws.

For the same reasons, don’t assign wedding decor or parts of it to girlfriends, acquaintances or parents. Decorating a wedding is hard work associated with sleepless nights, physical work and a lot of special skills. You should not burden your loved ones, who should rest and rejoice with you.