Our "posh" somerset wedding for 100 people for under £5000

Miss_Communicate · 29 November 2008 at 3:04PM

Hello all,
I got married on 2nd August 2008 and it was the most amazing day ever. We did loads of things to keep the costs down and I thought you might be interested in them.

Venue hire- We chose Wells Town Hall and Bishops Barn (medieval tithe barn) for our venues - short walk between the two in the stunning Somerset city of wells. Venue hire was £300 for both- Town Hall £150 for 2 hours hire- Barn £150 for 24 hours but with access day before and after for set up and clear up! (We did have to pay £300 registrar costs to get them to come out). The barn had lots of chairs and some tables so we didn't need to hire chairs at least.
Equipment hire- we hired most of our stuff from Prestige catering hire which were quite reasonable but to cut costs we were very lucky in that our caterer provided all crockery etc for free. Also instead of hiring tablecloths I brought a huge roll of white cotton from ebay and made all the table clothes (suitable for 6ft trestles- I have 26 of these for sale if anyone is interested?)
Flowers- we got all our flowers wholesale from Triangle nursery- they were incredibly helpful with helping me choose. The cost came to about £100 for lots of Black Baccara roses, calla lillies and freesia- then my genius thing was to ask the ladies of Wells and District floral arts society to put the flowers together for me- they did me 20 buttonholes, my bouquet and 4 bridesmaid bouquets for £50! They were amazing!
Cake- our cake for 150 people cost £60 from a small independent cake maker. Was just a slab cake but made to a special design.
Invites, thankyous etc- printed from Vistaprint- £20 for 400!!
Save the date magnets- brought magnetic paper from ebay and printed them ourselves.- £10.
Dress- £62 from ebay (orginally £2000 veromia one!)
Booze- all supplied from Booze cruises to France- not sure what final cost was as was present from my dad.
Catering- we decided since the hot food was not an option and we hate buffets (queues and can sometimes be a bit naff) we decided to have a picnic- so our caterer prepared feasts of "vegetarian, continental, traditional english" and put them in picnic baskets we specially brought for the occasion. The baskets also doubled as centrepieces and went down a storm. We then had a buffet dessert. All of this for 110 people came to £1000! For the evening we had 25 extra large pizzas delivered which were also devored £300. (So basically about 12 per head!)
Venue decoration- Ikea was our best friend here- we got loads and loads of white net curtains (2 huge ones for £2.99 each- we got 10 packs and had too much!) which we used as swags around doors etc. we got loads of ivy from roadsides and decorated the barn everywhere which looked stunning. We got loads of fairy lights in christmas sale and butteflies to pin in the netting. Also got loads of candle votives from ikea.
There were lots of other small things we did which have all blurred into one big happy memory.

Hope this helps someone, and if anyone wants to buy baskets, tablecloths, fairy lights, votive holders, battery operated fairy lights and so on send me a PM!

MsChazzer · 2 December 2008 at 2:04PM

Sounds lovely, any photos?!! :-)

hannahjex · 3 December 2008 at 4:43PM

Sounds fab! I too would love to see pictures and may well be nicking your pizza idea for my evening do!

Jen_May_Wed · 17 January 2009 at 2:45PM

Thanks for this thread Miss Communicative! I've PM-ed you.

Miss_Communicate · 2 February 2009 at 9:27AM

don't want to put photos up for general consumption but pm me and I will send a link!

The barn is stunning- awww I wanna do it all again! In fact so need to get on the baby wagon so we can have a naming ceremony down there!

SDH · 2 February 2009 at 11:53AM

sounds amazing. I love the idea of picnic baskets

nat82 · 2 February 2009 at 12:26PM

I love your idea of making your own Save the Date magnets! Fab!

Didn't even know you could get such a thing as magnetic paper! Might have to get the creative juices flowing ........!!!!

Your whole day sounds lovely! I can't wait for mine to come around!!!! :j

Miss_Communicate · 2 February 2009 at 12:46PM

Another thing I did which I was quite proud of was make our own Sweetpea seed favours. They were fiddly but so worth it. Brought loads of sweetpea seeds and minature bottles with corks in. Put the seeds in the bottles with a little message in tied with a bow - and "Sowing the Seeds of Love" Tears for Fears 1989 as the title of the message (Hubbie is a massive fan!). Then in the cork pierced a hole and put a minature white rose in so it looked like a tiny flower growing out of the bottle. Very cute.

Also brought some minature envelopes in our wedding colours from ebay and made tiny cards with little love quotes inside - on the front of the card was a tiny butterfly sticker (made myself using black/white sticky backed plastic and a small butterfly stamp) and the envelope was in a contrasting colour also sealed with a butterfly. These mini envelopes were basically like fortune cookies without the calories and the guests loved them!

Also made my own origami games for the tables- the fortune game one where you put your fingers in and move the game to reveal quotes?

Finally instead of putting blank cd's on the tables or putting disposable cameras on the tables (we were having an eco wedding so didnt want too much waste). I got Vistaprint to print business cards with a flickr address and log in for guests to log in and upload their photos (as well as location for our photos). They were great but unfortunately in the end only one guest uploaded their photos as everyone else used facebook! but I think that is often the same when you leave blank cds on tables.

jodiebabes · 2 February 2009 at 8:01PM

You have just described my ideal wedding! I want exactly the above. Unfortunately every venue I have visited they dont let you do your own catering. I have been searching for a local barn we could rent out with no sucess!

jodiebabes · 2 February 2009 at 8:01PM

What sort of things did you have in your picnic baskets? Did you make these up yourself??

Miss_Communicate · 3 February 2009 at 9:07AM

Our local barn was by luck- a friend's mum used it for barn dances and let me know of its existence! Try googling Tithe Barns- there are quite a few available its just a matter of finding them and seeing if they can be rented out!

The picnic baskets I managed to get catered by persuading a lady who ran a little coffee shop in Devon to do it for me. She advertised she made picnics for walks in Dartmoor so I asked her for a large scale picnic! It came to £9.50 per head including all plates cutlery etc and lots of desserts! We had a separate dessert buffet but in the baskets we the following:

Traditional English Basket
Home cooked roast gammon
Herb and cheese crusted chicken breast
Horseradish crusted roast beef
Honey glazed cocktail sausages
Selection Somerset cheeses
Mini pasties (these will not be home made, but will be of a good quality)
Mixed fresh salad
Coleslaw
Potato salad
Crusty bread and butter

Continental basket
Selection of Italian and Spanish cold meats
Chorizo sausage
Quiche Lorraine
Tomato pizza puffs
Dolmades
Continental cheese selection
Greek salad
Tomato, basil and olive salad
Roasted vegetable cous cous salad
Continental breads

Vegetarian basket
Ricotta chese, tomato and mushroom pasty
Asparagus and brie quiche
Roasted vegetable terrine
Tomato pizza puffs
Aubergine and pinenut fritters
Cheese selection
Mixed salad
Roasted vegetable couscous salad
Potato salad
Selection of breads and butter

Although I think we changed some of these about a bit. It was YUMMY but unfortunately I was too excited/nervous to eat and my dress was too tight! I only managed a tiny slice of quiche.

Our "posh" somerset wedding for 100 people for under £5000

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