Wedding on a budget!

mrsburton2be

Me and my fiance are desperately trying to create a perfect wedding on a really tight budget. We got engaged at Christmas and set the date immediately (22nd May 2010). We met our local vicar and started brainstorming money saving ideas for the wedding!

We started on this very site and got the brilliant idea of sending save the dates and saw that someone had posted that they got magnets from Vistaprint - our guests loved these and I get so excited looking at the one on my fridge everyday!
My dress is £495, which isn't the cheapest but was most definately not the most expensive! I chose a Pure Bridal dress called Fiona which I can't wait to wear (but can't find a picture on the internet of it!)
We got the Groom, Best Man and Usher's suits for £69 each in BHS which included the shirt and shoes and a tie but we have bought them from somewhere else so they match our colour scheme. I got an additional discount as I opened a BHS card and went on a cardholders evening so saved another 20%. Cut the card up afterwards! Bargin!
My fiance's brother in law has a nice Audi so he will be driving me to the church and my uncle has offered to do our photography (little bit worried about this as I want them to look amazing!).

We originally were going to hold the reception in the church hall next to the church, but when we started working out numbers and how much it would cost to feed 150 people a buffet made by ourselves and supply enough drink to keep them all going - it was getting very expensive and stressful! So we strated looking at alternative venues for the reception with a buffet meal instead of the traditional sit down meal. We have found a lovely function room right opposite the beach which is pricier than we had hoped but has taken all the stress away from us which we felt was quite important!
I have now hit a wall with money and the final bits we need to organise - I need some help!

-The cake we are planning on serving as a desert so I would like it to be a bit more exciting than fruit cake? I was considering asking my Mum and Dad to make it to get them a bit more involved and because to buy one is stupidly expensive!

-The favours, I haven't a clue where to start. I really like the flower seed idea or something like that but I have 150 guests and no budget really for this? I also wanted to get like a goody bag for about 30 children that will be there to keep them occupied.

-The Flowers, I would really love to have ivory/cream gerberas for my bouquet but don't want to pay florist prices for this. My flowergirls need a small posy as well and I would like the men to have gerbera button holes. Also what are the ladies corsages meant to look like, I've not been to a wedding where the mums are wearing anything other than buttonholes?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!
I hope the few bits I have organised on a shoestring will help out some one planning their wedding!
Also if there are any brides getting married in May next year or even on May 22nd next year, I would love to know how your plans are going!

nat82

Have you had a look at M&S for your wedding cake? You can get 3 tiers for under £100 and can decorate it your own way with flowers etc.

Have you considered artificial flowers? I got mine from Sarah's Flowers and can't recommend them highly enough. They have cream Gerbera's and I'm sure they'll make you up something you had in mind if you contact them. See here. You can either keep them as a keepsake or sell them on and make some money back. This is what I plan to do with mine.

You can probably pick up party bag fillers from Asda or Poundland for the kids.

HTH!

debs2327

hi ya our wedding is on a low budget too and ive managed to get a lot of stuff on ebay and make lots of stuff myself as ppl will be fed up with me saying lol my flowers done all by me and to say myself they look stuning , how about buying them and doing them yourself if you dont mind artificial ones that way they can keep them , its quite easy to do a little flowergirl posy , a corsage is just a more posh buttonhole really it maybe has a bit more flower and foliage ,

about the cake do you know any1 who makes christmas cakes as you could ask them to make you a few cakes and use them for your cake and ice them and decorate them to your liking ( we are having mil do ours as she makes christmas cake for all family )

favours ive got little pillow boxes in our colour scheme from ebay very cheap and im wrapping mints impereals in them for men and have organza circles with ribbon already through so its like a drwa string bag for women im just putting chocolates in not sure yet but was from ebay again very cheap

i agree with last post £shop for kids bags as im going to do this for ours and thats where i automatically thought of xx

tartantotty

re the favours? are you any good at crafting? If you look at the main thread that this one is in (special occasions etc) they have really good ideas for making wee pouches from paper and card - they are called sour cream containers or something random like that!! You could get a job lot of seeds and then print on the paper for the pouches with a wee pic and instructions or something, so should be fairly cheap to do.

Hope that makes sense, you can tell its monday!

If you are stuck for the pouches - rainmac and rustyflange are really keen crafters and would be able to help more!!

Loonytoons

Sorry i can't be of more help but i've only just started planning so at present am getting more from this site than i'm giving back I am getting married next year though so it will be good to see how our plans are going as time goes on :j

lindaatno9

I'd get rid of the favours. They are the sort of thing that either gets left on the table when supplied, or not given a second thought if not. If you really don't need them, discard them and save a few quid!!

barneyworld

Have you thought about having Sky lanterns as a finale to the wedding instead of fireworks??

There make a stunning alternative and are really cheap compared to fireworks.

Google - 'the sky lantern experience' for a good example.

Cheers
Barney

MsChazzer

I'm with Linda, don't bother if you can't afford them, it's just a waste. We got a pack of 24 wedding cake mini bubbles from Paperchase as a bit of fun, so glad we didn't get one for each guest as although people liked them, most of them ended back up in the box of stuff our venue returned to us.

kelda_shelton

barneyworld wrote: »

Have you thought about having Sky lanterns as a finale to the wedding instead of fireworks??

There make a stunning alternative and are really cheap compared to fireworks.

Google - 'the sky lantern experience' for a good example.

Cheers
Barney

spam!?

Although I do like the idea odf skty lanters - i wont be having them unless I win won of the onluine competitions for them!! :P

mookybargirl

Agree with a few others on favours. They're not expected, so if they're not in the budget, don't worry about them. I want something edible as my favours, but I'll wait til a few months before and see what I can get in special offer (March wedding, so not too far behind xmas).

As nat said, M&S do some great cakes and these don't have do be fruit. They have sponge ones to choose from too. I think Costco still sell the "big slab" carrot cakes and they're about £10-£15 if you fancy something really different.

Is your dress on one of these pages maybe?
http://www.pure-bridal.co.uk/08pure_gallery01.html
http://www.ktbridal.co.uk/purebridal.htm

EDIT - This dress is called Louise....
http://www.bridal-suite.co.uk/images/pb80499_fs.jpg

jodie3579

I got my cake from Waitrose. I got wedding cup cakes and a heart shaped cake to cut for 60 cup cakes and the heart shaped to cut it cost a total of £120 they are really nice looking to and they have lots of different designs to choose from. The cup cakes are £12.50 for 12 and the heart shaped was about £35.