If you’re looking for spring wedding Ideas on a budget you’ve come to the right post! Here you’ll discover all my tips and tricks for making your spring wedding beautiful, budget-friendly, and an event your guests will never forget.
There are so many things about spring that make it the perfect season to get married. Just like the beginning of your marriage, spring brings new life with all its brilliant beauty and colors.
Every wedding is unique, however, by reading this post you will be equipped with spring wedding ideas to help you choose your venue, seating, decorations, flowers, outfits, menu, and more!
The photos in this post are from my spring-themed wedding. It was truly the best day of my life, and I couldn’t have done it without the support and help of friends and family.
Spring Wedding Ideas on a Budget
Choosing a Venue
The spring wedding theme works seamlessly with an outdoor location.
Outdoor venues are commonly far more affordable and you already have 80% of the decoration done thanks to the beauty of nature around you.
I highly recommend pairing any outdoor wedding ceremony with a wedding tent. This is because it is impossible to fully predict spring weather.
White tents are timeless and elegant, perfectly complementing their beautiful surroundings. They also provide a fantastic reception location!
Tieing your ceremony and reception venues into one place is also most likely more affordable and a fantastic way to save your guests unnecessary travel!
The venue we selected was called Hamurana Spring and Red Woods. It was extremely affordable, and there we hosted our ceremony and reception and took all our wedding photos! If you live in New Zealand, I would highly recommend this location.
Other appropriate spring wedding location ideas would be a large garden, farm, meadow, lakefront, or anywhere that boasts fresh greenery and life.
Ceremony and Reception Seating
With a strict budget and a guest list of between 150-200 people, seating could have been a large expense.
Consequently, pews for a ceremony are a great option for large crowds! They are timeless, don’t draw attention from their beautiful surroundings, and are more affordable than the majority of wedding seats to hire.
If your reception is something like afternoon tea (I’ll talk more about this style of reception later) picnic blankets are another extremely adorable and cheap option!
We did a mix of picnic blankets, vintage school chairs, and large garden armchairs for our reception, all of which we already had on hand.
Do keep in mind not all guests may be comfortable with picnic blankets so having chairs on hand for them is important.
Spring Wedding Decorations
I am aware it would be impossible for you to follow exactly how I put together all my decorations. However, by giving a summary of what I used for this wedding and how it was styled you may be able to do something similar yourself.
Vintage Tea Cups
As you’ve probably noticed this spring theme is very intertwined with a vintage style. In keeping with the color palette and style, vintage tea cups were such a cute and practical detail.
I spent a few months gathering these from second-hand stores for around $1 apiece.
Unfortunately, I don’t have better photos of what they were displayed on. I was inspired by the antique bottle dry racks. However, knowing I was unlikely to find one my wonderful grandfather with experience in wielding made one from scratch to make my vision come true!
Vintage Plate Cake Stands
Keeping with the vintage spring aesthetic I collected vintage plates to be used for food display.
These can usually be found for just a few dollars apiece.
By also collecting mini glass goblets, we glued them as dividers between 2-3 plates, creating gorgeous vintage cake stands. These were again practical, color appropriate and added height variety to the table set up.
Stem Vases
Flowers are one of the first things that pop to mind when you think of spring. But hiring a florist can take a big chunk out of your budget.
What I love about using stem vases is that you can spread out your beautiful flowers over a large area. Plus they don’t require any special arranging skills!
The vases themselves were a mix of collected used bottles from a cafe and thrifted antique bottles.
Again, super inexpensive decor!
Spring Wedding Flowers
As I said, flowers can come with a large price tag. But by choosing in-season flowers, and researching how to put together a bouquet It is totally possible to avoid that cost.
I was so grateful for the help from my Nana on this as she worked with me to find and then arrange all the flowers to perfection.
The flowers for the stem vases and bouquets were sourced from a mix of flower markets and family gardens.
When considering sourcing your flowers I’d recommend googling the local flower growers in your area, checking the farmers market, or talking to friends and family if anyone is willing to share their spring buds.
Spring Wedding Bouquets
Leaning into the soft spring color pallet we arranged three bouquets all similar to the one featured above.
We sourced these flowers from my family willing to share their gardens and an incredible flower market!
You’ll also notice the soft pink and peach silk ribbons tied around the base of the bouquets. This is another pretty detail to consider adding.
