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The other day, I checked my mail to find a mortgage statement, a dermatologist bill, and a wedding invitation. So essentially all bills. Being a 20-something that is closer to 30, this is far from my first rodeo. Over the past few wedding seasons I have perfected the art of attending a fair amount of weddings without going broke.
1) Bed Bath and Beyond Is Your Friend.
If you are anything like my friends, a bunch of the weddings you will attend have a Triple B registry. Take advantage of this.
First, hoard those 20% off coupons like a depression era housewife. Most of the time, the middle-aged woman working the cash register doesn’t care if they are expired (I used a coupon from 2014 last week). Also, you can use one coupon per item on the same order. So if you are buying two items, bring two coupons.
Items at BBB are so marked up that if you don’t use a coupon, it means you clearly have too much money. Last week I was buying a gift at BBB and the girl in front of me at checkout didn’t use her 20% off coupon. I wasn’t aware I was in the presence of a fucking millionaire!
Another little known fact about BBB is they have a free gift wrapping station. I clearly don’t have my life together to the point where I have my own collection of gift wrapping supplies, so this is a nice perk.
2) Buy discount gift cards from sites like GiftCardGranny, CardPool or use your credit card reward points
Don’t be tacky and give the bride and groom a gift card for a weird amount like $25.35.
Use those discount cards to buy their gift, pay for your hotel, pay for your rental car, etc. I recently purchased multiple $25.87 BBB gift cards for $20.46.
3) Check to see if the hotel you are staying at is posted on a discount travel site like Trivago, Expedia, Hotwire, etc.
Don’t book directly on those sites. When you book through those sites, the hotel must give a cut of your room rate back to the website.
Instead, call the hotel directly (local number, not 800) and ask to speak to the manager. Explain that you saw the hotel was listed on the travel site and you were wondering if you could book directly with the hotel.
Ask if there is anyway that you could get a cheaper price. A lot of the time the concierge at the front desk isn’t going to be interested in arguing with you and will just give you the better rate. I’ve never done this while traveling for a wedding (the group rate has always been cheaper, or I just bit the bullet, and paid for and Uber ride home) but I did this while booking a room for a beach vacation. My room rate ended up being $10 cheaper than advertised on the travel site.
Now go out there and have a good time..
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Peter_Olinto
Not the real Peter Olinto. Accounting for LIFO, even though LIFO is not permitted under IFRS.
Here’s my tip: Have no friends and don’t get invited to any weddings. Been doing it for years and it’s worked out great for me. God I need to get out more.
This is my secret too. Unfortunately there’s no one I can tell it to.
I turn 30 this year and the last wedding I went to, I was in high school and it was for a cousin.
Now that I saved $40 on the gift at BB&B by entering my information into questionable websites and actually looking at junk mail, how do I save the other $1,300?
The calling the hotel tip is so crucial. You should never, ever book a hotel online. Worst case scenario–you can always get the online rate. But hotels have a lot of flexibility when it comes to booking rooms in advance. Always give them a call, you can save hundreds just by chatting with the booking person/manager–especially if it’s a few wweks/months in advance.
The other hotel trick I use regularly is, if I need to cancel within the 24 hour window, I call and reschedule to a couple weeks out, which they don’t ding you for. Then the next day call and cancel that. Always works.