Wedding Attire & Accessories on a Budget

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In my time wedding dress shopping, I experienced a little sticker shock looking at accessories in the bridal salon. I understand the cost incurred when creating high quality, couture items, and I like to support smaller businesses when I can, but I could not justify the price tag on anything more than my dress (already more than I would have liked to spend.) When it came to purchasing accessories & attire for our wedding, it was Amazon to the rescue (as usual!) in addition to a lot of bargain-hunting. In this post I’ll share specific items I used and some tips and tricks for finding the best deals.

Bridal Accessories

I was not sure of the exact style I wanted to have for our wedding. My dress came with a beaded belt sewed on, so I did not have to worry about that. I did, however, need to figure out what I was doing for shoes, hairpieces or veils, jewelry, garter, and undergarments.

Shoes

In terms of shoes, I knew heels were not an option for me. The walk to the altar at our venue involved grass, dirt, train tracks, and a wooden deck. Given the fact that I trip over my feet on flat surfaces, I was worried enough about faceplanting in front of 200 people. So flats were the only option for me. Thankfully, I found really cute ones in these White Lace Leaves TOMS that I found. (They’re a little different than regular TOMS. Instead of the uppers being a fabric they were a plastic-y mesh with the lace on top. This made me need to size up significantly. I usually wear a 7.5 in TOMS and I ended up needing to get a 9 in these. They also got CRAZY dirty by the end of the night, but that’s because my wedding was on a pumpkin farm!) If I were going to do it again, I would go with these simple Moroccan Crochet TOMS instead, because of the fit issues.

It’s hard to choose shoes online, which is why Amazon’s easy returns are nice. With a lot of Payless locations closing these last few years I was short on options for physical stores. I ultimately bought my wedding shoes from David’s Bridal. Unfortunately, when I had to change sizes, their online return system was honestly a nightmare. Once again, if I had to do it again, I’d go through Amazon. (Or possibly Nordstrom, as they carry TOMS as well.)

Veils & Hair Accessories

When it came to the decision whether or not to wear a veil, I was stumped. I knew it was traditional, but I just didn’t see myself in one in my head. I decided against one for several reasons: my mom didn’t wear one (and if I had worn one, I would have wanted it to be sentimental) and the back of my dress was so intricate that I didn’t want anything blocking it. Instead, I chose to wear my hair up and use a beautiful clip that matched my dress. The beaded belt on my dress was a mixture of pearls and rhinestones, so this clip matched perfectly. It stayed put all night.

When I browsed Amazon for choices for my hair, I was still super unsure of what I wanted. What helped was creating a Pinterest board of ideas, and pulling key words from there. If I saw a headpiece with pearls and rose gold, I would search any permutation of the words “headpiece, circlet, jewelry, gold, rose gold, crown, tiara” etc. When it comes to the way Amazon sellers describe their items, casting wide nets and then narrowing down is the best way to see all the options. I then created a wishlist of all the ones I really liked, then viewed them side by side. Always compare reviews, as well! One of the headbands I LOVED at first had terrible reviews (think it falling apart in the middle of pictures) so I steered clear. I’m really glad I chose the one I did in the end!

The Underpinnings

One of my biggest issues when it comes to dresses is the dreaded thigh rub. I did not want to deal with that horrible sensation on my wedding day! Although Gold Bond (in stick form) and LUSH Silky Underwear ( a powder) work great, I didn’t know if they would really last all 12+ hours of my wedding day without requiring reapplication. After looking through the options, I decided shapewear was the best choice. These shorts were long enough to prevent the thigh rub, high enough to smooth out my tummy, and comfortable enough to wear all day without cutting into my skin on the top or bottom. They also didn’t roll down! I love these and wear them under most longer dresses now, because they are so useful for that thigh rub problem.

Additionally, we got this garter set (even though I didn’t really want to do a garter toss… but that’s a story for another day). It fit the bill as my “something blue” and it also fit another of my requirements–having a “toss garter” so that nobody had the garter that had been on my leg. (Confession: I only wore the actual garter for like, 1 minute before we actually did the toss, though.)

Bonus item: Bridal Shower Dress!

After LITERALLY going to 31+ stores looking for a dress for my bridal shower back in my hometown, I almost gave up. This dress saved the day, and I still love it!

Bridesmaid Accessories & Attire

With eight bridesmaids, I expected the struggle of a lifetime figuring out what dress works for everyone. Some people decide on a color of dress and let every bridesmaid choose a style, but a couple of my friends asked that we not do that because they were worried about not coordinating with everyone else. Once we figured out what types of dresses we were looking for–not floor length or too heavy of fabric (because it was 98 degrees the day of our wedding!), navy blue (my husband’s favorite color), not strapless (too many of my bridesmaids were uncomfortable with that), and very affordable (we had just finished college so money was tight!) we were off to the races with looking for dresses. I think we came up with about 20 or so that were contenders, but we narrowed it down to about 5 and then decided between those.

We had gotten down to deciding between a couple dresses from Amazon, a dress from Azazie, and a dress from a little boutique website called Filly Flair. When it comes to bridesmaid dress shopping, you need to keep everyone’s budget in mind while also keeping individual style in mind–you don’t want to choose yet another dress they will never wear again, but if it’s going to be a one-wear dress, it might as well be inexpensive! I am sure all of us would love to have the budget to gift the dresses to our bridesmaids, but most of the time that’s just not possible. Remember to be considerate of their individual situations!

After a lot of choices were vetoed, my bridesmaids said they loved this simple but elegant summer dress that was both affordable and cute! It ended up being perfect for our day. It fit well on a lot of different body shapes and flattered all of them so nicely!

Since we were using the same dress for everyone, we used this beaded belt to differentiate my Maid of Honor. It was inexpensive and a simple addition, but added a pop of extra flair to her dress. If I had not had the built-in belt on my dress, I would definitely have gone with one of these beautiful belts to accessorize myself!

Groomsman Attire & Accessories

We tried to be pretty simple with our groomsmen’s attire. To save costs for them, we gifted them this bow tie that comes in a great gift box and these suspenders that looked great on everyone as a thanks for being a part of the wedding. We didn’t want them to incur the cost of a full suit, and our wedding was going to be pretty swelteringly hot, so we figured these along with a dress shirt and slacks would make for a good (and hopefully cooler) outfit! To save costs, we found times that Men’s Wearhouse was having buy one get one free or buy two get one free sales on pants and let them all know about it so they could buy slacks together for a reduced price. These sales seemed to pop up quite a few times in the months leading up to our wedding, so I would check those out when looking for menswear!

Wedding attire is definitely not the cheapest thing in the world, but shopping smart and shopping around helps for sure. Thankfully we live in the Amazon age, so there are a lot of cheaper options for accessories & anything you need. It can seem daunting shopping for everything necessary at first, but I bet with a little work you’ll make it come together beautifully! If my tips helped you with your wedding shopping needs, please pin it on Pinterest! Let me know in the comments what your best wedding shopping find has been.