10 Stunning and Affordable Wedding Decoration Ideas for Summer 2024
We’re firm believers that something doesn’t have to be expensive to be impactful, and this is especially true when it comes to wedding decorations. From hunting down bargains in charity shops and on Facebook Marketplace, to painting or growing your own decorations, there’s so many beautiful and personal ways to bring your wedding scheme to life.
Below we’ve listed 10 of our favourite ideas for this summer, to help get you inspired.
Bud Vases and Posie Flowers
A beautiful way to do flowers when you’re on a budget is to opt for small arrangements in little vases, clustered together and dotted around the table. Due to the whimsical feeling nature of this floral style, you can just pop the stems into the vase, either on their own or in groups of 3 or 5 to create a really impactful table. Mingle in some tea lights and taper candles and voila, you’ve got yourself a memorable table scape.
To save even more money on this style of arrangement, you can use jam jars for vases and source your candlesticks from your local charity shop. Think outside the box, as lots of things that may not be titled ‘candleholder’ or ‘vase’ can do the trick beautifully.
Hand-painted Menus and Place Names
With minimalist hand painted stationery design being extremely popular right now, its the perfect thing to turn your hand to when you’re on a budget. From wiggly borders and stripes to dainty flowers, get creative and think of a simple but effective addition that you’re willing to apply to many, many menus and place cards!
All the Candles!
Candles are an incredibly effective and beautiful way to bring romance to your wedding day. From tea lights to pillar candles and candlesticks, there’s so many options to choose from. Plenty of shops such as IKEA, Flying Tiger and Sostrene Grene stock candles in a variety of different hues for really affordable prices, so we recommend sourcing from there.
Look to Facebook Marketplace or Ebay for hurricane lamps and candle holders, as often newly wedded brides sell their collections on there for a really reasonable prices.
Fairy Lights
Much like candles, pinning fairy lights throughout your wedding venue both inside and out will always be a failsafe and affordable way to create beautiful decor. From festoon lights to simple strings of fairy lights densely placed, they’re lovely to run to and fro from the ceiling or to run down the wall like a curtain of lights.
Foliage
If you’re wanting to keep costs low but bring life and vitality to your wedding space, then making the most of lots of foliage will create real impact. Either purchased at a flower market or foraged locally, choose just one type for a more classic aesthetic, or lots of different varieties for more of a country garden feel.
Using Objects Instead of a Table Plan
With stationery often costing more than you might think, we absolutely love this trend towards using objects to create your wedding table plans. For example, gather together potted terracotta pots of varying heights and write the table details on each plant, for a beautiful and memorable table plan. Even better if the plants inside you’ve actually grown yourself!
Dried Flowers
Perfect for a boho, relaxed style wedding, dried flowers are a great choice if you really want to make the most of your flowers. Created to be enjoyed for years to come, they’ll look beautiful on your wedding day and beautiful in your home after too! If you have more than enough, why not have them turned into little posies that can be taken away by guests on the day, as a lasting reminder of the loveliest day.
Simple Floral Wedding Cake
Wedding cakes can be incredibly impactful but also incredibly expensive! If you’re on a budget, we recommend prioritising on flavour and taste with a simple frosting, and decorating the cake beautifully with handpicked flowers. If you’re ahead of the game, why not plant edible flowers in your garden so that come the wedding they’re ready to be picked and popped on the cake!
Potted Plant Centrepieces
Perfect for preparing ahead of time, we love the trend towards potted floral decorations instead of cut stems. Both economical and environmentally friendly, you can cluster collections of pots, or have one full ‘planted garden’ running down the length of the table.
Homemade Fabric Napkins
A wonderful way to bring pattern, colour and personality to your wedding table is to have homemade fabric napkins. These can either be simply torn for a laidback effect, or edged by yourself or a very friendly and helpful family member!