A Money Saving Wedding - A challenge

b_allcott1976

£1200? Thats amazing how are you doing it? There are some things that i dont mind paying the money for etc, but if i can save drastic costs elsewhere i am all ears.

06/10/2009 - Wedding Saving £365.00 Woo Hoo!

b4be

no harm but i dont think having a wedding for £18,000 can be seen as a chalenge or money saving , thats an ample buget compared to alot on the forum on, ive got a medium buget of 7,000 all in , but aiming for alot less doing stuff myself , fingers crossed , and i know there alot doing it for alot lot less , i spent 2,500 on my first wedding 14yrs ago , and that was just using everything local to me , no internet bargains then , if i had your buget i would call that splashing out

foxxymynx

We're not having a huge party afterwards, just dinner at our favourite restaurant with our nearest and dearest, using a photographer who is just starting with weddings (but I've seen his work and it's definately what we want!) dress was £200, £40 for cake, invitations and favours we're doing ourselves, also the flowers (I did SILs flowers too!), not getting a wedding car, but having Dad drive me in his (it's less than a mile and I begrudge paying a silly amount of money for a car for less than a mile!) FIL is paying for us for a hotel that night. My tiara was £12 on ebay, new. Granted we already have our rings, but combined they weren't much more than £100 inc engraving, and there's no legal fees cause we're already legally married, but if I remember right, it was just shy of £100 for the legal fees.

The biggest saving though is probably that we're not having a huge party afterwards (cause that's not what we want!) and only 30 guests.

Seriously, if you know what you want, you can do it alot cheaper than you think, so long as you don't want a set package at a specific kind of venue.

Leylauk

Good luck with your challenge - I am reading it with interest

I dont know if the rings are something that are especially important to you but we paid £105 for both of our wedding bands (engraved) from http://www.johngreeddesign.co.uk/ as our rings are titanium. IMO they look just like platinum though but are lighter weight. It is certainly worth considering. I have even seen sites where you can design your own rings with coloured stones in for a hundred or so.

We saved other things by making invites, table plan etc.
Buying silk flowers from Ebay (Flowers by Sara) which were fab, very real looking and now decorating my house as a nice reminder.
Bridesmaid dresses from Ebay (Chinese made to measure designs) for £65 each.
Veil (brand new from Ebay £25) and accessories (tiara £4.50 and shoes £20 from Ebay)
Honeymoon - Tesco Clubcard deals vouchers

Good luck!

strawberries1

Good info. I'll PM you for details of the BM dresses Leylauk. Ta!

Any info on how to get decoration n flowers for cheaper?

SkyKitty

For cheaper decorations I would check what your venue has. I knew I wanted dried rose buds and tea lights on our tables, and it turned out the venue already has loads of tea lights and plain holders so that saved us some money. They may have vases etc...

tizhimi

Challenge? What challenge? You could go pay "book" prices and still have change for that amount, they'll see you coming! A Moneysaving Wedding is doing it for a grand, scrimping and saving and the "mend and make do" attitude, getting a friend to make the cake, a friend to take the photos, your mum to do the catering, your sister to do your flowers etc... I actually think its quite insulting to go on a moneysaving website and ask about a 18k wedding, some people don't earn that a year. Perhaps you are better off on a traditional wedding website for people that can afford to conform and waste that sort of stupid amount of money.

I would suggest halving the budget to a mere 9k, I am sure you can struggle on and get by! You will enjoy the day just as much doing it for 1k if you are marrying for the right reasons rather than all the pomp and ceremony.

frannyann

To be fair to OP he hasn't got 18k, he is using the moneysaving tips to try and make 18k through match betting etc. He has just done a rough budget and thought thats how much he needs to raise. He also has been taking on the tips mentioned. He clearly didn't how cheap a wedding 'could' be done in his OP.

frannyann

My tip would be to look at Palladium rings, its just got its hallmark, is harder than any other precious metal, looks like Platinum yet if you shop around is about quarter of the price. Watch out for the jewellers who have hiked up the price, they will have bought at 'non-hallmarked' prices. Our rings have cost £400, compared to £1250 for the same in Platinum.

Leylauk

frannyann wrote: »

To be fair to OP he hasn't got 18k, he is using the moneysaving tips to try and make 18k through match betting etc. He has just done a rough budget and thought thats how much he needs to raise. He also has been taking on the tips mentioned. He clearly didn't how cheap a wedding 'could' be done in his OP.

I agree. I think that anyone with a wedding of any budget should be welcome on the board as long as they are interested in the tips and giving back to the board too.

I am interested in the challenge of whether he can raise all of the money for the wedding by doing things like matched betting as my hubby is into all of that stuff too.:D

The budget on our wedding wasnt the cheapest ever but we did prioritise stuff that was important to us and made lots of things ourselves to make it more personal. We came in well under what we originally estimated that we would have to save by doing this and had a great day. I dont think it matters what the budget is as long as the b&g are happy.