Wedding Q's...

[lisa282]

Me and my OH have been engaged now for over 10 years Mostly out of choice, due to money issues, as we have chosen to do other stuff with our hard earned cash in the meantime and have never been on a schedule as such to get married. However lately I am thinking about it more and more, especially since having the kids, as they have my OH's surname and mine is obviously different. Money is still really tight though, and I doubt I would ever get the dream wedding I would love, but the more I think about it, the more I know I would be happy to have a budget affair as long as it would mean we could be married

So if anyone has been in a similar position and done a wedding on a budget, can you fill me in on roughly what you spent and where the money went? I have quite a large family so would restrict this for the actual ceremony, but come party time I would like everyone, friends and family to be there, which in all would prob be around 100 people. It certainly wont be extravagant if it ever happens, at the moment I am thinking either registry office then a function room somewhere later, or otherwise it may work out just as well to have a civil ceremony in a small hotel and also have party there later? I honestly dont mind either of these options, but am also open to other suggestions. I am pretty certain we wouldnt be able to afford a big church wedding, as much as my heart requests it, so Im trying to put it out of my mind. I know I will have just as good a day in a smaller ceremony

Realistically it would probably be a couple of years down the line, when the kids are a little older and I can get them involved, but mostly because of the money. It will take us at least this long to save and pay for it, if not longer, depending on the final cost. Do you think it is do-able for less than £2k? Or even less would be better Help girls, I am going out of my mind thinking about this, its never been an issue before but now it is preying on me and if I dont push my OH into doing something soon, we will remain engaged forever!!!

 

[elysoun]

I haven't actually had my wedding yet, it's still abit off but there are some ways we are cutting costs.
We're having a destination wedding for the ceremony itself- my godfather owns an apartment in Florida he's letting us use as a wedding gift. A beachside ceremony with the necessary trimmings (transportation, decorations etc) is costing us 750. Although the flights are 400 return, it's like having a honeymoon rolled into one.
On our return we're having a buffet reception rather than a sit down meal.
The main thing we've really done though to cut costs is to use the resources we already have!

Rather than hiring an expensive limo, we're getting a friend with a nice car to take us to the reception.
My mum used to be a catering manager, so she's roping in her friends to help with the wedding cake.
My dad is a good friend of the guy that owns the reception venue so we negotiated a discount on the catering/ room hire.
Our best man is a musician and plays at weddings professionally, so he negotiated a discount with one of his peers for us.
My bridesman works for the BBC, and has arranged for the wedding DVD.
OH's other best friend is a photographic artist, and is taking care of the photography.
I'm lucky enough to have my mum's childhood friend as a fashion desinger so she's making my wedding dress at cost. If you browse online and try on a few designs to see what suits you, you can normally find a local seamstress who can customise the design for you at a fraction of the cost of a bought gown.
I'm making our own bespoke invitation, seating plans etc- a calligraphy and cardmaking evening class can do wonders, and if you're not sure about doing it yourself I'm sure if you think hard someone you know would love it!!

These are only a few of the ideas I'm using, but if you think hard you can customise the things you need and ways of cutting the costs. Use the resoucres already at your disposal- you'll probably find that if you ask people they're usually delighted at being asked to be involved!!

 

[Sandi4Paul]

We went abroad to the Czech republic, it ws £6000 (more than you want to spend i know), but that includes everything, flights, dress (£800), rings (£1500), so we could have done it cheaper still.

I think going abroad is way cheaper than in the UK, but you wont get all the pople you want there making the effort, so you have to decide if you really want them or not.

A growing trend in the US (apprently) is instead of guests giving gifts (cos when you've lived together before hand there is nothing you really need) then getting them to pay for their meal at the reception, however you might not be comfortable doing that (I know i wouldn't).

Sandi

 

[Bloom]

There are loads of ways to cut the cost and its certainly possible. Its not the amount of money you spend thats important.

You could skip the wedding breakfast and just have a buffet for all your guests.
I don't think you should rule out a church wedding if thats what you want as i think you will be suprised at the costs i personally found that a civil ceremony in a hotel worked out more money has you had to have your reception there too and the food prices were more.

You could go for a village hall and put on a buffet, get married mid week (its loads cheaper) shop in the sales for dresses, make your own decorations and call in as many favours from friends and family as possible.

 

[KikoDinoGirl]

I recently got married and there were certain things that were really important for me that I spent more money on. But the areas where I saved were:

Invitations - I got down to hobby craft and brought the card and bits to stick on. My mate who does calligraphy wrote them all so they looked good.


The places where I wished I saved were:

DJ: I don't know I was quite dissapointed with mine, I think I would have been better off putting on an ipod!
Meal: If you have your wedding later you can get away with afternoon tea and bits. Or dinner, but without supplying guests with lunch as well.

