Struggling to see where I could save money!

littleoldme_2

i got all my foam flowers and the stuff for doing table decorations from this site
https://www.globalflowers.co.uk
they are really just for trade but i just put in my name and they were sent .
the only thing i hate about them is you have to spend £50 before vat and delivery or you cant order. i noticed its where a lot of the foam flower sellers on ebay buy them from.

if any one has come across a site similar where you dont need a min spend please tell

cleomolly

Thank you ladies for all of your replies, advice and tips. I'm feeling a little more possetive about working within our budget now and have re-gigged my list to have the most important things ot us at the top and we will be working up from the bottom to see where we can cut back or save.

some fab tips above and I will certainly look through each and every one.

In regards to some of your questions - the cake which is to be made my the Best Mans mum, she will only charge us what it costs to make the cake and this includes decoration. I wanted flowers for the cake topper or something similar using flowers.

The rings we can't and won't budge on, they are perfect and made to match my engagement ring, they are from a local craft centre which is currently under threat of being shut down and there are lots of reasons we can't budge on rings, but I do agree may be buying cheaper rings for the wedding and replacing them at a later date on an annerversary or something may be a lovely idea.

Thank you again x

sunshinejoclaire

Personally i'd look at everything apart from your rings, after all your rings will be with you for a long time! Palladuim - nice choice we've got palladium rings, and ours came to about £500 too

Flowers - I'd look at silk rather than fresh.. so much cheaper, and I have just incorporated my wedding bouquet and the buttonholes that were leftover into the d!cor of a room we have just decorated in the house Gorgeous reminder!

Stationary - is way overpriced for such a small budget IMO.. you are spending nearly 10% of your budget on paper! How about making your own on the computer? I bought some cream card from Stationary Box, and a small guillotine and designed ours using MS Powerpoint lol. Find an image you love (I used a pink gerbera as that's what my flowers were!), and you can personalise the text. This worked particularly well for place setting as we could be creative with what we put, for instance I put 'Grandmother of the Bride' on my Nan's place setting which she loved! Many many people commented on how beautiful the invites were too.

Wishing tree - if you did the above, you could also print out matching cards to your stationary and have a beautiful vase (which you can get cheap in Ikea, or B+M Bargains) to put the cards in.

Make up - perhaps do your own? I priced it at the salon I use normally and it was about £40 for me. My inner skinflint (inner MSE?) went noooooooooooo, I could buy a whole new bag of make up for that!! So I treated myself to some new make up

B+G gifts - we didn't bother. Far too many other things to think about on the day. We waited till we were on honeymoon and got some gorgeous silver jewelry - but this was more because there was so much of it there, then because it was out honeymoon IYSWIM.

shellsuit

bubble96 wrote: »

exactly. Weve gone for the holiday inn deal - for the purpose of keeping costs down - yet still the organiser tried to insist that we must have at least 1 extra course and wine on the table as people will expect it?? Who sets all these expectations, and why do we feel we have to meet them? we should be allowed to do what we want - i want to celebrate with my friends - but i dont want everyone trolleyed on wine by 6pm. (sorry, i feel passionate about this as the meeting with the organiser is still a bit fresh!)

We're doing the holiday inn package too! We're going to book it in 2 weeks.





These are the buttonholes I got, they are so pretty and to look at in the flesh they look so real!

I got the double grooms and 10 normal for £17 posted.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300334063494&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Quote

Slightly off topic: It's stationery not stationary.:j

Yellowbug wrote: »

Gifts x11 120 - seems good to me, less than a tenner a go

mrsormrod

Photography 500 seems reasonable. i paid 396 for mine But would not recommend him tbh.
Rings 500 - this could be cut. there is some realy nice rings out there both mine and my husbands combined came to £200 including insurance
Cake 100 – made my friend
Stationary 200 – everything needed are you crafty? could you make it yourself or do you have a friend that could make it for you? My Invites and rsvp cards cost me about £30 and i had enough to make 100 off each
Gifts x11 120 I got some really nice gifts from ebay and argos for about £8 each shop around
Flowers 300 -again you could make them? if not think about what exactly you need. check out sarahs flowers. I got a bouquet 4 wrist corsages, a grooms button hole 2 normal button holes a wand for the flowergirl and my tiara for £120
Vases & candles 90 as others have said Ikea or the range
Suits 100
Wishing Tree 50 do you really need this?
Reception decoration 100 – to include table confetti, mints, match books and table trivia If your having favours i wouldnt bother with the mints and match books.
Children’s packs x10 100 these you could make up yourself for alot less than £10 per child. Bubbles, small colouring book and pack of crayons and some sweets will keep them just as happy
Favours 50 this seems fair
Hair, make-up, nails ect 200
Bride and groom gifts 100

freebiequennie

wedding invites - could this be done by making nice on computer to email out to everyone also environmentally friendly

or do they all have to match you could request lots of free sample invites many will come without sample stamped on them, then make the inserts and buy envelopes.

favours try and get for free email/write to as many companies as can think of to get freebies for favours such as perfume companies, chocolate companies, whisky and brandy companies and see what you get.

for childrens favour bags you could just get colouring book, pack crayons and bag of value midget gems and should only cost a couple of pounds for each one.


will the rings really cost that much my husband wanted an 18ct gold one but the jeweller advised 9ct as men tend to be harder on their hands and it would get bend to easily - mine was 18ct with 3 small diamonds set into the band esp made -mine was £240 and husbands was a patterned 9ct gold band and was £90- these came from a shop in jewellery quarter in birmingham.

shop around for hair and make up my matron of honour did her own

i refused to pay more than £50 each for my make up and hair inc trials and did find people through recommendations but did have some horrendous quotes.

in the end my hair was £15 trial she came to my house and then £30 on day and she came to hotel

make up was £18 trial and I went to her house as she lived 30mins from me and was £18 on day and she came to hotel.

def check out ebay, confetti and hitched sale boards I got lots bargain from them.

kbl

Some really good ideas here, am married 16 yrs myself so long past that stage, my friends getting married next yr will direct her to this thread. One thing she is doing is checking out landybridal.com, it's a site that was recommended to her by her aunt, might be worth a look, hth

MsChazzer

With flowers, I had wrist corsages for my bridesmaids rather than bouquets, worked out much cheaper.

For the kids I wouldn't do an individual pack, just get a load of drawing paper and crayons, maybe some bubbles. The adults will probably join in too!

We also didn't give each other presents, the day was amazing enough!

cleomolly

Thank you ladies for all your advice again above. some really good tips and I'm certainly getting prices down from all the help and advice given.

Quote - the word stationary can be spelt either way I beleive !!!