I felt like I was constantly going to wedding a few years ago. Every week from late June to early August, it seemed, a cousin or a sibling or a friend was tying the knot. The bills to celebrate all this happiness with your friends and family racked up pretty quickly too.
I’m hardly alone though. According to American Express, in 2016 Americans planned to attend an average of three weddings and spend $703 for each wedding. $703!
Do you want to keep the wedding season from breaking your bank? Here’s what you can do to keep your budget intact through the list of summer weddings:
Carefully Consider Which Weddings to Attend
I’ve had to RSVP no to a wedding because it just wasn’t in the budget. Most of the time, you know which weddings are coming up. I prioritized my brother’s wedding over my cousin’s wedding.
I was willing to travel across the country to see my brother enter a state of married bliss, but I wasn’t prepared to make the same trek for my cousin three weeks later.
We hate to rank our relationships like this, but the reality is that a good friend you have now might outrank your college frat brother’s wedding.
Send a nice gift if you can’t make it to a wedding, especially due to travel time and cost. It’s a kind gesture, it shows you care, and it can save you hundreds of dollars.
Look for Deals
You look for deals in other areas of your life. Don’t stop just because a wedding is involved. You might be able to redeem points for airfare or a hotel for a wedding trip too.
You can also look for deals at the venue. Is there a discounted block of rooms at the wedding hotel? Perhaps there are nearby hotels that cost less. You don’t have to stay at the wedding hotel if you don’t want to.
Another strategy is to buy discounted gift cards. Look for gift cards to the store the couple registered at. This is a great way to reduce the cost of the gift while still looking like a hero.
Even if you don’t give the gift card, you can use the discounted gift card to make your purchase.
And don’t forget to look for promo codes and coupons. If you have an account with Ebates or Swagbucks, make sure you shop through those portals so you can get a rebate back on what you spend. By stacking deals and rebates, you can reduce the overall cost of the gift to you without looking like a cheapskate.
Combine the Wedding with Another Trip
If you’ve been planning to take a family vacation, now is the time to do it. Combine your trip with the wedding. Stay longer, after the wedding, and do fun things. You won’t have to pay additional costs to get there — you’ve already arrived!
This is one way to kill two birds with one stone, and avoid having to pay for two different trips.
Bottom Line
In the end, you are spending time and money on these weddings. You want to be supportive and show your love, but you also don’t want to put your finances at risk. Take some steps to plan out your trip and you can save quite a bit. That’s for sure.
{ read the comments below or add one }
I also find ranking relationships to be a bit ‘odd’, but I’ve also RSVP’d no to a couple of weddings so far. It was nice to be part of the guest list, but we weren’t that close to the happy couples anyway, so not attending the weddings altogether (both in different countries, by the way) was probably for the best.