Best credit cards for wedding expenses: Get rewarded for your hotel, catering and honeymoon

Planning a wedding can be a stressful experience, especially when the average wedding costs about $30,000, according to Zola 

There are ways to save on wedding expenses, like limiting the guest count and having your ceremony off-season. But you can stick to your budget and still have a wedding that costs as much as a down payment on a house.

To make the most of your wedding dollars, pay with a credit card whenever possible. With the right card, you can earn travel rewards you can use toward your honeymoon or get cash back to help cover the bills. Some credit cards offer a 0% introductory APR for over a year, which can be a low-cost alternative to a wedding loan.

Ahead, CNBC Select takes a look at the best credit cards for wedding expenses, considering factors such as rewards programs, welcome bonuses, standard APRs and more (see our methodology below).

• Best overall: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees)
• Best for paying for your honeymoon: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
• Best if your wedding venue is a hotel: Citi Premier® Card
• Best for catering: American Express® Gold Card
• Best for entertainment: Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card*
• Best for no annual fee: Citi Double Cash® Card
• Best 0% APR offer: Wells Fargo Reflect® Card

Who's this for? The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (see rates and fees) is ideal for paying for wedding expenses because of its valuable yet flexible rewards program. Your expenses don't neatly fall into a single card's bonus spending categories and, with the Capital One Venture Rewards card, they won't have to since you'll earn an above-average return on everyday purchases.

Capital One miles can be redeemed at a fixed value of one cent per point to offset travel purchases made in the last 90 days or to book new travel through Capital One Travel. This means that you can pay for your honeymoon or travel-related wedding expenses the day that you open your card and then offset those purchases later once you've earned the card's welcome bonus. Alternatively, you can stretch the value of your miles by transferring them to a variety of airline and hotel partners, such as Air Canada Aeroplan, Qantas Frequent Flyer, Etihad Guest and Accor Live Limitless.

Cardholder benefits include no foreign transaction fees (which is great for destination weddings), a credit of up to $100 to cover Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® membership and two complimentary visits per year to Capital One Lounges or 100+ Plaza Premium Lounges through the Partner Lounge Network (see rates and fees).

Who's this for? The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is a top choice if you want to save on your honeymoon. Not only does it offer generous rewards for common spending categories, such as dining and travel, but Chase Ultimate Rewards® points are ideal for booking your post-wedding getaway.

Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders can redeem points to book travel through Chase Travel^SM at a rate of 1.25 cents per point. Chase Ultimate Rewards® points can also be transferred to airline and hotel loyalty programs, including Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards, United Airlines MileagePlus, Air Canada Aeroplan and World of Hyatt. In many situations, you'll get more value by transferring points. For example, 60,000 points is worth $750 in travel booked through Chase, but you could transfer those same 60,000 points to World of Hyatt and put them toward a two-night stay at a Category 7 hotel — like the Park Hyatt St. Kitts, which can easily cost more than $1,000 a night.

The card's $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit is also a nice honeymoon perk, as are comprehensive travel and car rental protections and no foreign transaction fees.

Other benefits include a 10% points boost on your card anniversary and special discounts on purchases made through DoorDash, Instacart+ and GoPuff.

Who's this for? The Citi Premier® Card is great for hotel weddings because it earns 3X points on all hotel spending, from boutique accommodations to large chain resorts.

There are co-branded hotel credit cards that earn more points per dollar, but those bonuses only apply to those specific chains and you'll have less flexibility when it comes to redeeming those points. With the Citi Premier card, you can choose the hotel that has the best price or location for you and still maximize your rewards. Plus, you may still be able to earn additional points through the hotel's loyalty program.

Citi ThankYou® points can be redeemed for a flat rate of one cent per point for travel, gift cards or cash back. The Citi ThankYou® points rewards program also has valuable airline and hotel transfer partners. For example, you can transfer 50,000 Citi points to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles to book two round-trip business class tickets to Hawaii.

The card also comes with an annual $100 hotel credit when booking a single stay of $500 or more (excluding taxes and fees) through the Citi Travel portal.

Who's this for? After the venue, food is the second largest expense in most weddings. The American Express® Gold Card is designed to reward you for dining purchases, with a high 4X points in this category.

Travel rewards experts generally value American Express Membership Rewards® points at two cents each, yielding an effective 8% return at restaurants. Amex points can be transferred to a variety of airline or hotel partners, including Delta SkyMiles, JetBlue TrueBlue, Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy and Choice Privileges.

