Wedding Tips start here...

Mrs_Thrift · 21 August 2003 at 7:57PM

Hello All,

As I've mentioned on another board somewhere, I'm just starting to plan my wedding for September 2004 and I'm attempting to do it in money saving style. !I thought I'd share some tips as I go along and (hopefully) learn. !So, here we go:

Firstly, it seems there are a couple of ways of looking at a money saving wedding - either spending as little as possible or getting as much value for money as possible while not cutting back on much. !At the moment I don't know what our final available budget is going to be so I'm considering both ways.

Tip No. 1 - If it doesn't cause too many problems with logistics, etc, holding the wedding on a Friday or Sunday can reduce the cost of the reception (and sometimes ceremony) venue by up to half. !Most other service providers offer discounts for non-Saturday weddings, too.

Hope this will help some people out there. !Watch this space for more. !Any more tips (both money saving and stress reducing!) will be gratefully received. !

Insert from Martin: Two quick things, first of all congrats to Ms. Thrift who started this wonderful discussion so long ago and is now Mrs Thrift.

Second to say, this is such a good chat, and is now so long, I've compiled the info into a MoneySaving article here.

Martin

Andrea · 21 August 2003 at 8:20PM

Hi Ms Thrift,

I saved quite a lot on my wedding dress by buying it off the rail in Debenhams. It means they only have one-offs so its a bit tough if you like a dress but they don't have your size (unless you know a good seamstress or use their tailoring service) but is fine if you find something you like.

I'm not saying Debenhams is the cheapest and not particularly advising anyone to buy it there. However, if you do want to buy your dress there you could take advantage (if you're happy with having your credit checked) of the initial 10% discount you get by opening an account card. Just open the account, pay for everything with that (remembering to get nectar points at the same time), immediately pay the amount off or transfer it to a 0% credit card, and then close the account.

When I applied for the account card I was turned down but the staff kindly took pity on me and let me have the 10% discount anyway

. If you get turned down too you could always pay for it with a barclaycard (not the 0% one) to get the barclaycard nectar points too.

Hope this helps a bit.

Andrea

laminki · 21 August 2003 at 8:45PM

So It'll be Mrs Thrift soon!

SPL · 21 August 2003 at 9:28PM

Pretty obvious but really shop around for booking your honeymoon. We had our hearts set on Mauritius and were initially quoted £7,500. After a while of searching on t'internet we came across a website called clubairtravel.co.uk (maybe.com) and for exactly the same holiday they quoted us £3,700. We're off next Friday!! Their customer service was first class as well....

Lucyliu_2 · 21 August 2003 at 10:08PM

When I was looking around for a cake I was quoted about £300 for a round three tier one.

I eventually bought it from Marks & Spencer and decorated it myself for £90.

The cake was gorgeous, we have 2 fruit and one sponge. I got some great stuff from my local cake decorating shop and it looked really professional.

Good luck! Linda x

mini · 21 August 2003 at 10:27PM

Hi Ms Thrift

My tip for flowers is to agree a budget & brief idea of what you require for you & bridesmaids (if you have them) & how many button holes, I felt my florist was trying to con me when she said the price she quoted me was for a 5' 2 bride & she didn't realise I was so tall, the price of my bouquet went up £50! I challenged it & she stuck to the original price, when confirming the details I asked for the roses I wanted (sh ehad originally said they were too expensive) & got everything I had originally wanted for less than florist had previously said, I think they try to get you to agree to a larger budget but make sure you know how much they are charing per button hole etc, when it gets broken down the price seems to lower.

I got married on a Tuesday (as a true money saver, also got a reduced price for the hotel as we were booking so many rooms for people to stay)

I can vouch for Debenhams dresses too!

I trust all money savers are invited (we don't bring presents though - just tips!)

If I think of anything else I will return, I wish you the very best of luck with all your plans

Mini

Tim_L · 21 August 2003 at 11:03PM

Well here's what we did...

We'd had 18 months of friends weddings, for which you travel large distances, attend the ceremony, have a reception meal of variable quality, speak to your friends for about 45 seconds, have a party, then drive all the way back. All good fun, but these dos did seem to be missing something, and they were certainly expensive (in fact we did know someone who was still paying off the cost of the wedding some years into their divorce!).

So we decided to do things differently. We invited a couple of close friends down for the weekend without telling them anything (we let slip a day or two in advance so they could bring smart togs). We invited the parents, and explained what we were doing, and booked them into a 5 star hotel for the weekend. We booked the registry office, and a meal in a local restaurant, and all was set.

Phase one (the day itself) it worked brilliantly - weddings always seem to. In the morning I went off to the restaurant to leave the cake (which was made by a friend who is a professional patissier) there, and was promptly dragged off the street for a consumer survey on various different kinds of whisky (hic). Everyone arrived on time, the wedding was relaxed and friendly, and when we got to the restaurant we found they had done out a room for us (having twigged what we were doing because of the cake) and could not have been more wonderful (including pouring some lethal liqueur down me at the end of the meal. I don't remember a lot after that.

