Attending an overseas wedding on a budget

Budgeting for a destination wedding

If you’ll be travelling a significant distance, you may need to plan for a larger-than-average budget. A destination wedding typically means paying for airfares or train tickets, hotel and travel insurance, if you’re leaving the country or even the province.

To help your money go further, consider making your wedding budget do double duty by planning a vacation around the big day. Add a few extra days for sightseeing or excursions onto your trip, and you can cover some of the wedding costs with your vacation budget.

If you’re the only one in your family who's close to the happy couple, consider attending solo or with a mutual friend. You’ll save on travel expenses and may also avoid other costs (like boarding your pet) that you’d have to pay if your whole family went to the wedding.

What if you’re part of the wedding party?

Taking part in your friends’ special day is an honour, but it also carries a very real financial commitment. If you’re a bridesmaid on a tighter budget, ask to buy an off-the-rack dress in the wedding’s colour palette to save money. Be honest about your spending limitations if the bride would prefer custom-made bridesmaids’ dresses. If you can, opt to do your own hair and makeup on the wedding day, or ask the bride to try to find professionals in your price range.

Working weddings into your savings plans

If you know you have some weddings coming up in the next year or so, start saving for them now.

Consider other cost-cutting methods as well: If you'll be seeing many of the same people at multiple weddings, you could use a wardrobe rental service to avoid buying multiple outfits. Or rent or buy a variety of statement accessories to dress up the same outfit differently for each wedding. But most important, don’t micro-manage every penny. These are the times to enjoy your money.

Sylvie Tremblay, July 05, 2017, How to attend a wedding on a budget [Web page]. Retrieved from Canada Sun Life Corporate Website read the article.

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