While the card has a $250 annual fee (see rates and fees), there are benefits that offset it, like a monthly dining credit of up to $10 for purchases made with Grubhub, Goldbelly and eligible restaurants (after a one-time enrollment) and a monthly Uber Cash credit worth up to $10.

One caveat is that not all catering services are guaranteed to qualify as dining purchases. If you pay for catering from a local restaurant, that could earn the bonus cash back, but food services provided by a wedding venue may not qualify as dining purchases.

Who's this for? The Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card* earns a sizeable 4% back on cash back on entertainment purchases.

Traditionally, the entertainment category includes movie theaters, theme parks, sports arenas and concert venues. While less likely than catering companies coding as dining, your band or DJ may code as entertainment in the eyes of the card issuer. It all comes down to how the merchant classifies itself to the payment processor, so proceed with caution.

The cash-back rewards with the Capital One Savor Cash card don't require a lot of effort to redeem and can cover any type of expense. Points and miles are generally a bit more complicated and only valuable when used for travel.

Who's this for? If you don't want to have to keep track of bonus spending categories or worry about justifying a card's annual fee, the Citi Double Cash Card is the one for you.

This card has no annual fee and earns a solid 2% cash back on everything — 1% on all eligible purchases and an additional 1% after you pay your bill. Plus, if you forget to pay your bill, Citi will waive your first late fee . (We don't recommend getting into a habit of it, though.)

If you decide to take your rewards game up a notch, you can pair this card with a Citi-ThankYou-points earning card like the Citi Premier® Card and unlock the ability to transfer your points to various travel partners (one cent in cash back equals one transferrable ThankYou point).

Who's this for? If you don't have the cash on hand to pay for your nuptials, a wedding loan may look attractive. But a 0% APR credit card could be a less expensive alternative.

With the Wells Fargo Reflect® Card, you can get a 0% intro APR for 21 months from account opening on purchases and qualifying balance transfers (then 18.24%, 24.74%, or 29.99% variable APR thereafter). Balance transfers made within 120 days from account opening qualify for the intro rate, BT fee of 5%, min: $5.

The Reflect® card doesn't earn rewards, but the interest you save during those first 21 months could exceed the value of even the best card bonuses.

Finding the right credit card for your wedding expenses comes down to two main things: What are your biggest expenses and how do you want to be rewarded? Once you have a good answer to those questions, you're well on your way to maximizing the return for your wedding costs.

You may also find that the best card for you didn't even make our best credit cards for wedding expenses list. For example, if you're booking a Marriott property as your venue and paying for a package deal, then most of your expenses will be Marriott hotels. In that case, a card like the Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card could be good because it gives you automatic Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite Status and earns 6X points for eligible purchases made directly at Marriott properties. Terms apply.

If you're considering financing part or all of your wedding costs, it might be cheaper to take out a personal loan for wedding expenses than putting them all on a credit card.

The rates, fees and repayment terms for a wedding loan will vary by lender and depend on your circumstances. If you have a higher credit score, you'll be able to secure a lower interest rate. As you compare lenders make sure you can afford the monthly payment and that you understand how much interest you'll pay over the life of the loan and any fees you may be responsible for.

Shorter loans will have larger monthly payments, but you'll pay less interest because you're paying off the loan more quickly. A longer repayment term will have a smaller monthly payment and over the life of the loan, the interest you pay will end up being more.

As you compare lenders, look at different loan terms and avoid early repayment fees if you can. Lenders like LightStream Personal Loans and Upstart Personal Loans don't have early payoff penalties.

Weddings are expensive, but can also be an opportunity to amass a stockpile of credit card rewards.

The best wedding credit cards have solid earnings on everyday purchases and may even provide an exceptional return on specific purchases. Before you hit the apply button, decide what type of reward is the best fit for you and what categories most of your wedding expenses will fall into. Knowing those two things will make it easy to find the right credit card for you.

To determine which cards offer the best value for wedding expenses, CNBC Select analyzed 230 of the most popular credit cards in the U.S. We compared each card on a range of features, including rewards, welcome bonus, introductory and standard APR, balance transfer fee and foreign transaction fees, as well as factors such as required credit score and customer reviews when available. We also considered additional perks, the application process and how easy it is for the consumer to redeem points.

At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of financial products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.

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For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, please click here.

* Information about the Capital One Savor Cash Rewards Credit Card has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by the issuer of the card prior to publication.