We wanted to pay for the entire wedding ourselves so we tried to save money wherever we could. I got a white bridesmaid dress instead of a wedding dress so it only cost me $300 (canadian). Then a friend of mine who is a graphic designer made me fantastic invitations as her wedding gift, another friend took the pictures, another friend offered to D.J., we went minimal on flowers I think we spent $80 on flowers for me and my bridesmaids and that's it, I made candles for all the tables, the girls dresses cost me $20each in fabric and each girl made their own dress or had someone in their family make it, my Dh's parents made us all our wine (it was fantastic) and then we bought some beer and just had wine and beer at the wedding. The only real cost was booking the place we wanted to get married at (Heritage Village) and the catering (which was amazing). I think in total our wedding was $8000 (canadian) which is about $8700 Australian. It was soooooo worth it.