BRUNEI - Planning for big occasions, such as weddings, is not always easy especially when more often than not, budget is limited.

Whether you are looking to create a lavish event or something more simple, good planning and flexibility can go a long way in helping to cut costs.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT

Whether planning for a wedding or a birthday, the little details will usually be the ones that cost the most and catch you off guard, so having a clear idea of exactly what the event will be like can help keep costs down during the planning stage.

Anishaa Norali and her fianc?, Muhaiman Awang , are planning to get married in July and both say that they were unprepared on how much the wedding would cost.

"I'm actually paying for everything. Usually the mother or father will pay for the wedding expenses, but I'm paying for the majority of the expenses like the the dress, the hantaran (gifts), catering and miscellaneous expenses like tents for the reception, make-up and hair, and gifts for guests. "There are a lot of little expenses that I didn't take into consideration," Anishaa said.

She said that the most unnecessary expenses that she was spending the most money on, were make-up and hair, because she wanted to opt for convenience. "I don't want to be rushing around or making a mistake with my make-up."

Anishaa said those services could cost up to $180 to $220, noting that because clients are part of a wedding party, businesses tended to charge higher, taking into account they provide home service which is more convenient for clients.

It's really up to an individual, to decide what kind of things they were willing to spend money on and what their needs were, she added.

Her fiance, Muhaiman, said that he actually hadn't been keeping an eye on where the money for the wedding was going to. "Looking back, I think I would actually keep track of where all the money is going," he said.

Muhaiman added that when he started out planning for the wedding, he originally thought that from the savings that he had made that it would be sufficient to cover everything.

"It's been more than I expected, about fifty per cent more, so I guess I didn't really know what went into a wedding."

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

Although organising an extravagant wedding can be more fun, a little bit of creativity and flexibility can help to ensure that it is still tasteful, and most importantly, meaningful. Shelly, an event planner, said that although a lot of people tended to approach her with very extravagant ideas, she often advised clients on ways to achieve the desired effect without actually paying the price. "For example, for weddings, sometimes you get a 'bridezilla' effect where the client is not willing to be flexible. But being open to different options can be beneficial to your budget because it means you can explore different elements such as different and cheaper flower arrangements that are just as nice as the expensive ones, or even get a friend or family member with a catering business to help out and cut costs."

Muhaiman agreed saying that for the hantaran ceremony, a lot of people would buy the kain or cloth, for their hantaran entourage to be uniform. "As long as I stipulate the colour, it doesn't really matter whether it's the same exact tone (so they can wear their own clothes), and if someone doesn't have a baju melayu then I'll buy it for them.

"It really depends on your standards and what you place value on," he added, saying that most people would go to a wedding planning to design each hantaran tray. "But I've got my sisters to do that, and it's more meaningful that way."

Anishaa said that on her side, she cut back on costs for the invitations. "I could have gone overboard and printed out very nice, fancy invites, but I decided to cut down on that and give out mini-cards so that I'm not spending on cutting down trees for my wedding."

She added that a lot of the decoration that goes into the hantaran were made up of plastic and wrapping.

"So I'm trying to go for more natural, organic things to decorate my hantaran like leaves and flowers from my garden, and also using wooden baskets instead of plastic ones, so they don't take 1,000 years to degrade and you can always reuse them afterwards instead of throwing them away like many people do," she said.