Live on £4,000 for a year - 2009, Part 4

bails

Thanks for all the support peeps, I appreciate it.
My Mum is making the wedding cake though, how can M&S be cheaper?

Lynda, your budget is v impressive :T £10 for the photographer though?! And your outfit is v cheap too

Okay, so apologies for 'hijacking' the thread briefly but this is most definitely a frugalising question - some people wouldn't bat an eyelid at this budget but you guys understand why I'm horrified!! I'm going to be brave and post my budget as it stands, with as much detail so you can offer advice. I do prefer to budget top end so I can reduce it, but still:

venue £4,000 (this is BEST case scenario if we go down this route :eek:) My DREAM wedding is a castle in Scotland Nyk but alas...
land £1,500 we've been quoted £1900 so far, utterly ridiculous! Field behind my parents is possibly free but OH isn't keen as it's 30 mins from the ceremony. (He hasn't seen the budget yet though!!)
flowers £150 maybe a little cheaper; godmother arranging. Would like to have grown my own but away...Will use greenery/as much as possible from our gardens
food - day £700 £5.83 a head
food - evening £300
dress £1,000 - this includes whole outfit; obviously hoping to find something much cheaper. One of my priorities
bridesmaids £300 3 bridesmaids, Mum making the dresses, approx £100 for material so could be less?
men £500 there are LOTS of them! may wear own suits?
rings £600 no idea about this really - Lynda's are £80, another friend's on here are 2k!
transport £0 - Dad's car for OH, no idea for me! Don't know where venue is yet so difficult to say
ceremony £300 may need to hire land for this - v special place to us, to do with my illness and recovery. If we can't get married there, well, can just get married anywhere I guess!
legal £150 registry and something to wear, maybe? Jeans?:rotfl:
stationery £150 hoping to reduce this, making myself but some extra expense sending from here (emailing where I can)
drinks £500 pure guess - Lynda's budget is worrying me here...
entertainment £500 ditto above!
cake £100 Mum making, prob less than this
Archie outfit £50 my little nephew - no idea how much these things cost (sneakily hoping he will already have an outfit from my SiL's sister's wedding the week before! )
sculptures £200 - for the venue/tables, made by OH. Sell on afterwards?
photographer £1,000 - maybe around the £600 mark if I'm lucky. A priority for me
decorations £200 - for marquee. Some from out here if poss.
TOTAL £12,200

Okay, bring it on...:o

bails

And, despite what I've just posted, I completely agree with SM about enjoying life in the present and not always working/saving for the future. I struggle with my parents on this one all time - I'm desperate for them to enjoy the money they've worked SO hard to accumulate; the thing is, once a frugaller, always a frugaller eh? Every so often they manage it, which makes me really happy :j I'm lucky in that, although work is very consuming, I do love my job so it is very much part of my quality of life. And luckily it can help to pay for ridiculous things like weddings! However, I don't actually have that job yet so...

ps PM box has space now...

cw18

bails - I appreciate my wedding was just over 17 years ago (so prices are bound to have gone up a tad), but as best I recall some of our items came in at around

rings - wedding band each (gold with a pattern impressed around the edges) £150
cars - we used a local taxi firm (they have white cars for the bridal party)
my dress - £120. That was from a bridal shop and including having it turned up a touch. My Dad (bless him) couldn't believe this was so cheap, and kept insisting I could spend more than that (though not the £1k+ some friends had spent!!!). However I only wanted a simple one, and found the exact thing I wanted at the first bridal fair I attended
bridesmaids dresses - think the patterns probably cost more than the fabric (I made them). 2 dresses, one for an adult, one for my daughter (then almost 8) - think it came in at around £60 (plus shoes)
page boy outfits - for my boys aged 1 and 3.5. Think patterns and fabric cost me around £30. Also needed new shoes, but theirs were practical for use afterwards, so didn't come out of wedding budgets.

photographer was the one thing I refused to compromise on too..... think that was £200-ish to have the photos taken, then the cost of the album which was another £1k or so (plus 8x10 framed prints for my parents and his parents, and one unframed for a very close family friend) :eek:



oh! and our reception was a good 20-25 minute drive from the ceremony. I've also done 30 mins between the two locations for other peoples weddings, so the distance to your 'possibly free' location wouldn't worry me at all !!

lyndasharp

OK, a few comments....

bails wrote: »

Thanks for all the support peeps, I appreciate it.
My Mum is making the wedding cake though, how can M&S be cheaper?

