Many photographers, florists, and wedding consultants use invitations as bait to get you into their place of business, offering as much as 50-60% off of the published price. While planning my friends wedding I found a great place that gave out free invitations. Talk about a great find.

Our local tux rental shop offered 120 free invitations when I rented one of their tuxes, and all we had to do was ask. They also offered to clean and store the wedding gown after the wedding---also free. Since this was going to be a small wedding, we only needed 4 tuxes. At $60 each, we only spent $240 at the tux shop. but received 100 free invitations at a retail value of $115, and the cleaning/storing of the wedding gown at a retail value of $200: over $300 of free product and services for our $180 payment, now are you seeing how powerful just asking is?

My other wedding saving tip is, get a Quote on Flowers and Other Services: When I originally went to order flowers for my friends wedding, I wasn't happy with the first quote I received. So what did I do? I took the quote from the first florist and went to a second florist, gave them the quote and told them, "Here's what I've been quoted. If you can beat that price, we'll give you our business. The second florist called us a few hours later and told us the bridal bouquet would be $85 instead of $150, and the price for the flower girl basket would be $13.50 instead of $35. Overall, the flowers ended up costing me HALF of what the first florist had quoted.

This wedding saving technique works with other services and vendors. They want your business and are open to negotiation, but you need to be informed and know what you are willing to spend in order for it to work.

For the wedding we had plans for the bridesmaids to carry a single white rose. The first florist quoted $10 each. Since this was a fall wedding, I doubted that a dozen white roses would total out to a price tag of $140. I asked the second florist how much their long stemmed roses were and they said $5. I saved 50% off on my wedding just by haggling between two florists. This wedding saving tip has saved me hundreds when I multiply the amount of weddings I've been in charge of.

I hope these wedding saving tips help you out as well.