Spring Wedding Flower Arch
The winding tree flower arch was the crowning centerpiece of our wedding ceremony!
The flowers used for this were second-hand faux flowers sourced from Facebook marketplace. The fantastic thing about using Faux is that you can on-sell them after your big day!
The base of the arch was made from chicken wire, the inside was then stuffed with pine tree fur and limbs. Next, willow tree leaves and flowers were added until no more wire or fur could be seen.
To attach it to the tree we used a bit of what we in New Zealand call “Kiwi ingenuity” with tree screws and bendable electric fencing wire.
Lastly, a long roll of cheesecloth was draped over the branch and its tail finished by failing midway.
Spring Wedding Food Ideas
To some people, a sit-down dinner is an important part of the wedding. There are other options though that can be especially helpful when you need to feed a large crowd on a budget.
The time frame of our wedding was largely dictated by our want to have an afternoon tea reception. By having the reception mid-afternoon, our guests had already eaten lunch and weren’t expecting dinner.
The spring theme fits perfectly with this style menu as it is simple and almost a picnic style if you want to continue enjoying the outdoors.
Wedding meals can cost an average of $120 per head, and with a guest list of nearly 200 there was no way we could have afforded a dinner.
Our afternoon tea was an absolute feast, however, filling the guests with a balance of sweet and savory!
A lot of the food was given by family members wanting to help by baking. If you have friends or family who are keen to be involved, assigning them one dish on your menu to make in bulk is an extremely helpful gift.
Spring Wedding Cake
Where you can save in your wedding budget sometimes depends on who you know. Of course, this never means taking advantage of people. If someone you know is great at cakes, maybe they would be willing to make your cake as a wedding gift.
This stunning white buttercream 4-tier chocolate cake was made by my Aunty. As you can see the cake icing itself is not overly complicated. But by adding fresh flowers you can get a classic and sophisticated design.
Spring Wedding Outfits
The outfits you choose for your wedding party need to fit your wedding aesthetic, budget, color pallet and most of all make their wearers feel comfortable and confident.
In the following section, I will share with you the details of my wedding parties outfits to hopefully inspire you for your own spring wedding outfit ideas.
Flower Girls and Ring Bearer Outfits
Arguably the cutest members of your wedding party will be your flower girls and ring bearer, and their outfits cannot be overlooked.
I was lucky enough to have 4 of the world’s cutest little girls as my flower girls. Keeping with our wedding theme I found these gorgeous soft tulle dresses for the flower girls.
Their shoes were white ballet-style flats and the accessory to top it all off was soft pastel flower crowns. The girls loved their outfits so much that it became a regular occurrence to see them re-wearing them to church after the wedding.
Our very dashing ring bearer boosted similar tan-colored pants to our groomsmen with a white dress shirt and suspenders.
Spring Bridesmaids Outfits
My beautiful bridesmaids chose their own gowns within the color scheme and style. These blush pink floor-length gowns were simple yet elegant and the girls felt very confident in them.
For shoes, they both wore flats with white lace detail. Other accessories included dainty gold jewelry and small flower clips in their updos.
Spring Groomsmen Outfits
Introducing our groomsmen. These suits were fitting for the season and setting as they were breathable linen and their soft sand color complemented the pastels well.
Their accessories included brown belts, lace-up boots, and dark olive green ties that matched the groom’s tie.
Spring Bride and Groom Outfit
Finally, we have the Bride and Groom attire.
I must say I’m jealous my husband has had many occasions to re-wear his suit. Sadly I haven’t yet found an event to re-wear my dress.
My gown was originally an off-the-shoulder dress, but by adding the puffy elbow-length sleeves the dress was transformed into the whimsical princess dress of my dreams. It boasted a fitted satin bodice with a square neckline and satin-covered buttons down the back.
The sleeves and top layer of the skirt were an ivory organizer with layers of tulle and a petticoat underneath. I absolutely adored its exquisite train, though my maid-of-honor had her work cut out for her keeping it clean and laying flat for photos.
My jewelry included a gold locket and long gold and pearl earrings. I also had a long ivory tulle train which I wore for the ceremony and some photos.
My husband’s suit was a grey slim-fit suit with brown lace-up boots and belt. He paired this with a white dress shirt, olive green tie, and gun-black custom tie-clip and cuff links.
Lastly, for his boutonniere, he wore a soft orange rose.
What an amazing wedding it was! Simply stunning.