Plant the flowers such as dahlias, marigolds and geraniums.
Add mulch around the bed to minimize weed growth.
(I've done that in the past and found that over time some of the mulch
spreads and thins out and weeds still manage to pop through.)

You don't say whether you turn over the soil (perhaps no, based on
your reference to bulbs) with a digging fork or rototiller.

While this certainly will not stop weeds completely, it will slow down
many of them.

Planting your flowers closer together can also shade out the weeds
(depends a bit on the flowers, how fertile the soil is, whether buying
more flowers would be too expensive, etc).

I guess I could simply put down newspaper and save a few dollars.

This should work. By the end of the season the newspaper will
probably have broken down enough that you probably don't have to worry
much about removing it. If you end up going with the tilling method,
you can just till it into the soil with rototiller or digging fork
next spring.

There aren't a whole lot of ways to prevent weeding entirely (well,
not ones I'd recommend anyway). But if you keep it to a manageable
level, don't think of it as a horrible chore, think of it as a chance
to be outside spending time in the company of the plants you want
there.