Backyard Wedding On A Budget

I am finally ready to share the details from my son's wedding from this past August. Planning a backyard wedding on a budget is a lot of work, especially when you are making almost everything. But it was worth the extra effort to not only save money, but to give my son and his bride their dream wedding reception!

Backyard Wedding On A Budget

If you have a wedding coming up and are looking for a way to keep the cost down, I have loads of ideas of how to DIY it and save money!

The Venue

When I was 11 years old I wrote in my journal that I wanted to have the kind of backyard that people would want to have their wedding receptions. That dream came true in 2024 with not one, but two weddings! Our son's and our best friend's daughter. I was thrilled when my son and his fiance said they wanted to have the wedding reception in our yard. By hosting it here, it saved us THOUSANDS of dollars. Renting venues (outdoor or indoor) can be a very BIG part of the wedding budget. Or it can be FREE if you choose a backyard.

The Theme

It was so fun to sit down with my daughter-in-law and discuss the theme, colors, and all the fun details. Turns out, we have very similar styles! I had secretly started a pinterest board back in February with possible ideas. When she showed me her board, more than half of the pins were the same! She wanted a "cottage garden party" theme with lots of wildflowers.

The Flowers

Since I have been growing cut flowers for the past 3 years, and because I had a heads up before it was time to start seeds indoors, I was able to tailor the types of flowers I grew to match the colors and wildflower vibe. What was even better was that my DIL wanted to help plant them. Not many brides can say they helped grow their own wedding flowers! If this is something you want to do, I have posts on starting seeds indoors as well as growing cut flowers.

This also saved us THOUSANDS of dollars. I know this is not an option for everyone, but I had the knowledge and the space to do it and the timing of the wedding worked out perfectly for the flowers to be at their peak.

I also have a little experience with making flower arrangements so I also acted as the florist. The ground arch was made up of 6 large floral arrangments which I made the night before. I also helped my DIL make her bouquet. I even made the pocket boutonniere for my son.

The night before the wedding, the bridesmaids came over for a "U-Pick" bouquet making party. Since the bridesmaids were all wearing bright colors, the bride decided to have them make all white bouquets. It was a lovely choice and they had fun putting them together.

There were some flowers that I did not have enough of to make the giant floral ground arch. I also needed some extra greenery to act as filler. So if you can't grow your own flowers, here are my best recommendations for getting quality flowers on a budget.

Traders Joes

They get flowers in pretty much every day at 7am. It is best to get there early. The location matters too. In Utah we have smaller stores with a smaller selection and we have larger stores with a huge floral section. Go every day, starting 3 days before the wedding, to ensure you are getting all the types you want and the amount that you want since you can't order them ahead of time. This is a good option for supplementing or if you're doing a simple wedding with not as many flowers. I pretty much just needed more feverfew (chamomile) since my plants had started to slow down due to the August heat.

Flower Moxie

I needed more delphiniums than what my garden could produce (I didn't want to cut them all) and they are not a flower carried by Trader Joe's. A florist friend told me about Flower Moxie. Not only do they sell fresh cut flowers, they also have great videos showing how to DIY your wedding flowers! I was able to get 50 delphinium stems and some fern like greenery for the ground arch. It gets delivered right to your door a day or so before your event.

Costco

My florist friend also recommended Costco. I ended up not needing to order anything from them but I did check out their flowers and greenery. They will also ship to your home and are reasonably priced.

Dance Floor

You can rent a dance floor, but I found that they were very expensive and they were not the exact look we were going for. I decided to DIY the dance floor! It cost less than half of the rental price and we can reuse it for future weddings! I have a whole post breaking down how we built it and the cost.

You could always opt to not have a dance floor and just have a designated area for dancing. Dancing on the grass or a patio would totally work! Use string lights, planters, or chairs to distinguish it as the dance area.

