How can i make £1500.00 go as far as possible for our wedding?

webbie

I think you need to prioritise what you feel you "need" at your wedding to feel it has been the best.

What about saving Tesco Clubcard vouchers - this can be used on wine, champagne, hotel for honeymoon - I'm sure theres others too.

I also look back on my wedding (13 years ago) where my parents spent a lot of money - (but they didn't go mad) and there is so much of it that I can hardly remember, so other people certainly won't!!

My parents hired a car, I couldn't remember what it looked like, and actually most of the guests didn't even see it. Perhaps spend more on what will be in the photos, like clothes, flowers and cake.

I have been to weddings in the past where there is no meal - we went to a wedding at a church during the day and went to a disco in a hotel (everyone bought their own drinks) later. We are all fully aware there was no sit-down do, so we weren't disappointed.

Also spend time shopping around on ebay - and remember you can always re-sell stuff back on ebay to recoup some money!!

princess

Friends got married in church, him in own suit, her in charity shop dress. Reception was in church hall £100 to hire generally, but free to them as church members and all guest were asked to bring a dish and a bottle. Of course all the families competed to bring the nicest dish, so there was absolutely loads to eat! Friends did the flowers, photography and cars. Her mother did the wedding cake. It was all lovely. If it cost £200 I would be surprised!!

bookduck

Have three friends who got married. One wedding cost over £24000, the other was while on holiday in Los Vegas (think the Elvis themed chapple?) while the other one was registry office and then to a local pub. Six months later all couples are still happy.

Don't spend more than you can afford, some things in life you just can't buy. £24000 for 6 hours is a lot especially when you are on £22000 a year.

If you buy a great dress, hopefully it is such a design that you can keep using it for evenings or job interviews etc

I have seen couples on TV where they are now divorced, but still paying off their first marriage. It's your day, so do what is right for you and your pocket, rather than right for others, as they are not paying the bill.

Best of luck!

brightonman123

how about having a reception bbq in a public park (weather permitting!), and inviting guests to bring their favourite food..

paddy's_mum

brightonman - that's exactly what we did four years ago, except that we provided the actual foods. We hired (about £45) the local village hall and part of the deal was that the caretaker laid out as many of the hall's tables and chairs as we wished. Balloons everywhere, blown up and then popped by all the child guests.

We arranged for some friends to run a barbeque out on the hall's lawns (under a sideless gazebo in case of bad weather) and the very fact that you had to grab your plate and cutlery and wait while your burger or whatever was ready meant that one side of family/friends got talking naturally and easily with the other side and a great time was had by everyone. (Don't forget to cater for vegetarians etc if you go the bbq route)

It was extraordinarily easy to cater for over 100 people, very unusual (ie not in the least stuffy!) economical and most of all, great fun. I'd recommend it to anyone.

moyilla

Hi
Apologies if this has already been posted but I was in Monsoon on Friday and they have 70% off their wedding dresses, they have beautiful simple dresses for £61.75 from over £220 :eek:

They also have childrens bridesmaids dresses for £21

Hope this helps

Savvy_Sue

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I think there's a massive sticky there about moneysaving with your wedding ...

EricaB

Am not sure of the exact total of our wedding but it was well under £3000
we had the reception at a hotel with buffet at £10.95 a head and just had one lot of guests eating at 6pm - wedding was at 2.30pm with a bit of a drive inbetween
we paid for drinks for toast only
i did make favours but wasn't going to originally - they cost me about £20 for 90 of them
think church cost about £500 altogether including extra for banns at another church and video licence
my mum and a friend did a lot of the flowers - only paid for ones were mine and buttonholes
cake was decorated by my aunty
photos were taken by my cousin and they are fantastic
my dress was a little expensive and we could have saved there
suit hire came in at about £150 for 3 suits
bridesmaids dresses were handmade by my aunty and cost more for the material than had we bought them

stumpjumper

some things that we did to save money...

brewed our own wine - wine kits are available from Morrisons and Wilkinsons - £10 buys some very nice kits of red and white wine (that would cost about £5 in the supermarket) - the kits make 30 bottles (5 gallons)
brewed own beer - again from Morrisons and Wilkinsons - £16 for 40 pint kits.

wedding dress was made to measure from here: The Dark Angel cost was about £120 + £10 for the minor alterations to the standard design.

moneysavingmonkey85

I would recommend an unusual day - mine will be a friday, and often people have 3-4pm services so you can go straight into an evening do. I am just having an afternoon meal, but no evening, and if we want to go dancing there are plenty of clubs/bars and everyone can go home when they want!
do as many things through friends/family and ebay as much as possible!!