Help! What should be our wedding budget (small) and general wedding plans?

itsallinthemind

itsallinthemind wrote: »

A friend of mine had the typical christian wedding, harps, country house, the works, long lost relatives and someone she met on a bus where there it seemed, £33k, it lasted 3 months before they separated. All credit in her name and she will be paying it for years and years

I meant £13k, can you imagine having £33k round your neck :eek:

JBD

itsallinthemind wrote: »

I meant £13k, can you imagine having £33k round your neck :eek:

There are some people who spend £30+ on their wedding day. Hopefully, for their sakes this is savings rather than credit!

ajt85

As mentioned above you really need to decide what is important to you, it sounds like you would like real friends and family to be there but are not fussed about it being a traditional wedding, which gives you an advantage as alot of money can be saved by not having the norm.

venue-
halls, social clubs, friends/familys with decent sized gardens all great places to hold a wedding and where you could hold your ceromony too saving you hundreds (registra and paper work norm about £250ish) if can do it in friends/familys gardens ask friends for gazebos or look at hiring unlined marquee and borrowing tables can cover them cheaply so won't matter if dont all match.

food-
get family and friends to help recently had my sons christening and had quiet a few people so me and family cooked a buffet style with a bit of everything had huge amount of food with stuff left but everyone full and completmenting us on how good it was cost around £100 in total but would have easily served around 100.
alternativley look for buffetsor trainee caterers who will prob do it for cost for being able to add to portfolio.

Photography-
post on photography websites some professionals may specialize in say protraits and want to move to weddings and need work to start portfolio so are willing to reduce or offer free.
Also photography students great idea as most would love to add to portfolio.
Put discs on tables asking friends to downloads pics of your day and send to you great way to get a real feel for the day and marginal cost.
disposable cameras on tables.
Do the same for video.

Flowers-
grow your own or if you have a green fingered friend as them to do it as their wedding gift saves loads then just look on web for ideas on styles and how to or even as say a hen do go on flower arranging course.

dress-
dependant on what you want, proper wedding dress of something more informal?
tradtional wedding dress high street stores or catalogues for simple wedding dresses, ebay for used but designer, charity shop such as oxfam have special wedding stores which wedding deginers in some cases donate dresses which have just been worn on the catwalks or as the try on dress in store for in most cases 70% off. also sites like preloved are good .

grooms outfit-
hire if you want more classic style or if not just a nice high street suit that he could wear again that way every if it costs a little more the overall wear he will get will negate this.

honeymoon- you seem like you want this to be your main treat as you have not been away for a while (understand as have not every been away with my partner and wont being able to have honeymoon as budget and babies wont allow)
i would look at doing somthing last min say after the actual day this way you can have a great break at a much more affordable price but still memorable for all the right reasons.

hope this helped.

tinkwings

HI

We got married at the reg office in October with about 20ish friends and family my boss drove me in his car and my dress was from Debenhams with 70% off bargin from £120 down to £36.

We then went back to our house & had food from M & S food to go I made the wedding cake and had photos done by a friend who did photography at uni. It was the best day ever.

We are having a blessing on April 10th in celebration of our marriage and for all those who were not invited to the actual wedding.

We are having a church blessing my dress is from coast then afternoon tea in a village hall I have been busy making bunting !!!

My friend is decorating our cake and we have found a local lady who makes cup cakes.

As a village hall we are getting our own wine got 3 bottles for a £5 & bubbly £4.35 from aldi

The buffett is £4.25 a head for afternoon tea!

We have 4 hours to decorate the hall on the Friday so have roped in friends & family to help.

Have found a great website where you can do a wedding site for FREE!

Here is mine
http://www.momentville.com/tomkinspope

Good Luck. At the end of the day a wedding is about YOU & OH not about feeding and paying for others!

itsallinthemind

JBD wrote: »

There are some people who spend £30+ on their wedding day. Hopefully, for their sakes this is savings rather than credit!

Oh yes, I once billed a couple £14k for food. Well, Daddy anyway :rotfl:

onlyroz

It is certainly possible to get married for less than £500, if that's what you want. The cheapest option is to have a registry office wedding, wear something nice that you already own, and then have a meal down the pub afterwards with a small group of friends.

margaretclare

We were married in our local Methodist Church, and, as we're church members, there was no charge for the actual ceremony.

We had to 'register our intention to marry' at the local registrar's, this cost us £30 each (2002). Friends at church played a music CD. The lady who does the church flowers did them for our wedding.

18 of us sat down to lunch at a local pub/restaurant.

We could in fact have been married in church with just us, the minister and 2 friends as witnesses, and that would have been the cheapest option of all, only the registrar's fees of £30 x 2.

I'm amazed that people have advised you not to spend a lot and yet 'fly to Vegas'! It may be cheap when you get there (cheap relative to what?), but long transatlantic flights are not necessarily the cheapest option.

Having said that, some register offices are in lovely buildings. The best I've seen so far is the historic Corn Exchange, Liverpool.