£4K Wedding Budget!!

Bluebelle72

Hi all! I'm new to this board, I'm due to be made an honest woman on 26th June 2010! Yay! At last! I'm gonna have my day!! LOL Thing is, we have a budget of about £4k if not less, It's a reg office job and a late wedding at 3pm, which is costing £103.50, the venue is our local working mans club which has a nice BIG room with a stage for the disco, this will be £120. My dress I will be purchasing from Landy Bridal for around £195 I'll be buying my daughters bridesmaid dress from there too at around £75 3 other bridesmaids are paying for their own dresses. My lovely Grooms suit will be hired at £89 as will the best mans. I am yet to find a nice little suit for my little one who will be approaching 3 when we marry. The catering is still being discussed, we are hoping for either a sit down meal or sit down buffet for the ceremony guests, we have been quoted £5.20 er head by our local pub which does carverys, but we still may have the sit down buffet at the reception venue yet. Then the evening guests will be having a buffet, which I have so far been quoted £5.95 per head for 180 guests. I'll be buying our wedding cake from either Tesco or Asda and decorating myself with ribbon and flowers, also I'll buy an extra one so the cake will go further. In theory most of my budget has gone lol, I really need to find VERY cheap wedding car, and VERY cheap invitations. I'm thinking of getting my bouquet, bridesmaids, button holes etc from ebay there are sellers that do lovely silk flower bouquets at around £25 for the bride. Then there's the disco, mmmm who to pick lol!! Wow I tell you what! I never thought arranging a wedding could be so blooming stressful!! We'll be asking for donations to the honeymoon instead of gifts as we've been living together for 5 years, and boy will we need the break after all this lol. Any suggestions for anything at all to cut costs would be greatly appreciated. And Congratulations to all Brides/Grooms to be!
XXX

gettingthereslowly

Hi Bluebelle,

Congrats on your forthcoming wedding and goodluck. I'm getting married in 8 wks time :eek: and have done this on a 4K budget easily.

The best advise that I can give is to spend the money on what you and future h2b feel are important.

We have a sit down meal and buffet for the evening but have kept guest levels down to keep the costs down. I made my own invites (day and night), table numbers and place cards for £25 all in. One big box of card and a few hole punches and ribbon get you far

We have cheap vase and candle centre pieces (cost about £2 each) and cheap favours via ebay. No ballons or anything that it not going to make the day any better.

Oh and the biggest piece of advise - You will have loads of people telling you what you need and what they think you must have but be strong and only have what YOU WANT. Please or offend I have stood my ground because its our money not theirs. The actual wedding is the impotant part - everything else is just a bonus!!!!

Good luck and enjoy xxx

Evansangel

Hiya!
Im getting married June 2010 to The 5th.

Our budget is £5k, but we're doing similar to you, and having a later wedding at 3:30pm.
I dont know how to organise the day though, lol.

I had a go at making my own bouquet, and for my first atempt it went really well, so i may do that, and do smaller ones for my bridesmaids.
Im also going to learn how to make buttonholes and flower arrangments.

Do you know how to make your own invites? If not try Vista Print, or ooprint.com
For 40 invites its £38ish. Depending on what one you choose.
And you can edit them to your liking

And for the wedding car, i've hear taxi companys have drivers with v. nice cars, if you call them and say its for your wedding they might even decorate it for you

xxx

Bluebelle72

I know what you mean about people muscling in and telling you what you need to have! lol Out of the 4 bridesmaids I only chose 1, my daughter, the others muscled in so I said that if they wanted to be bridesmaids they would have to buy their own dress lol. I'm trying to cut corners and do it as cheaply as poss, thing is my OH has been married before, and it was the works! Church wedding, horse and carriage etc, so I sort of feel as though I'm competing sometimes. I know what I want, but i know I can't have it all, I just want a beautiful day and some nice comments from guests at the end of it. Another thing is hotos OMG they are so pricey, all I could do with is a few nice modern hotos for display and album purposes i don't mind about the rest. A friend of mine got married last year and she aid £150 for her photographer and got photos of her and hubby with random people in the background caught in a freeze position as they were running by!! He took stupid random photos of guests eating, chatting etc Now I know I can't afford to pay expensive but I also want good quality, I feel like i'm becoming a snob lol xx

Horace

Shoequeen do you have permission to advertise on here? Forum rules say not because it clearly states at the top of the forum that you cannot post links for personal gain except in the referrers thread and then always declare any interest.

kelda_shelton

Thats what I thought Horace - every single post she's made is about her shoes - I've sent an email to the abuse email at the top of the page.

crldnll

snap! I'm getting married June 26th 2010 too! We're also trying to do it for a similar budget.. we wanted to a sit down meal, so opted for a cheaper version, and are having a hog roast at £5 per head. I would agree with what other people said about invitations, I am attempting to make my own.. I made my own save the date cards which cost next to nothing. As for photographers.. I know you want good quality, but it might be worth contacting your local college for students doing a photography course, or even some local photography clubs.

Good luck with all of your wedding planning!

debs2327

hi ya you wedding sounds very similar to mine but ours is a budget of £2500 and everything is nearly done and has came up to £2300 , ours is too reg office and workmens club big room , bridesmaids dresses was ebay , made all flowers myself cake my mil is making , as is she doing the buffet we are getting married at 2pm and we`ll just carry the reception on throughout the night and just keep topping the buffet up as and when , most of my stuff is from ebay and i have 7 bridesmaids 5 pageboys which we are buying there suits from a local kids shop £25 each but ebay has some shops with kids suits that are cheap , youve got an ideal time to buy things from the sales with your wedding being june next yr as theres the sales after summer this yr and christmas sales then you will just catch sales before your wedding , so should get some good bargins if you look ,
where abouts are you from ?

Bluebelle72

crldnll wrote: »

snap! I'm getting married June 26th 2010 too! We're also trying to do it for a similar budget.. we wanted to a sit down meal, so opted for a cheaper version, and are having a hog roast at £5 per head. I would agree with what other people said about invitations, I am attempting to make my own.. I made my own save the date cards which cost next to nothing. As for photographers.. I know you want good quality, but it might be worth contacting your local college for students doing a photography course, or even some local photography clubs.

Good luck with all of your wedding planning!

Cool a wedding twin lol!! A hog roast would be fab but my OH doesn't eat pork only meat he eats is chicken breast off the bone no skin lmao bloody pest!! I am absolutely rubbish at making things and have never made anythin worth while lol so i'm trying to fall on a bargain somewhere for the invitations.
Debs you're right about the sales lol that's what I was waiting for and I particularly love Next for the little one and love their sales. I'm in Cannock, staffordshire.
XXX

xJayJayx

congratulations hun!

Ebay - flowers, buttonholes, decorations, place setting cards, veils, tiaras.. you name it! all very very cheap and brand new!

card factory (if you have one nearby) - £1.49 for 10 evening or 10 wedding invites ( a lot cheaper than the leading card shops) very pretty.

Perhaps if your H2B doesn't like pork you could have a spitroast? or a bbq even. If you have someone handy to do your food, a costco membership is a handy thing to have and it could work out much cheaper to do it yourself!

Bluebelle72

Hi JayJay congratulations yourself hun! I think we do have a card factory in town, i'll have a look when i get chance. My mom has a card for Macro, which I hadn't thought of til you mentioned costco thanks very much hun.