Thrifty Wedding Decoration Ideas

This is part three of my six-part series on how to save money while planning a wedding.
Decorations help to set the mood and theme of your wedding, but that doesn't mean they need to cost an arm or a leg. Here are some tips to find great deals and stay thrifty while planning your wedding.

The Internet of Ideas

If you choose a wedding theme, or even just a wedding color scheme, I guarantee the internet will be full of suggestions. When I first started looking online during my wedding planning process, I noticed that were a number of gently used (it's just one day after all!) decoration available on Facebook Marketplace. I recommend that you do check your local listings since there are great deals to be had! I gave away all of my wedding decorations for free after the wedding on my Facebook Buy Nothing Group, so that is another place to check for wedding items.

If you are crafty, or if your theme is shabby chic, rustic, or another theme that lends itself well to handmade decorations, I think you would do well on Pinterest or YouTube. For example, I have seen some great paper flower crafts made of old or damaged sheet music that would be great at a musician's wedding. I particularly recommend the YouTube channel Style My Sweets, which has a number of ideas with different color schemes, holiday themes, and other ideas with many of the supplies coming from Dollar Tree!


This is a progress shot of the centerpieces my best friend designed
using Pinterest inspiration. There's a waterproof tea light under
the glass beads and the flower floats when the vase is filled with water.

I searched for ideas on Pinterest and YouTube for ideas, but I did not use many of them because the crafts were complicated, had expensive components, or both. Since my theme was Galaxy (as my husband is an astronomer), there were a lot of crafts that required painting using “galaxy colors” like navy blue, black, purple, and glitter. I am not good at that so I used the decorations that the venue had. Leading me to......

Leverage Venue Decorations

Your chosen venue, whether it is a banquet hall, cultural center, or elsewhere, may have decorations in storage. It is worth asking if they will fit your colors or theme. This is what I ended up doing for my centerpieces because the museum where I had my wedding had beautiful vases, crystals that sparkled like stars, and gold fairy lights that complemented my theme well. I think that sort of centerpiece would work for a number of weddings!

Choosing a historic or cultural venue also frees you from having to decorate the rest of the space. The museum where we got married had two separate art galleries with beautiful metal prints hanging up during our wedding, and our reception was held in a glass atrium so there was no need for any other décor. My best friend chose a seaside venue with a working carousel and focused on create simple centerpieces, letting the venue itself be the bulk of the aesthetic.

My venue-provided decorations centerpieces and decorative favor boxes from Amazon.


Visit Party Stores

I ended up getting my wedding table number cards at a Party City, which was surprising because I didn't realize that party stores carried wedding supplies; I thought they were mostly limited to bridal showers and other events. Party stores also have great deals on card bags (save yourself the trouble of making your own decorated box), guestbooks, and even signage and other decorations.


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