Lynda, your budget is v impressive :T £10 for the photographer though?! And your outfit is v cheap too

Yay for ebay. My dress cost £80 for the wedding dress and £20 for my change of dress for the evening do. Hoping to also get a wrap for £5 - it ends today!

As I have several conservation trained friends, we've all had lots of photography training to go with it though mainly for recording object condition etc! I've got two of them to do the photos and send them to me on a CD, so we'll just then get printed copies for relatives and for ourselves. £10 is to buy them a thank you present!

Okay, so apologies for 'hijacking' the thread briefly but this is most definitely a frugalising question - some people wouldn't bat an eyelid at this budget but you guys understand why I'm horrified!! I'm going to be brave and post my budget as it stands, with as much detail so you can offer advice. I do prefer to budget top end so I can reduce it, but still:

venue £4,000 (this is BEST case scenario if we go down this route :eek:) My DREAM wedding is a castle in Scotland Nyk but alas...
Eek - our venue is free if we buy their catering, which makes a huge difference. We're actually going for the most expensive meal option - we'd shave about £1500 off the cost if we went for a buffet.

land £1,500 we've been quoted £1900 so far, utterly ridiculous! Field behind my parents is possibly free but OH isn't keen as it's 30 mins from the ceremony. (He hasn't seen the budget yet though!!)
flowers £150 maybe a little cheaper; godmother arranging. Would like to have grown my own but away...Will use greenery/as much as possible from our gardens
We got ours much cheaper online and did our own arranging, though fresh flowers may be more difficult. Maybe somewhere like Tesc0 for bunches of flowers that you can then arrange nicely?

food - day £700 £5.83 a head
food - evening £300
dress £1,000 - this includes whole outfit; obviously hoping to find something much cheaper. One of my priorities
bridesmaids £300 3 bridesmaids, Mum making the dresses, approx £100 for material so could be less?
I had 4 bridesmaids dresses made to measure in Hong Kong for £35 a dress including postage and a wrap each... Though appreciate they will be more special if your Mum makes them!

men £500 there are LOTS of them! may wear own suits?
Just sort out your OH, everyone else can get their own
rings £600 no idea about this really - Lynda's are £80, another friend's on here are 2k!
Ebay again - managed to find matching second hand rings from different sellers in exactly the right sizes. I know some people don't like the second hand route - if we'd bought new we were looking at £200ish.
transport £0 - Dad's car for OH, no idea for me! Don't know where venue is yet so difficult to say
ceremony £300 may need to hire land for this - v special place to us, to do with my illness and recovery. If we can't get married there, well, can just get married anywhere I guess!
legal £150 registry and something to wear, maybe? Jeans?:rotfl:
stationery £150 hoping to reduce this, making myself but some extra expense sending from here (emailing where I can)
Made our own invites, bought a huge stack of card from a local shop for £5 and printed them. Had lots of comments about how nice they look, and it meant we got something really personal. Only cost £20ish? with postage so i'm sure you can manage this much cheaper.

drinks £500 pure guess - Lynda's budget is worrying me here...
£2.50 a head for sherry/orange juice plus VAT, £13.50 a bottle for wine, we're providing the toast drinks at £150ish.

entertainment £500 ditto above!
We had a very expensive band, if you're having a disco it should be cheaper!
cake £100 Mum making, prob less than this
Archie outfit £50 my little nephew - no idea how much these things cost (sneakily hoping he will already have an outfit from my SiL's sister's wedding the week before! )
Good plan
sculptures £200 - for the venue/tables, made by OH. Sell on afterwards?
photographer £1,000 - maybe around the £600 mark if I'm lucky. A priority for me
decorations £200 - for marquee. Some from out here if poss.
Our venue provides the table decorations
TOTAL £12,200

Okay, bring it on...:o

cheerfulness4

My SIL got a beautiful wedding dress SHand for £50. My own cost less than £20 for the fabric (a real bargain) and was gorgeous when mum had finished making it.

I guess we all will make our plans according to what is most important to us individually. I went the route of lynda and had a friend offer to do our photography for us as a wedding gift.
We scaled down the wedding list as we both felt strongly that we didn't want either set of parents feeling the need to contribute a lot of money.

I noticed the other day on these boards that one lass was getting married and needed a cheap wedding and several girls on here were offering to lend or give her their wedding dresses. Believe they were posting piccies for her to select from. How sweet was that?!

HH62

Hope everyone's ok.
I'm astonished how expensive a wedding can be these days,even with careful budget planning!

