wedding hell!!!

loopylisa

hi i know theres loads of threads for this but just wondering if theres anymore ideas on how to save on wedding? wedding receptions and the whole dat itself. the weddings next year and its only a small one family and a few friend (to keep the cost down), + moving house christmas week or just after, + christmas = fortune!!!

thanx

xxx

:money: needed!!

black-saturn

Theres a whole thread on money saving wedding tips here:

Your wedding tips start here

Counting_Pennies_2

go to confetti.co.uk and the chat forums there. It is designed specifically for weddings

shykins

well my wedding cost me less then £800 that included the dress, suits for hub, a church wedding (£300) and a reception after... we did all the food ourselves and had the reception in our back garden .. it was a lovely sunny day and eveyone reallly enjoyed themselves... paid a girl to lay the food out and put crisps etc out whilst we were at church.. drinks were beer or wine and help yourself

cake we got at M&S and i can thoroughly recommend it it was scrummy.. got a friend with a nice car to drive us to the church

we bought invitations at birthdays and used gold pen to make them look nice and did the order of service on the computer and priinted them on parchment paper which cost £5..

cant remember what else but theres loads of ways of saving money

Hope this helps.. have a lovely day
xx

pozalina

Hi,

OH and I are getting married in April and are doing it on a budget of 4,000. We are getting married in a church on a sunday (for religious reasons - OHs family - can't have saturday celebration). Sunday or weekday weddings can be much cheaper. We are having our reception in a large community centre as OH has huge family and we can't afford posh venue for 112 guests! We are getting our own caterers, providing wine with meal and the community centre will provide a paying bar. I have a friend who is an events organiswer and she will decorate the venue for us. No bridemaids, no cars, no flowers except small posy I will make myself on morning of wedding. OHs brothers have decks so will take turns to DJ in the evening. SIL will make our cake. FIL will drive us to church in his nice new car. etc etc. Honeymoon will be in italy where we have a bunch of friends - ryanair flights, staying in cheapish accomm or with friends. We love italy so we know it will be perfect.

It basically boils down to how much money you have, how much you want to spend on a wedding, and where you are prepared to compromise. For eg, OH will get a suit he likes, even if it costs 700 quid :eek: . I refuse to spend over £200 on a dress. We decided to have a community centre so we could celebrate with all the people we wanted rather than a posh, scenic venue with only 50 people. All the extras *really* are optional. You can make things personal and special without spending your parents' life savings.

We are naming tables after cities we have been together. We will make a mosaic of photos of us as kids, and pics of us together. As wedding is on easter sunday, favours will be cadbury creme eggs! As we are a mixed race couple, we will be including west indian and scottish elements - food, music, traditions. People love and remember all that kind or personal stuff more than anything else. I know it will be a great day, and we won't be in debt - hell, we will even have 1000 in the bank for when baby (hopefully) comes along!

Best wishes to you for your wedding and your marriage x :T

cheekymole

We got married for under £300 and had the best day ever.
We married in a registry office with family and a few friends (not religious) went back to our house for a couple of drinks before heading to bar/restaurant for a meal and a few more drinks and then walked to the local where we had a lot more to drink.
There was no fuss, no worries, just a lovely day.
Can't see the point in spending a fortune for other people to have a good time. It's precious money which is well spent elsewhere.

makingendsmeet_2

Hi,
me and moh are getting married in august next year aswell as buying our first house together and having a family of 4, i have found ebay is a great help buying bits and pieces as i go,to save money we are not having a day reception just a good old party at night ,we have hired a village hall for the bargain price of 85 pounds and can have it all day and night for that price ,also doing our own food and decorating the hall ,so far off ebay iv bought my dress ,wedding rings ,shoes, invitatons all for 200 pounds there are plenty of bargains out there to be had .

hope this helps :beer:

fruityslh

Get onto confetti and search out the budget planner that will give you an idea of the cost of an average wedding (V expensive).

Then decide how much you can afford in total and then both you and your husband to be sit down together and decide what you want from your wedding day what is important to concentrate on and then allocate your budget to each of the items on the list.

My wedding was less than average cost (I couldn't justify £15k+ for 1 day), it came to just under £5000 in total (honeymoon not included) but we got exactly what we wanted for that. It's a case of drawing on every resource you have available to you.

Our venue was a conference centre rather than a hotel (but they were much more flexible and it was an all in package price) We married in church (hadn't had a wedding for 4 years because it was 80% Muslim poulation, so vicar would have done it for free but was obliged to charge by the diocese rules, so charged us rock bottom) a couple of lovely ladies from the church commitee helped arrange the flowers that I'd bought wholesale (2 large bouquets for £30) with foliage from the church yard, they did a wonderful job and I let the church keep them for the golden jubilee celebrations the following day as a thank you for their work.

My nan and aunt are talented seamstresses and between them did 2 bridesmaid dresses each

My other aunt and her husband make excellent cakes and iced it exactly as we wanted as a wedding present (the cake I wanted would have cost £350 to buy)

I made my own bouquet & my bridesmaids hand tied bouquets are relatively simple, again I bought the roses wholesale, the flowergirls had a dolly bag with lily of the valley in them (smell was beautiful and my Nan's name is Lily Rose hence the two flowers I choose) I also made the buttonholes, just got hold of some of florist tape on line, they were simple for the men and the ladies had a marabou feather attached which matched their outfit.

Made my own invitations and Order of Service using the computer and some stencilling

But the thing that most people raved about and kept was the cheapest and easiest: Place name cards bought some marbled paper, downloaded 20 poems about love from the internet (I think I used the ones on hitched) printed a poem onto each A5 sheet of paper with a little note underneath saying thank you for joining us on our wedding day Lots of love (hey that';s what the day is all about - Love) on the other side of the paper I printed their names in a fancy script, left a fair sized gap between forename and surname, rolled up the paper, punched a hole in the centre of the piece of paper at the top, secured roll with ribbon to match scheme, fancy scroll, all for approx £3 (Paper & Ribbon) for the lot

Also used the remaining fancy paper to make the table names (stuck to a sheet of card), had menu on one side and the name of the table which were named after the cruise ship and islands we were to visit on honeymoon with a brief description of each on them, it was fun after the meal as people went round each table to see where we were off to, which also got people mingling

Personalise your day, because after all, it is all about you two, not how much you have to spend.

I wish you well

Fruity

happiness_fairy

When I got married, we did most of the stuff ourselves. I even taught myself cake decorating cos couldn't afford the prices of bought cakes. Will warn you tho, make sure you have support from friends/family as if you do it all yourself the last week can be v stressful.

Best piece of advice I was given was to make the most cos the day just flies by and its true. Have a fantastic day!