Leap year! Romance? Big wedding? But on a budget

Sherlock

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Interesting Times article this morning. Scary the costs these days. Wondered what other peoples opinions, experiences and so on have been with regards to weddings, their own or someone elses :) Has other people's experiences changed your views on getting married?

Cut the costs of getting married

With wedding costs running into thousands of pounds, keeping to a budget is vital, says James Charles..... Wedding costs article here

I found it interesting as I know a fair few people who have spent well into the tens of thousands of pounds for a wedding. Others who have done it on a far smaller budget. I'm not sure who had the better day overall. I remember the bigger wedding brides being in a total panic in the run up to the wedding, trying to make sure it was all pefect and having last minute problems to solve and dress alterations etc. A couple of women were so focused on the event they kind of lost sight about the actual marriage and their partner. One guy commented he wished he could have a quieter smaller wedding but his wife to be insisted on the full works so he went along with it, even though it wasn't what he really wanted. It seems to be seen as the womans day and sometimes I wonder what the man really wants.

My hubby would have been mortified at a big wedding, as would I, so we were happy with very small scale and it just being us pretty much. We got married in a registrars office infront of my parents and two close friends, we went home and had a wedding brunch with the friends and gooey homemade chocolate wedding cake, then took the dogs out for a walk on the hills. In the evening we all met up in a local restuarant and had a wonderful meal, the six of us. And that was it.

We had a lie in on the day, drove ourselves to the registrars, were laughing and joking and even got caught in a torrential downpour walking along the street that ended in me using the hand dryer at the registrars to dry my skirt and boots off with :roll: :lol: We all saw the funny side of it and it just added to the day.

I wore an outfit I already owned, a pink shirt, purple checked skirt, grey cashmere cardi and Doc Marten boots. Hubby wore his favourite suit :)

We didn't exchange rings and have no plans to. One of our friends took the pics :)

300pxcarcassonnevignesey8.jpg
Our honeymoon we took a few months later in April and went to the south of France to a place called Carcassonne for a long weekend.

Total cost? Less than £1000 all up.

Maybe it was my age when marrying, I was 36. I maybe felt differently about weddings and marriages than many women younger than me. My values and expectations of it were different to what I had considered in my 20's. What I felt important at 36 was maybe a world apart to what a woman of 26 would think. It was about the person not the day at that point, hence keeping it so small. Had we gone larger it would have then begun to detract as it would have meant more people, more organising, more everything, even on a budget and so we opted for the very bare bones. It worked for us and without the pressure of a bigger event wedding we simply said our vows and got on with life as if nothing had really changed. Without expectations of 'married life' after the wedding I found the transition much easier. There was no come down after a big wedding and honeymoon when back in the real world, no trying to practise signing my new surname as I kept my own, just life ticking on and we were and still are content :)
 
My wedding cost a fortune, but I was lucky enough to have a Dad that beleived the traditional way of paying for it, and was fortuniate enough that he could afford pretty much anything.

We had 250 guests to the day and another 100 at night, had the traditional Scottish wedding at the church with piper and then the reception at the hotel.

My dress was £800 (which was in the sale!!) Brian wore his kilt, I had 3 bridesmaids and my niece as flowergirl.

Our car was a stretch Range Rover and the bridesmaids car was a Jaguar Mk II.

Our honeymoon was our gift from my inlaws and we went to Houston to see Brian's family that couldnt make the trip, then a week in Acapulco, Mexico and a long weekend in New Orleans.

I loved my day and wouldnt change a moment of it and I do realise how lucky I am to have had a "fairytale" wedding
 
We had a fantastic wedding!!

Spent around £5000 in the end which included help from our family.

We are lucky enough to have a large garden so had a marquee at home, had a catered sit down meal, hubby converted one of the out buildings into a disco area, borrowed lighting from friends, did his own disco music in his studio at work... a friend is a photographer as a hobby, he did our photos, borrowed our friends z4 as our wedding car....fabulous day & a fraction of the cost by arranging it ourselves & doing it at home as opposed to doing it at an arranged function hall! :D
 
We had a tiny wedding too, nine of us in total, we got married in a tiny church by the sea on the west coast of ireland and walked back to the country house hotel next door and had a few drinks and sandwiches in the garden in the sun and then dinner that night, we didnt tell anyone we were getting married so when we told our families and friends the next day a load of them came up to meet us and we had a bit of a party on the sat night. I did wear a proper wedding dress though and David wore a suit. It was perfect for us, I think the thing with weddings is you have to do what is right for you and your partner and ignore anyone elses opinion.
 
I want a big wedding, the only thing that scares me is the cost. I have a very large family and couldnt bare to not invite them.
 
Not yet married but the plan is for next october. Will book church over road, village hall at end of road. Buffet style lunch done by pub next door. Have various friends djing, playing with their bands throughout the eve. Will have my best friends girls as bridesmaids - they were at their parents wedding and had beautiful dresses from Tescos!! So same kinda thing again. My mum might make my dress if I don't find anything suitable. As everything is so close we won't need cars. I can walk to church quicker than you can get a car started!! So shouldn't be too expensive. Like Sherlock says, it is easy to lose sight of what it is all about. Neither me nor OH like fuss & attention. We just want to celebrate our love with close family & a few friends. Oh - and we're FAR too lazy to organise a massive affair!!! The most expensive thing is the booking of the church.
 