NSD for me today :j
I do need to have a trip to the farm shop but I'm going tomorrow so today will be a spend free zone.
Feeling quite positive today for the first time in ages, now I feel I'm getting control of the finances again.

grandma247

Bails Just a few thoughts from my daughters wedding last month.
Flowers including buttonholes. They were bought for £60 total at a local market and she made them herself with the help of oh's niece.
Dresses were bought from ebay and I don't think she paid more than £200 total and that included a dress and sparkly shoes for her little girl and a dress and shoes for her sisters baby girl.
Ties for the main men were very reasonable and all those were asked to wear a white shirt so they looked good together. They all wore their own suits.
Invitations she made herself so that was the cost of materials and they were very pretty.
Drinks everyone bought their own. But that would depend on your venue I suppose as they had theirs in a pub function room.
Entertainment just a DJ in the evening. Pre chosen music. Essential unless you like headbanging stuff.
Sculptures ?
Decorations you should be able to get some really nice ones cheaply while you are away. They seem to know how to do this abroad.
Distance DD hired a mini bus to take some of us to the reception which was in the next town. We paid for one between us to get to the ceremony and home after it was all over. It meant my hubby could have a drink and the families that had no car could get there so we shared the cost.
Will send pm in a mo.

boring_beige

MooLoo - i'm not sure how many projects you use in each book you buy but i request books from the library (about 60p) and keep photocopies (use laptop and scanner) of the projects/pages that i think i might use. I'm not sure about croft mill as i recieved a catalogue from them yesterday for the first time in a long time.

I won't be hitting my target but will try and limit my overspend. i am trying to get into good habits for next year. I plan to read/post more on here for a start.

bails

Thankyou everyone, it's been really helpful to have your input. I've been thinking about it today as I've been walking round and the most important thing is that I am marrying the man I love with all my heart. That's what this day is about :smileyhea

I know it's the venue that's crippling everything Lynda :rolleyes: We'll need to have a long think about this... It was so helpful to hear your advice on individual things, and some reassurances that things will cost less. We'll have a paying bar I think (but cost prices) so need drinks for the meal, toast and post-ceremony. I have no problem with second-hand! Great result with your dress too; Ebay here I come! Flowers will be from local market so looks like that will be cheaper than I've budgeted, and the invites too - I want to use one of my own photos to make it special but got good quality photo paper from a £ shop last year so hoping to do this again. I want to send save the dates from here so will email everyone I possibly can and just send postcards to the rest. We're planning on a ceilidh so need to look into costs for that.

I like the idea of some sort of 'link' between the men Grandma, and this would save us lots :T I just need to check whether OH's ushers all actually have suits :rotfl:

I think the drive wouldn't be such a problem - thanks for your reassurance CW - as everyone would be driving from all over the country to us anyway. Our friends will camp with us and there should be some nice places to stay nearby, probably in Wells.

I also had a lovely long chat with my dad (he's getting very good at chatting ) and he's even been looking at the wedding dress pics and told me how much he liked my favourite one :T He also said we'd 'work it out' about the wedding costs, but I have no intention whatsoever of accepting any more than they've already very generously offered.

Now just waiting for an email back from my bro to tell me how much he spent on his wedding, so I can feel much better :rotfl:

Frugaldom

boring_beige wrote: »

MooLoo - i'm not sure how many projects you use in each book you buy but i request books from the library (about 60p) and keep photocopies (use laptop and scanner) of the projects/pages that i think i might use.

Ummm.... I'll pretend not to see this as it's illegal in my line of work. :eek::o

Skint Lynne, we used to have barndances on a regular basis when I was younger (I grew up on a farm) and they were brilliant! Can't ever vouch for any barn being water tight and they are fairly breezy, to say the least, by design. Can't say I've ever heard of anyone risking having a wedding reception in one, either, as the catering aspect is a big issue, especially with all the current H&S legislation. Back then, we really didn't care how or where the food was cooked, it was just slapped on the BBQ and the trestle tables were piled up buffet style inside the barns whilst the cattle & horses were all shut out in the fields. :rotfl:And yes, we wore our wellies.

For wedding venues, this is our local 'big castle' wedding venue and they have other discounts available for National Trust members We love going here for a day out, it's where they have those spectacular grape vines. Living where we do, it's not always possible to have a church wedding and then the reception venue within 20 miles or whatever. We stayed fairly local for DD's wedding but we hired a bus (£200) for shipping the guests around. Church and venue were about 15 miles apart, I'd reckon.