A bride on TikTok says people are criticizing her for trying to cut costs at her wedding by using fake flowers and forgoing a traditional cake
- Sian Taylor went viral on TikTok for sharing things she won't be spending money on for her wedding.
- Taylor said she wouldn't have real flowers, a big cake, or a guest book at her weekday wedding.
- "We want to invest our money into more meaningful things for the wedding," Taylor told Insider.
Weddings are full of traditions: the bouquet toss, the ceremonial walk down the aisle, the cutting of the cake.
Many couples modernize or do away with the traditions that don't feel right to them, though many of those are still overwhelmingly popular.
For Sian Taylor, a bride in the UK, it made more sense to approach wedding traditions with a practical and financial mindset.
Taylor, 24, posted two videos on TikTok last week sharing the things she and her fiancé, Andy, wouldn't have at their wedding primarily because of how costly they are.
In one video, which had over 300,000 views as of Tuesday, Taylor said she wouldn't be sending save-the-dates, having a guest book, giving out party favors, or using real flowers at her nuptials. She said she planned to use silk flowers and DIY her arrangements.
She also said she would get married on a weeknight because her venue was cheaper to reserve during the week than on the weekend.
In a second video, Taylor said she wouldn't have a big wedding cake, as the base cost of a three-tiered cake with no decorations in her area was 400 pounds, or over $500.
Taylor said she bought a small cake that she and her fiancé could cut and would provide Krispy Kreme doughnuts for her guests.
She said that she hired a DJ for only a portion of the evening and intended to use a playlist for the rest of the night, adding that she'd buy her veil on Etsy or eBay to further cut costs.
She said her guests would RSVP through a wedding website rather than through the mail - she said that would save money and be better for the environment.
Taylor told Insider that she and her fiancé were saving money by focusing on the parts of the wedding that are most important to them and that they hoped other couples do the same.
"For us as a couple, we want to invest our money into more meaningful things for the wedding - a photographer and videographer are priceless to us - rather than spending small bits of money that add up to a huge amount," she told Insider.
Taylor also said she'd received some criticism from viewers on TikTok.
"To all the Karen's who blew up my tiktok overnight because I don't want a guest book and are having a mid week wedding for OUR wedding, this is OUR wedding, not yours," Taylor wrote in the captions of a response video.
She added: "We hope our guests are coming to celebrate us as a couple and not for the free stuff."
Taylor told Insider that her videos weren't intended to dictate what others should do with their weddings.
"We believe everyone should have the wedding of their dreams, and if they love the ideas we're scrapping, then 100% they should have them," she said. "I mainly made the TikToks for anyone who was budget-conscious and wanted more ideas to cut spending.
"We're not a traditional couple, and due to COVID the prices for weddings seem to have skyrocketed, so we jumped at the chance to save money in some areas in order to have the things that truly mean a lot to us," Taylor went on.
"I think a lot of people get caught in the materialistic side of weddings, but we want to focus on things that are important to us as a couple," she added.