Sherlock said:
Interesting Times article this morning. Scary the costs these days. Wondered what other peoples opinions, experiences and so on have been with regards to weddings, their own or someone elses :) Has other people's experiences changed your views on getting married?

Cut the costs of getting married

With wedding costs running into thousands of pounds, keeping to a budget is vital, says James Charles..... Wedding costs article here

I found it interesting as I know a fair few people who have spent well into the tens of thousands of pounds for a wedding. Others who have done it on a far smaller budget. I'm not sure who had the better day overall. I remember the bigger wedding brides being in a total panic in the run up to the wedding, trying to make sure it was all pefect and having last minute problems to solve and dress alterations etc. A couple of women were so focused on the event they kind of lost sight about the actual marriage and their partner. One guy commented he wished he could have a quieter smaller wedding but his wife to be insisted on the full works so he went along with it, even though it wasn't what he really wanted. It seems to be seen as the womans day and sometimes I wonder what the man really wants.

My hubby would have been mortified at a big wedding, as would I, so we were happy with very small scale and it just being us pretty much. We got married in a registrars office infront of my parents and two close friends, we went home and had a wedding brunch with the friends and gooey homemade chocolate wedding cake, then took the dogs out for a walk on the hills. In the evening we all met up in a local restuarant and had a wonderful meal, the six of us. And that was it.

We had a lie in on the day, drove ourselves to the registrars, were laughing and joking and even got caught in a torrential downpour walking along the street that ended in me using the hand dryer at the registrars to dry my skirt and boots off with :roll: :lol: We all saw the funny side of it and it just added to the day.

I wore an outfit I already owned, a pink shirt, purple checked skirt, grey cashmere cardi and Doc Marten boots. Hubby wore his favourite suit :)

We didn't exchange rings and have no plans to. One of our friends took the pics :)

300pxcarcassonnevignesey8.jpg
Our honeymoon we took a few months later in April and went to the south of France to a place called Carcassonne for a long weekend.

Total cost? Less than £1000 all up.

Maybe it was my age when marrying, I was 36. I maybe felt differently about weddings and marriages than many women younger than me. My values and expectations of it were different to what I had considered in my 20's. What I felt important at 36 was maybe a world apart to what a woman of 26 would think. It was about the person not the day at that point, hence keeping it so small. Had we gone larger it would have then begun to detract as it would have meant more people, more organising, more everything, even on a budget and so we opted for the very bare bones. It worked for us and without the pressure of a bigger event wedding we simply said our vows and got on with life as if nothing had really changed. Without expectations of 'married life' after the wedding I found the transition much easier. There was no come down after a big wedding and honeymoon when back in the real world, no trying to practise signing my new surname as I kept my own, just life ticking on and we were and still are content :)

That sounds scraily like the sort of wedding I'd have-Docs and homemade cake and all :lol: I don't see the point in spending loads on a wedding-my mum got married in desert boots and a £50 red Monsoon dress that she still wears all the time :lol: Personally if I ever get married it'll be probably be in the back garden,then down to the hotel bar for a drink afterwards,with a couple of good friends and family. That would mean more to me than some big day.Plus I'd look like such a prat in one of those big meringue dresses. :lol: :lol:
 
I got married to my Ex, massive day big church, horse and carriage for me. Limosine for 6 bridesmaids, limo for all the lads inc 2 page boys. 150 people. Reception was a sit down meal then a hot buffet for evening with 50 more people invited. Dress was gorgeous everything went perfectly and I spent £10,000. Didn't work out though cos as much as everything looked prefect the relationship wasn't :(

It hasn't put me off marriage though, I have learned from my mistakes. I'd love to marry OH one day (if he proposes :roll: ) but TBH I don't care if it's a tiny little wedding with hardly anyone there, the fact i'd be marrying the most perfect man in the world is enough for me. :D
 
We had a really big do, b ut managed to keep it under £5000, it's just about monioring the 'little things' that then become huge expenses... we had a buffet rather than sit down things like that.
We were even in local paper as i had 17 bridesmaids...made front page.. :rotfl:
I didn't think it was big deal, my close family and friends and they all wore their own black dress... i think it looked lush, and didn't cost me any thing...my dress was from china off ebay!!!
AM0244.jpg
 
We got married abroad in Nevada (Not Las Vegas), it was in a landscaped garden and a really pretty setting, the wedding, photos, transport and a meal afterwards for 11 people cost us £300.00.

It was perfect, I didn't want a big do to be honest.

I went to a friends wedding a few months ago that cost 25 grand and to be honest I preferred a more intimate setting, the bride and groom were so stressed that everything would be going wrong they went almost grey!

I've quite often seen so many people that get into huge debt with their weddings and spend a fortune only to break up soon after.

Sherlock, I used to live near Carcassone and really like it there it's lovely.
 