Cake

Neither my son or his wife are big fans of cake, so they opted for a cheesecake instead. Her step mom is a great baker and offered to make it for them. If you have someone in your family or circle of friends who can bake, this will really help save money. When I got married, my mom's friend made our cake as her wedding gift to us. Or you can choose to do something other than cake! Stack up donuts, cupcakes, or another dessert. Get creative!

Decor

One upside of having a backyard wedding is that you don't need as much decor. Anything else you need, if you can DIY it, will help cut down the cost.

I was able to build the welcome sign, cut out vinyl, make the string light planter pots, refinish thrifted furniture, and we built a fence to hide the trampoline.

I also thrifted baby food jars to hang from the trees with battery operated tea lights. They are hard to see in the photos, but they were spectacular in person! Especially when the sun was starting to set and it got a bit darker.

While the bridesmaids were making bouquets inside, the groomsmen were hanging the lights. Eight groomsmen, one groom, three dads, and six ladders was what it took to hang 150 jars in four large trees.

In our state, there are TONS of people who rent out wedding decor like centerpieces, candlesticks, mirrors, signs, vases, etc. You can look on FB marketplace or your online yard sale sites. Sometimes they are looking to sell for really cheap to recoup some of their wedding cost. I would advise going that route instead of buying new. We were able to rent small bud vases and brass candlesticks for the large farmhouse tables.

Food

Where we live, it is much more common to only serve dessert at a wedding reception. After the actual wedding ceremony you host a luncheon with the ceremony guests. The ceremony is usually more intimate with mostly family. We had about 75 guests. Then later that evening you have a reception for all the other people in your lives that you want to celebrate with like friends and neighbors. We didn't get a head count on how many ended up coming but it was HUNDREDS. It is more of an open house where guest can come, visit, eat, and leave when they want. There was a constant flow of people coming and going.

We had some of the food catered from a local university. BYU is known for their yummy pastries! It is also a cost effective option. We also had some of the desserts made by family members who wanted to help. My DIL's step mom is famous for her macarons so she made about 1,000 in the wedding colors. We also had lemon bars, sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, oatmeal cookies, brownies, mini cheesecakes, and a chocolate fountains with strawberries to dip.

There was also a soda bar with custom drinks and a water table.

Music

They opted for a sound system and a prerecorded playlist rather than live music. We own two large bluetooth speakers that we placed near the dance floor and tables. We had asked a family member ahead of time to act as the DJ and be in charge. He was thrilled because it got him out of dancing :)

Kid Corner

My daughter-in-law wanted to have a place for all the little kids, which I thought was brilliant! The reception was over 2 hours long and some family stayed the entire time. It was nice for the nieces, nephews and little cousins to hang out. We placed it near the animals since we figured they would be drawn naturally to that area. There was a table with custom wedding themed coloring books, bubbles, and a play tent. We also had corn hole!

Photo Booth/ Sign In Table

Instead of a traditional sign in table for the guests, we had a photobooth. Once you took your photos, it would print out 2 copies. One to keep and one to slip into the sign in book.

Splurge VS Save

It was awesome watching my son and his wife be smart with the money they were given and being thoughtful on what to splurge on VS what to cut back on based on their priorities. One "splurge" was renting farmhouse tables and wood chairs instead of renting less expensive plastic ones. I think it was a good move since it really contributed to the cottage garden party vibe. Make a list of all your wants with your favorites at the top and ones you would be okay with dropping towards the bottom. It helps knowing where to put your money.

Be Prepared

We rented 2 large white wedding tents just in case it rained or we had a heat wave. We also reserved our church's gymnasium as a last resort since it was free. It did end up raining that day. But luckily it ended before the reception started. Even though it stunk having to pay for something we didn't end up using, it was nice to have the peace of mind. I found the tents on FB marketplace. It was a local man who rented them out and it was very inexpensive compared to renting from a wedding rental company.

It was such a wonderful day filled with love. I am so happy to have our beautiful new daughter-in-law in our family. She is the perfect fit!