Cheap wedding... Possible?!

oliver2008

You dont have to have anyone walk you down the aisle. I think thats just personal choice although my step dad gave me away as my Dad didnt come to the wedding.

nzmegs

We managed to marry for around £3000 including our honeymoon. We just invited close family and friends (around 35 people), we got married on a thursday making the venue and the photgrapher much cheaper. We got married and had the evening meal and dancing all at the same venue (no hiring taxis, cars etc)There are venues out there with marriage licenses. We got married outside in a gazebo.
My dress was from Dorothy perkins - bought during the xmas dress up season. It was beautiful I thought and I dressed it up with a necklace which cost more than the dress!
We made our own invitations etc on the computer printing them onto bought cards which we decorated ourselves.
I did my own hair and make up. I had one bridesmaid who bought her own dress and wore what she wanted to and we didn't have flowers. Oh and we just had a one tier cake which still had 1/2 left over by the end of the night. Our honeymoon was in Bath.

The best thing was the fact we had an absolute ball. A perfect day with the people we love the most and we were content in the knowledge that everyone else had a good time and we weren't stressed about the money.

FairyElephant_2

Don't know if you can do religious ceremonies on other days of the week, but everything else seems to be a lot cheaper if you can avoid Saturdays!

We got married on a Friday - when we enquired about the venue we said it was for a party, so avoided the 'wedding' surcharge which lots of places seem to apply! Actually our venue wouldn't have done so as it turned out....

To hire somewhere licensed for civil ceremonies is really expensive, so we ended up having an 'official' registry office job to make it legal, and then went straight to our own informal ceremony at the venue, where we wrote our own vows.

If you have the ceremony as late as poss in the day then you can avoid having an afternoon and an evening party, just roll them into one, which is what we did.

Our other best moneysaving thing was to do as much as poss oursleves - drafting in friends where possible! if approached in the right way we found people loved to help us, (we actually asked them to help instead of giving us gifts - but most still gave us something as well!) eg. I bought the stuff to decorate the tables (mostly from Ikea!) wrote a plan of what I wanted and got 3 friends to go set it all up for me! A friend who has a nice tidy car (and luckily doesn't drink!) we asked to be the 'wedding car'.

We dispensed with a wedding cake (neither of us that keen on it) in favour of having champagne and canapes for the toast, which we preferred, and I got the champers at a good discount! Table favours? Who really wants them afterwards? We bought little bottles of bubbles and party poppers insetad - much more fun! Do you want everyone to have floral buttonholes...even at a couple of quid a time they soon mount up.....

At the end of the day, it is YOUR day and you should have what you want....we ended up with a small ceremony and a walloping great party - where everyone had a great time....and it didn't break the bank!

Have fun planning it and enjoy YOUR day!

lauzjp

oliver2008 - wow, that's even cheaper than my wedding!

my dress came from ebay, strapless boned prom-like black&white number. £15. from china. hubby's suit we got in a next sale as two seperates so they fitted properly - £30. we paid for the notice and all the registry office bits ourselves, and parents paid for the reception at our local pub. we just used the jukebox and did singstar on the ps2! oh and left the footy table + pool table uncovered, so we could have some games on those too.

As for walking down the isle - even the main room in luton reg office is quite small, so hubby and I were already there as our guests came in.

lauzjp

ooh and we had the cutest favours - thorntons white champagne truffles, in little organza bags! you can buy trays of them from thorntons direct, so much cheaper than in the shops.

We didn't have a photographer, as everyone has a camera nowadays - people emailed us copies, and most are online on facebook or something.

I'm not really a girlie girl, so girlfriends who slept over the night before helped me get ready, and we all decorated the pub before legging it into town for the ceremony! oh and I had flip flops on under my dress that no-one could see :rotfl:

AnnieM_3

At the risk of repeating other posters:

1. Avoid Saturdays - loads of places do discounted rates for Weekdays (photographers/venues/cars for example)

2. Take no notice of wedding magazines and the Confetti website telling you you have to have absolutely everything that is on sale (personalised this, bespoke that, swans, philharmonic orchestra etc. etc.)

3. Be creative - make your own invitations/favours/table decorations

4. SHOP AROUND!

5. Register Offices are much cheaper than Licenced Premises if you are going for a non-religious service - you don't have to get married in your local one - you can pick a nice one elsewhere if you like!

6. Avoid venues where you have to have their packages for food/drinks etc -
hire a hall/social club and get your own caterers.