We got married in a hotel and had the wedding breakfast and evening do there as well. My mum made the cake and my best mate decorated it. Me and OH was able to decorate the wedding room and reception/party room as we wanted so we got LOTS of ballons, bubbles, flowers and had a laugh setting it all up even though we used half the helium to make our voices squeak. We even made our own invitations, seat planners, order of service. All the guest loved the homemade touch as they said that it made them feel more special.

We had a DJ and a buffet for night do.

We had about 80 people for the wedding and wedding breakfast and about another 100 for the night do. It cost us just under £3000 in the end but it was worth every penny, we had a wonderful day and so did our family and friends.
 
We got married in the local registry office in town. I'm so anti catholic that I would never have gotten married in the church..and you can only get officially married in Spain in either the town hall or church...plus the churches here ask for an obligatory "donation" of around 2000€ and I wasn't paying that. The room we got married in was by no means perfect to we splashed out on the ceremony instead.

I had to have a unique dress... I didn't want to look like every other bride...with one of those white designer dresses...and some of my paganism needed to be expressed so I had the dress specifically made for me so it cost quite a bit, 1.500€.

PICT0094.jpg


This is a picture of us at the registry office.. you can see its anything but fancy :roll:

But we managed to save costs other ways. Our flowers were free even though they were real blue roses and blue daisies.. :)... my shoes were in the sale... but it still cost us a fortune in the end... :rotfl: around 12.000€... DH got extremely generous on the day...handing out huge tips, paying for the best mans waist coat (he was a big man too) and paying for rooms for people to stay at the 5 star hotel where we had our reception :roll: but I will never get married again so its was worth it and it was so unique... even if this marriage doesn't work out.. I'll never marry anyone else in my life. I still don't feel married now... and its not changed my relationship with my partner from before... :roll: :roll:
 
Our wedding cost us about £1300 in total and it was a fairytale wedding - we are proof you can do a fairytale wedding on a budget!

I made all of the invitations and order of services.
My OH's mum made the bridesmaid dresses and the waistcoats for the page boy and 3 ushers.
I had a GORGEOUS ivory dress, in the sale £325
My OH had a suit from Matalan!
My shoes cost £5. Lol.

My OH's parents paid for the buffet (but that's included in the total price).
We had about 70-80 guests.
My older brother is a DJ and he did the music.
We hired a community hall, bought ourselves some helium and used the huge baubles that tescos were selling for £1 each as table decorations.
I bought cheap silk flowers off of the internet (£3 a bunch).

We didn't have a honeymoon but maybe we will one day! Lol.

Oh and i got a limo to the wedding :)

It was an amazing day and I felt like a princess, but it wasn't because of the money spent, it was because i was marrying my prince :)




P.S my OH's mum baked a 3 tier cake which i designed and my OH made sugar roses!!
 
My wedding was £12k, it's such a lot of money and would've been better put towards a house deposit if we didn't already own by then.

However, I only look back on it with pleasure, it was exactly what we both wanted. To date, it has been my most favourite day and I wouldn't change a thing. It was also a doddle to organise (it comes naturally ;))
 
Squiglet, you look beautiful in that dress! :hug:

We did similar to you, Sherry. We were planning a huge 'do' in Summer 2007 and had been for some time - but then in June 2006 we just thought sod it and booked The Mill Forge in Gretna Green for 4 weeks away!!!

It was just me, Jim and his parents, and it was the most amazing day. Including the honeymoon (Ireland) and the party to celebrate in the November the whole thing cost about £1300. I did buy a new dress - it was PURPLE!

n502067168_54704_7322.jpg


In contrast, some good friends of ours spent £43000 in total :shock:
 
We got married in a registry office in London in a low-key ceremony, then had a larger reception a few months later. We mostly had the reception for the other people, to let our families/friends meet each other. Everyone had a blast and though it cost about £2k to cater and rent the facilities, I think it was worth it :) I wouldn't have spent any more on it, though, as I'd rather save it toward a house and education for my future kid(s).

DH and I have always been a mixture of traditional and non-traditional. We did the rings, but the dress I wore wasn't white. He didn't go down on one knee to propose, but he did propose on a beach. My parents eloped and got married with one witness and my mom wore a navy blue skirt. They were happily married for 30+ years until my mom passed away.

I love reading about how others have done/plan to do their wedding days. :)
 
We got married in a register office and decided to spend more on the reception and night do which we had at a hotel!

We spent about £1500.

Mine and DH's parents payed for the hotel. His sister payed for us to stay there the night! I got my dress from hong kong off ebay! The girls dresses and shoes where from BHS. My husband got his suit from Next but he works there so he got a £130 suit on his uniform allowence so it only cost him £30, he also bought his waste coast, crabat, shirt and my shoes from there on discount! Got my flowers off a woman on ebay. We made our own favours for the tables by putting sweets in blue and ivory draw string bags and out 3 tier cake was from marks and spencer and we bought some decorations for it from a cake shop and DH decorated the cake stand with ribbon and silk flowers! Oh and DH's granparents suprised us with a limo!

It was a lovely day and i wouldn't have changed a thing!

danis053.jpg


robandkellysweddingsnaps18-7-200700.jpg


The photographer was a friend of family so he didnt cost a lot
 

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