Illustration: Chris Gash for Newsweek 

By Ashley R. Harris

Like so many women, Michelle La Rocca knew from childhood exactly what she wanted her wedding to look and feel like: Cinderella at the ball. But when the big day rolled around last summer, she was hit with a dose of reality. La Rocca’s Prince Charming didn’t have a king’s ransom in the bank, and she didn’t have a fairy godmother with a platinum AmEx. Clearly, paying for her dream wedding was going to require some creativity.

Taking inspiration from Cinderella’s mouse friends who fashioned a ball gown out of scraps, La Rocca began scurrying around for ways to fulfill her dream on the cheap. She sent out handwritten invitations instead of engraved ones. She scavenged the reception hall for leftover vases and candles to make table centerpieces. She and her fiancé bought candy in bulk to hand out as parting gifts and wrapped them with ribbon and a card. And even though she swore she would never skimp on her gown, La Rocca ultimately bought hers at— gasp!—a discount bridal store.

La Rocca is hardly the only budget bride. With the economy in the tank and the cost of the average wedding now a budget-busting $28,000, “people are doing more research and paying more attention to the details,” says Rebecca Dolgin, executive editor of The Knot (theknot.com), a wedding Web site. “The trend has moved away from everything-has-to-be-over-the-top, ” says Alicia Rockmore, CEO of lifestyle consultancy Buttoned Up (getbuttonedup.com), who says more and more couples are saving their money for the things that come after the big day, like houses and children. “The happiest day of your life should not be your wedding,” she says.

Such sentiments are bad news for the $161 billion wedding industry. Especially when you consider how many businesses get a piece of the wedding cake: an average of 43, according to the book “One Perfect Day” by Rebecca Mead, a writer for The New Yorker. So how do you cut back on all those florists and caterers, beauticians and bands? LaMonica Hale, who works at a nonprofit in Dallas, decided to do her own face rather than hire a makeup artist for $250. Jackie Miller, a teacher in New York, ditched the DJ, got an amplifier and speakers from her friends, and plugged in her iPod instead. Her guests didn’t seem to mind. “They danced the night away,” she says.

Some couples are even faking their wedding cakes. Rather than a traditional tower, which can run as high as $5,000, many brides are buying one made mostly of Styrofoam, with the top tier real cake that can be sliced for photos and smeared on faces. The guests are served look-alike sheet cake, which costs about $4 a slice, compared with $10. “Your wedding guests aren’t even going to know the difference,” says Marilyn DeVault, owner of Piece of Cake, a bakery in Portland, Ore.

One obvious way to save is to slash the guest list, since the typical wedding now has upwards of 150 attendees. Or if you want a smaller wedding without offending your step-aunt Maggie, you might try a destination wedding, inviting a small group of friends and family to, say, Cancún, where you can have both a wedding and a honeymoon. It may sound expensive, but usually the guests pay their own way, and the couple gets a discount on the wedding from the hotel because they’ve booked a block of rooms. The average cost of a destination wedding can vary, but it’s usually upwards of $25,000.

Other tips from the wedding experts: consider getting married on a weeknight, when rates are cheaper; do away with those disposable cameras on the table—you’ll never get them developed anyway; pick only flowers that are in season; send out e-vites instead of paper invites. “The rules are definitely being rewritten,” Dolgin says.

And what about that most sacrosanct of purchases: the dress? Dolgin suggests hitting up designers’ sample sales, where you can buy a gown for as much as 80 percent off (the best time to go is April and May). Or consider wearing a secondhand dress: Mara Madden, a bride-to-be in New York, bought hers from the Bridal Garden (bridalgarden.org), which sells “gently used” and overstock dresses donated by past brides and designers like Vera Wang and Amsale (the proceeds go to a children’s charity). She spent less than $1,000, instead of the $5,000 she would have paid at retail. “It didn’t make a difference to me that it was worn, especially in today’s economy,” Madden says.

Do budget brides wind up feeling cheated out of their big day? Not La Rocca. “I don’t regret anything, because we wanted enough left over to buy a house and start our life together,” she says. And in November, the couple purchased a house in New Jersey. Who says dreams don’t come true?