Every bride wants a beautiful backdrop for her big day. When it comes to what you can spend on your floral and decor budget, the sky is the limit.

I was chatting with friend of the Dish, event designer extraordinaire Vicki Sanders yesterday and these tips came up. They are just little things to keep in mind that will trim your decor budget without resorting to the dreaded rose bowl with a single floating candle.

1. Limit your seating. Huh? Look at this, unless you are serving a seated plated dinner you do not need seating for every guest. By eliminating 2 or 3 tables you are also eliminating 2 or 3 centerpieces. If you are doing mostly heavy finger foods you could use a bit of lounge furniture and some smallish cocktail tables. Smaller tables, smaller centerpieces.

2. Choose your flowers carefully. I know that you already know that if you choose in season flowers you will save, but there is more to it than that. The minute you get you heart set on a specific flower, you are setting yourself up to spend more than you need to achieve your look. Work with your floral designer to determine which flowers will achieve your look AT THE TIME OF YOUR WEDDING. Short story, a bride simply had to have coral peonies, sadly her wedding was 2 weeks before they became abundant. By using coral roses and white peonies the florist could have saved her a bundle and still gotten her color and the fluff of peonies. If you absolutely have to have a specific flower, limit it to your wedding bouquet and let the florist make suggestions for the rest of your wedding decor.

3. Rent your containers instead of buying them. Even if you are going to DIY your wedding flowers this can save you significantly. You will get higher quality containers, you won’t have to figure out what to do with them after your wedding and you won’t have spent days and days running all over town trying to find them.

4. Think about your labor cost. Your floral design teams time is not free. Every little thing adds time. A bride recently told my friend that she wanted her vases lined with lime slices. Beautiful look. When she was quoted the price to do this she just didn’t get it, so she asked how much if she bought the limes and brought them to the florist. Fail. What was expensive was the time it would take to uniformly slice a case of limes and then double vase to hold them in place in the arrangement.  What you are requesting may seem like a minor detail, but take a minute to think about the labor involved.

These tips and tricks are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the knowledge that true wedding professional bring to the table. DIY or hiring a novice may seem like a great idea at the time, but in the long run, the true pros earn their fees because of what they know.