Total cost for the whole day couldn't have been more than £500 or so, but frankly I don't think it would have been better if we'd spent 20K.

Phase 2 was then a sort of extended reception in which we went around other friends over a period of time and celebrated with them.

Not for everyone, possibly, but I think it shows that by ignoring some of the conventions you can have a great time and not bankrupt yourself.

Galstonian · 22 August 2003 at 2:41AM

As you say, if you choose a day that is not so popular for weddings then you can find many of the things you need are readily available and possibly a lot cheaper. Friday thirteenth is not so popular for some reason. As many of my family were travelling to our wedding we needed to make it a Saturday so instead of Fri 13th we chose April 1st. No problems getting church, reception, hotel rooms, catering, band, cars etc.. It is still the best day out I've ever had so for my part I think we got excellent value for money.

System · 22 August 2003 at 10:20PM

oooooh blast.......... I lost my post...... oh well......... in abbreviated form...........

Firstly - make sure you do what you want for your wedding, not what is expected of you - simply by doing that you'll most probably make a number of savings!

Secondly - find out about corkage rates at your reception venue, compare to the price of the wines etc on offer there and consider a cheap day trip to France/Belgium where you can pick up cheap booze and may well save money in the long run (crossing included!) - I know we did!!!!!

Thirdly - don't feel that you have to have brand new everything! The brides tiara for example..... you may find exactly what you are looking for in the free ads or somewhere similar for a fraction of that 'designer' original price. It'll only have been worn for a few hours.

Fourthly - well there wasn't a fourth before, but it just came to me...... depending on your computer skills and quality of printer, why not print your own invitations, order of service, menus, place names, thank you cards etc. With the software etc available nowadays you can get really professional finishes at a fraction of the professional printers cost.

Fifthly - the cake - how many people actually really like fruit cake? Why not bake or have baked a sponge (of your favourite flavour) and decorate accordingly.......... even if done by a patissier, sponge is going to be cheaper than fruit cake.

Good luck with your planning Ms Thrift........... looking forward to keeping up to date with this thread and getting ideas for when my turn comes ::)

empoweredwoman · 22 August 2003 at 10:41PM

http://www.thefairyden.com
wedding tips:

borrow headress or put flowers in your hair

buy a set of 'arty' cards and print out your own insert

print out your own 'order of service'

get as many friends as possible to take video of the day and then spend some time (or find a willing volunteer!!) to edit it all together.

Get your make up done in large cosmetic department on day of wedding, only buy the lipstick to 'touch up' later on

buy each flowergirl a basket(instead of flowers) with a nice teddy in it with dress colour to match theirs, that then becomes their thank you gift.

Dresses for flowergirls bought from high street store are cheaper to buy than most companies hire charges.

Doing your own favours are a must and so much fun!!! Find small pretty envelopes, print out fancy stickers, stick a lottery ticket in each one.

Buy three white rectangular cakes from Asda, put them one on top of the other at different angles and wrap a large ribbon around them to mimic parcels. Put some fresh flowers at the base. Cost £30ish.

Lastly thank you cards. Find a really good photo of the two of you, have the negative reprinted as many times as necessary and handwrite on the back of it your personal thankyous. This also gives them a special memento of the day, and if they don't have it in a frame the next time you visit, ask them why!!!!!

Hope that this helps........!!

System · 22 August 2003 at 11:12PM

Congrats to you!

I got married last year and saved loadsa money on the the things people usually pay through the nose for!

1. Wedding dress - Don't pay hundreds, go to Virgin brides (I went to Charing X in London) during their January sale, I got a £500 dress for £40 ;D They also do shoes and 'all the other stuff' on sale. Bridesmaids accessories came from BHS January sale and my tiara was bought from Littlewoods jewellery counter, yet another Jan. sale.

2. Photos - Don't bother with a photographer, I bought 20 disposable cameras that included processing, (approx. £90) and guests that had these cameras gave them back to us at the end of the night. I also bought 40 almost out of date disposable cameras (£1 ea from charity shop) that gave you 2 copies for the price of 1 on each film developed. we asked guests who used these cameras to send the extra set to us. We ended up with over 500 pictures, I guarantee you will get a decent set of prints for the album and you will have plenty left to send to relatives who could not attend.

3. Master of Ceremonies - Got him for less than half price as we only booked him 2 weeks before the wedding. We were not prepared to pay his outrageous charge, but he wanted the job - haggle, it works.

4. Flowers - I bought 12 plain ceramic vases from Poundland sprayed them gold, bought lots of burgundy and white artificial flowers plus green sprays coloured some gold and the table decs were beautifully done.

5. Honeymoon - Booked 2 days before on last minute.com, who knew? (Well you all do now!)

Hope this helps a bit and have a wonderful fantastic day.

Wedding Tips start here...

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