One thing that you shouldn't save on;

Insurance! This was the best thing, when my wedding venue cancelled (long boring story) I was able to use solictors and got my money back for everything.

 

[Rock-Angel]

we managed ours on 3k and could have done it for under that!!

Save on things like transport to and from venue, we managed to hire a car and chauffer for £150 all day,

shop around on ebay for bargains,

If your not fussed about wedding dress monsoon do some beautiful dresses for under 150

food wise, buffests usally turn out cheaper and less is wasted if you have fussy people!!

Our venue was 200 but registary offices can be as little as 60 including marriage licence

also one thing we did which went down really well in our invites, we put in a lil poem asking for money instead of gifts we wouldnt use, we ended up with 600, considering we had less then 60 guests we were really chuffed with that and helped pay back a lot!

The only thing I wouldnt scimp on is photographer unless you have a friend who is a professional!

 

[mummysarah+co]

hiya
i got married 2 (and a bit) years ago we spent just over £3000 we needed to do it as cheaply as possible because money was tight at the time.

£850 went on my dress

£1200 went on food (we had a fancy buffet instead of a sit down meal)

£150 went on my limo - DH lent his brother his subaru to chauffeur him around

the rest went on the usual marriage licenses, flowers, church donation (the church was free - although they suggested a donation was made to cover flowers and the ministers time), decs, balloons etc
(we made sure we shopped around for the best deals we could find so we knew exactly what we wanted before we started looking and that stopped me wanting something different iykwim)

DH's best mate is a photographer and did the photos for us as a pressie

my bridesmaids paid for their dresses as i had friends my age as my bridesmaids

the decs i did myself....bought material and sewed and hemmed it all for table coverings etc (was great fun!!!! )

our chosen hall was cheap (just luck i guess)

all of the little special touches were done myself or by DH like place names and table names.

So i suppose my BIG tip would be to personalise a lot of things by doing it yourself - its a lot of fun and it made me feel really good to be doing something worthwhile also you can save a lot of money too which means you have more money to spend elsewhere

 

[lisa282]

Thanks ladies, nice to know it can be done! If its going to happen, I probably would do a lot of stuff myself anyway. I have been a seamstress for years so could prob knock up or alter a creation in the dress department, and I know I would enjoy doing invites/favors/flowers etc. I work in a pub with a large function room so could prob get the room for free as a gift from my boss although would have to pay for food of course, in fact if I didnt work there it would be a lovely setting to get married, but I dont want to associate my wedding with my place of work! I live over the road from the church so may look into what it would cost etc. We are having Eden christened there in a couple of months time - it is being renovated at the moment - so could be my opportunity to ask the questions

I want to build up a little portfolio of all costs I think may be involved and exacly what kind of work it will entail on my part, so I can build up a convincing case to put to my OH! If he sees Im serious enough about it and have done my homework it will be so much easier to talk him into spending the money! Wish me luck girls! x

 

[mumtomany]

hello,

i got married very nearly 13 years ago and we spent less than 1000k ourselves.

i bought my wedding dress from a near by charity shop, the local wedding dress shop which hired out, always donated the previous years dresses to it as it was a cancer shop, i paid 30£ for a full train dress! also the same wedding dress shop had a sale on brides maid dresses, we paid 25£ each for em, bargain!

we did alot of stuff ourselves eg. my mum made the tiarra, i made the ring pillow, veil, under skirts, table centres, flowers, invites, what do you call those lists of songs and what happens next thingies? those anyway.

the thing we saved most on was the food, my MIL new an ex food maker. and she did us a 3 course sit down meal and a disco buffet for the disco (one for adults and one for kids) for cost plus 30£ for each of the waiters/resses. my mum also new someone to make the cake, and wedding car hire.

the big surprise on the day was when i walked out the door and there was a horse and carriage waiting for us :O was my dream but we couldn't afford it, my mum arranged it

but i would say all these corner cutting are ok but i would advise not to cut corners on the photo's/video's. that was the most of our budget spent! those are your memories

we did also cheat a little, we asked before hand for people to buy things for us so we didn't have to think about it (eg. mum and dad paid for the car hire, maid of honour paid for the flowers) and they didn't then have to worry about the presents. but we didn't ask everyone, coz it was cheeky of us, and we wanted some presents to open, and we only asked the closeist of family and friends.

good luck and keep eyes open for bargains

 

[Paratus]

I always thought that the wedding at the end of the Sex and the City movie looked like a superb way to do it on a budget. A couple of dozen close friends and family, no hangers on. Married in a registry office (although the church isn't the expensive bit, so you could still do that), then to a restaurant for a bit of a party.

If I was thinking about doing it on a budget, I'd do that. There's no rule that says you can't throw a huuuuuge 2nd/5th/10th anniversary party for 300 people and stick your dress on again for the massive bash you couldn't do at the time.

 

[Paratus]

Whoops, just realised I replied to a 6 month old thread. Sorry!