Our wedding cost around 5k, including the honeymoon - it was a struggle at times to get what we wanted with our tight budget, but we got the wedding we wanted, and it was really worth it - and it's great knowing we didn't put ourselves in masses of debt to do it1

Congratulations and good luck!

x

cazziebo

sooz wrote: »

Remember when getting quotes for anything to leave the word 'wedding' out. Cakes, flowers, decorations....it costs a lot less without that little word
You are having a party...it just so happens that you got married first.

This is VERY good advice! Ridiculous but true..

As for walking down the aisle, I was at a wedding where the bride walked down the isle with her two bridesmaids - that was lovely and didn't look odd or different. Looked right for her. (Not sure why, her mum and dad were at the wedding) Actually - didn't the SATC girls walk down the aisle with each other at their weddings? I've also been to registry office weddings where bride and groom walk down aisle together -that's nice too.

Have a lovely lovely day!

x

charliefarlie1307

Hi we had a civil ceremony and it was lovely. Although I did walk down the isle so not sure about that one. At the end of the day there is no reason why they cant both walk you down the isle or you do it alone.

As for making it cheaper I splashed out on my dress and blew double my budget on it so i had to cut down somewhere else. I found Debenhams in southampton had a very lovely range of dresses and I got all my bridesmaid dresses there. They all cost between £85 and £100 and one was a designer one. Dont pay out to get somebody to video your wedding get a friend to do it. My best friend did ours and its great.

good luck

lovethymini

Here's what we did!

Venue - Weybridge registry office one sunny Friday in a beautiful 1920's building with old oak panelling, large bay windows, and period features. Not an office chair or carpet tile in sight! Jack Johnson playing (cd, not personally), our favourite! Everyone was in the room, and we walked in together. I think it's up to you how you want to enter the room. As there was only 17 of us it felt intimate and extra special. £200 ish?
Flowers - done by me, posy of cream roses with little pearl pins stuck into them, wrapped fabric around stems. One large bowl of peonies for the one big dinner table for later. £40?
I wore - gorgeous dress from Monsoon £90, cream shawl £25 and shoes I already had (Marc Jacobs - thank god I'd found a reason for buying them at long last LOL) (erm £175??? in the sale though, and didn't actually buy them to get married in so do they count?)
He wore - hired suit £70? and his new black cowboy boots £110?
Guests - 15 of our closest family
Photography - by my sister, who just snapped randomly, no hanging around waiting to stand for group photographs. Her wedding present to us was a photo album of our wedding day in black and white photographs. £Free
Cars - My little brother drove me in my red mini cooper to the registry office, complete with the white ribbons! Everyone else drove themselves. £just the petrol!

Afterwards - drove back to our flat, dumped some cars (and I put my flip flops on!), went to the local pub (where we first met, aw how romantic!) had a pint and regrouped, then convoyed down to our favourite italian restaurant who'd reserved their upstairs dining room for us. We were greeted with big smiles (Italians love a wedding!), drinks and olives, then the guests could all order from the full menu. We all had a lovely meal. (Got a brilliant photo of my 91 year old grandmother-in-law tucking into some chocolate icecream.) We had splurged on a handmade cake which cost £200 - well worth it, especially since everything else was so inexpensive. Didn't do the favours or bridesmaids. The meal only cost us £500, we were so surprised!

I think the trick to keep it under control is the number of people who celebrate with you. This allowed it to be simple and spontaneous. Maybe I'm biased, but I've never been to a wedding where there have been so many smiles. Because of the simple arrangements, my husband and I were able to relax and not worry about the cost of everything and whether all the guests were okay. We could simply focus on what the day was about! I was against registry office weddings until I stepped inside this one, it's beautiful.

Best wishes and congratulations!

Lovethymini x

starbump

jayoh wrote: »

Secondly, does anyone know if for a civil ceremony it's necessary, or the done thing, for the bride to walk down the aisle with her father?

Walking up/down an aisle is unnecessary but nice. As it is a civil service, you can arrange a lot of it to suit yourself and your circumstances. The only things to note are: you must go through the dreary statutory declarations and you cannot include anything religious (readings, music, etc).

If you don't want an aisle, don't have an aisle. You could... walk in/through with hubby-to-be. You could wait at the front while your guests are seated - time saving and no walking. You could sit in the front row and get up when the service begins. You could arrange the seating without an aisle and enter from the side - on your own or with hubby-to-be. For what it's worth, I've been to 3 civil service weddings (including my own) and 2 had "aisles" (including mine).