Wedding money saving

Miles16v

I'm getting married next year, and whilst I want a nice wedding I dont want to blow a load of money on a single day, unneccessarily. I dont know much about weddings.

I've booked a venue, which is a golf club where we will have the ceremony and reception. Cost is £500 for ceremony, £30 per head for meal, £10 per head for buffet, no charge for room hire.

So I'll be needing:

Photographer
Flowers - bunch for bride and bridesmaids?
Cake
Wedding Dress
Bridesmaids outfits
Groom and best man outfits
One car for bride
Rings
Table decorations
Invitations
DJ
What else?

If anyone can tell me what they spent on the above, and set me some challenging target prices it would be great. Hints and tips for doing it on the cheap!

I know I haven't given much detail, but think 'nice' rather than posh! I'd rather spend money on inviting more people or our honeymoon, than on extravegencies or unneccesaries that I can avoid.

Thanks!

sandiep

Flowers!

My sister in law got quoted something like £200 for her and 1 bridesmaid's bunch. And it wasn't a flashy wedding.

I paid £200 odd for flowers for posies, buttonholes, and flowers for the room. Not a huge amount.

This is one to really shop around on, you'll get wildly differing prices.

Also, try and get the venue to pay the DJ. They'll have regular DJs that they use, so if you've not got something better in mind give this a shot.

Good Luck.

LoopyLinz

Hi

I got married a year and a half ago so things prob havent changed that much.

One thing I would say is, look at your list, is there anything on there that ou can do yourself? For example could you make your own stationery? Doesnt have to be anything too mad, sometimes simple is better. You may also need to consider things like order of service, table names/numbers and place cards. We made all of these ourselves.

With regards to flowers, do you need any for the weddin venue itself?

One thing we did discover was that wedding fairs seem to be a good place to compare prices and get discounts, granted sometimes only 10% but better than nothing.

Photographer, again shop around, think what you really want out of this. I am ashamed to say that our wedding album is currently behind the sofa and has been for about the last 6 months. Dont be afraid to ask them to alter their packages to suit you and possibly save you some money.

Again table decorations..........maybe something simple you can do yourself?

Dont forget to factor in costs like, your accessories and bridesmaids, shoes, etc.

Where in the country are you? I am in NI so obviously my costs, etc would prob be somewhat different.

Hope I havent bombarded you with tons of info. Just shout of pm me if you need any other info. Happy to help!

Linz

Pollycat

Hi Miles16v
Can't help you with costs (we did it very much on the cheap over 20 years ago), but there is a specific 'Anniversaries and Weddings' board where you might get more information.

Regards

morg_monster

agree with polly - the weddings subboard of the special events and celebrations board is really good.
the first thing i noticed about your post was all the "I"s - money saving or not you need to make sure you and your fiance(e) are making these decisions together. I am tentatively guessing you're male because of your username, if you are, you definitely need to get the OH on board with everything. Us ladies can sometimes have rather set expectations of these kind of once in a lifetime events! (as can the blokes, like my friend's fiance who insisted that the wedding colour be pink!?! but in my experience it is more likely to be the fairer sex...)

AMH999

Hi there,
I used the following...
Dolly mixtures in bowls for decorating the tables plus wedding confetti - all very cheap and looked nice.
I also had a cluster of three balloons on each table to make it look classy.

Didn't go for the usual flower option - went for a bunch of wildflowers - much cheaper. Didn't give everyone button holes only the main guests. £145

Dress bought from ebay and altered locally - £150 all in

Shoes - ebay £30

shimmershelly

I got all my bridesmaids dresses, tiaras and all our shoes in BHS sale. Groom quite often gets his outfit free if the rest of the male wedding party hire from the same shop (think Moss Bros do this). Ask around if someone you know has a posh car they could drive you to the wedding in, we have a silver chrysler 300c and people are always asking us to be their wedding car lol. You may be able to get a photograher through word of mouth, that works part time as a hobby and therefore cheaper. The man who did my video was a taxi driver I met coming back from asda and he did lovely wedding photography, unfortunately I had already booked a much more expensive photographer.
I made my own invitations, favours (just little gold organza bags with sugared almonds in) and order of services too. My wedding including honeymoon was about £8000 even with savings I made and that was 5 years ago (we had saved for years to get married though), its the sit down meal part of the day that's the killer!

starbump

The only things you shouldn't skimp on are the photographer and the wedding rings. These will be your long term keepsakes - everything will fade from memory very, very quickly. Buy the negatives so you can do your own reprints - works out cheaper. Traditional plain gold bands are cheaper than the jewel studded full/half eternity rings some people opt for.

The other big expenses are the venue and flowers. Ask your florist to save the odds and ends from making the bouquets/buttonholes and use them as extra decorations. (Mine suggested this to me.) He/she will probably have enough waste material to make a few tiny posies (for chairs/tables) and/or petals to scatter on "altar"/floor. You can eke it out with lots of candles, large vases or similar.

Everything else can probably be sourced cheaply. Try eBay for cheap/DIY options (invitations, clothes, etc) and your local college for keen/cheap students (DJ, cake, etc). If it is acceptable to you and your guests, you could also ask for gifts of skills/loans/items instead of "standard" wedding gifts e.g. borrow the car, someone to bake/decorate the cake, someone to make clothes, someone to do makeup, etc. If you have a florist or photographer in the family, so much the better!

Leopardlady

I got married just under a year ago and i paid £60 for flowers, my bouquet, three bridesmaids bouquets and all the button hole. I chose flowers that were in season and had a hand tied bouquet, the florist was very surprised that i chose such cheap flowers but they were stunning.

The photographer was a bit more expensive, but then the pictures do last a life time.

our wedding cake came from M&S and everyone loved it. They are great value and you can have plain sponge or fruit cake. We did two tiers of plain and the top one was fruit.

Good luck and have a look on the anniversary and wedding thread.

Miles16v

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm near Plymouth.

I've shown my other half this, and she backs my sentiment if not all of my ideas!

I'll check out the other board.

Photographers - I cant see how they justify charging so much. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm happy to change my mind, but from where I'm sat its not the hardest thing in the world to do, and overheads cant be that great with the advent of digital SLRs and third party printers. £600 a day for their time seems like a great deal for them! As for quality, I think that as long as you've got 5 or 6 really nice pictures that you can get framed or whatever then thats fine, the rest that they take cant be that bad surely!?

I'm happy to do some shopping around, and the local college for a photographer, flowers and a DJ are great ideas.

Just booked the registrar - he said it's about £380!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't believe it, they are only there for about an hour tops!

Savvy_Sue

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