A few readers may have noticed the month-long-or-more hiatus The Cheap Wedding has taken. Fear not, there is no trouble brewing in paradise. It’s just incredibly hard to plan anything that’s going to cost into the quadruple digits when one’s bank account is quickly reaching the single digits.
Yep, still unemployed, in less fancy terms.
Unfortunately, simultaneous to my unemployment was my obsession with destination weddings. They can sometimes cost less because no matter how much distant relations love you, they aren’t often willing to pay for a plane ticket to Jamaica to prove it and so your guest list is smaller. Of course, my tastes run a touch less fancy than Jamaica, and hopefully into the cheaper realm too.
I grew up on Maui and I’d love to go back – and not just for a wedding, of course. We still have friends and family back on the islands and they could possibly help me find cheaper venues, musicians, food, etc. And of course, not having to feed 100+ guests is certainly a perk. In fact, two friends who were married on Oahu a year ago (Happy Anniversary T&K!) only had about 30 guests.
Of course, not even old friends and close relatives can always get you a good deal on plane tickets and lodging for everyone (because its kind of expected that you at least help defray the costs of all that for your wedding party and possibly your close family, too). So that bumps the cheap wedding back up into the “out of my budget” range.
But either way, with my free time I have come up with some ideas:
The aforementioned friends who were married on Oahu used this website, TreasuredMoment.com, and were very happy with it
Since all venues on Hawaii are automatically nice simply because of their location, I was assured that a reception at a community hall or conference center would be affordable and not too tacky (I don't have anything against tacky, I only care about too tacky)
There is a Costco on Maui, which equals cheap food and cheap flowers
Back in the day I had some very musical friends. If they don’t want to perform, I’m sure they know or are related to musicians I could hire
Just look at these pictures. You could get a high school student in an Intro to Photography class to take your wedding photos, and they’d still be beautiful
