My Favourite Cheap Wedding Decorations
That Anyone Can Prepare

Cheap wedding decorations will play a major role in your perfect wedding day if you want to keep your costs low. Thankfully, with a little thought you can still achieve similar results to the more expensive wedding decorations.

Your decorations don't have to be expensive to be beautiful. Some of the best weddings I have been to have had the simplest decorations and ended up being the ones all the guests commented on as they were beautiful and very personal.

The secret to getting the right cheap wedding decorations is to consider your theme carefully and consider your and your grooms personalities. If the day doesn't reflect your personalities your guests will notice, and it won't have that personal feeling that your guests will talk about for months after.

My Top 15 Ideas for Cheap Wedding Decorations:

1. Tealights & Candles: these are very popular but bear in mind the unscented candles are cheaper and won't overpower the smell of your flowers. Make sure you know how many you are going to need as the cost can escalate quickly. Always check your venue allows candles before you go and buy them.
2. Simple Jam jars or tin cans: these have a very rustic feel to them and if used correctly they can look absolutely fabulous. You could hang them over the edges of the pews as wedding aisle decorations or place them on the tables as wedding reception table decorations. Don't try to put fancy arrangements in them as they work better with very simple flowers or even a single flower. You can then decorate them however you want or leave them plain. These will only work if they naturally fit in with the rest of your theme.
3. Light Ropes and curtains: many of your friends will have plain white light ropes and light curtains which they may use as christmas decorations or for parties. So borrow them (the ultimate cheap wedding decorations are free) and use them to lift plain white voil or blank walls by placing them in front of or behind white voil or Tulle etc.
   
4. Tulle/Voile: tulle and voile are great ways of decorating large areas relatively cheaply. It can be used to soften large blank wall areas, tie bows around chairs or flower arrangements and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Just be careful around naked flames.
5. Flowers: you don't have to spend a fortune on flowers for your wedding. Depending on what time of year you are getting married, you should be able to find in-season flowers locally. Many brides I know have even used freely available hedgerow flowers to decorate their entire wedding. Even if the particular flower you want is out of season you can order a small number of them and then bulk them out with freely available greenery from the hedgerows.
6. Personal Pictures: this is a popular form of cheap wedding decoration at the moment, you strategically place pictures of you and your groom as babies and throughout your lives around the venue or on the guests tables. You could integrate them into the menues or place settings etc. There's nothing that will get your guests talking (and laughing) as quickly as an embarrassing childhood picture of you or your groom!
7. Crepe paper or tissue: another very cheap idea for finishing or lifting certain areas of the venue. It can easily be bunched into flower shapes.
8. Greenery: this is great for bulking out flower arrangements and is usually freely available from local hedgerows and parks etc, but please don't steal it - always ask permission first.
9. K.I.S.S.: As a wise man once told me “Keep It Simple Stupid”. This is a great rule to keep in your head when you find yourself getting carried away and starting to over spend (which you will…we've all done it!).
10. Buy Online: wedding decorations are like most other commodities - they're usually cheaper online so get searching.
11. Beg, borrow but don't steal: ask your friends and family if they have anything you could borrow. You will be surprised just how much you can get simply by putting the word out that you are looking for cheap wedding decorations. You might even get offers of help to set up the decorations.

    Also ask your venue. They do weddings all the time and will likely have some decorations that they will lend you or let you use for a fraction of the cost of buying them yourself. Get friends to help decorate the day before (have a decoratig party and enjoy it).

12. Balloon Decorations: Balloons are a great way of decorating a wedding and they're cheap, plus if you plan the balloon decorations such as wedding balloon centrepieces or wedding balloon arches carefully you can cut back on the number of flowers you will need and potentially save even more money.
13. Bunting: this is always an easy and cheap way of lifting a room and they are easily available online in dozens of styles and colours to suit your theme. It gives a lovely informal “village fete” atmosphere.
14. Paper lanterns: lanterns are especially good if your reception or wedding is in the evening. They are available in many colours and styles, but as with candles check with your venue if you are allowed to use them before you order.
15. In winter: during winter months many flowers are at a premium so why not make use of what's freely available such as pine cones, ivy or holly? These are easy to get locally and shouldn't cost anything.

The only other thing I should mention at this point is that you shouldn't just add these because they're cheap. If you do you run the risk of making your decorations too fussy. If in doubt refer to point number eight above.

These are just a few of my favourite cheap wedding decorations but there are hundreds more. Just take a little time with your groom and decide what theme suits your personalities. You want your guests to go away thinking that the day was a perfect representation of both your personalities.

Return from Cheap Wedding Decorations to Wedding Decorations.

Return to the homepage.