by Meg Jack

Created on: July 05, 2008

When it comes to shopping for weddings there's a lot to be done. For the bride and groom there is a lot of small gifts to be gotten- for the parents and the attendents. For the attendents there's the showers and bachelor/bachelorette party. For guests there are shower and wedding gifts! Needless to say, weddings can easily break the bank of many people!

My main advice is to start early and shop at discount stores like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Tuesday Morning, and Amazon.com. I found dresses for my Bridesmaids that were originally $200 for $60 each- needless to say my 4 bridesmaids were delighted! Tuesday Morning has a lot of nice china for discounted prices, such as Waterford and Lenox. This can be good for toasting glasses and cake cutting sets. At places like these it is also possible to find ceremony accesories such as flowergirl baskets and ring bearer pillows. However, as I said, you have to be constantly looking at these stores, and dig through to find good deals. Even flowergirl dresses and mother of the bride or groom dresses can be find at places like these.

When it comes to giving attendents gifts, it may be a good idea to give them something they can use in the ceremony and then wait until after the ceremony and give them a framed picture of you with them from the wedding day. For the bridesmaids, jewlery to wear with the dress is the perfect idea. For the groosmen, a tie may be nice. Where to get good deals? Ties can be found at TJ Maxx or Marshalls. Once again, it can take a search to find matching ties, but it's worth it to find $15 ties that were once $50. Jewlrey can be found off of amazon.com. It's difficult to find jewlrey in a discount store because generally they only have one or two pieces, unless you only have a maid or matron of honor.

For a bachelorette party, instead of spending big bucks taking the bride out for drinks and a party, or taking her out for a spa day, how about havng a spa day at the home of one of the bridesmaids? There is actually a kit made that can be split between the bridesmaids. It comes with plenty of supplies for all of the bridesmaids and the bride to give each other facials, pedicures and manicures. The girls can have a fun night in, rather than spending tons of money on a night out.

Guests can save money and still get couples what they want. Many registries allow couples to return or exchange gifts, but make sure before buying something off of the registry that is not directly from the registry. Wedding guests can easily look at a registry and pick something off of it, then search for it at one of the places I've named earlier, either TJ Maxx, Marshalls, or probably the easiest- amazon.com. Instead of having it directly wrapped and shipped to the couple, the guest can order it and wrap it themselves, then ship it to the couple. If the couple does get a duplicate, they can return or exchange the second. This is a cheaper way of getting the couple something off of their registry, and it's likely that the couple will be so overwhelmed they will have no idea the gift didn't come direcly off of it.

With these money saving tips, weddings should't make such a huge hole in the pocket. Although they are still quite expensive, especially if you have many to attend at one time!

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