My wedding plans, any ideas appreciated

andycarmi

black-saturn wrote:

He told his parents about our wedding last night and the first thing they said (knowing I like wearing black) was "shes not wearing black like the last one is she?" so I think thats out of the question. I wish I could though.

Now Black wedding dress is not my cup of tea! but I was passing a church last year and there was a bride in black dress and 5/6 bridesmaids in pure white dress! All the Men had black/white suits and the guests were in black and white dress too! It looked amazing!

Rachie_B

i love black and white colour scheme

also black and hot pink

saliekat

black-saturn wrote:

My Dress - Theres no way I could walk down the isle in a normal wedding dress as I think they look awful and I'm an old goth too. So I have decided on this one in the red - http://www.fairygothmother.co.uk/sm-16.htm Does anyone know where I can get it or one just like it cheaper?

Intendeds suit - Any ideas?

Mini reception and food - Hoping parents will sort this out.

Way of getting to wedding and party - Any ideas?

Cake - Any ideas? Please dont suggest making my own because it would be a disaster.

Bridesmaids - 3 bridesmaids. One of 18, one of 14 one of 12 wearing white dresses - ebay?

Flowers - Red to match my dress. Any ideas? There are some nice artificial roses on ebay.

Rings - Ebay?

Video of the wedding - I'll lend someone my camcorder.

Photos of the wedding - Planning on giving a few of the guests a disposable camera to capture it for us.

Have I missed anything?

Any ideas will be thanked :j

For photographs, try getting in touch with your local college, if they run a photography course. Students are always looking for ways to bulk out their portfolio and you might brazen out a freebie, especially if you ask for the photographs on a CD and print them yourself instead of requesting all the prints.
Photographs were always going to be the most important thing for me, and I used a friend who wants to be a wedding photographer when she finishes uni. She was very nervous about being the sole photographer and so we had a photographer who'd been recommended to us come to the church just to do portraits. He is giving us a CD and all of the photographs as 6x4s and he cost £300.

I tried ebay for my bridesmaid's dresses but couldn't guarantee I'd win all the sizes I needed. I would have got mine from Matalan if they hadn't sold out. If you're not looking for traditional satin numbers, I'd trawl the high street. You've got plenty of time!

I got my husband's wedding ring from Freemans catalogue. It cost £50 and would have come with a free lady's ring if we'd wanted. It's interest free credit if you don't want to pay it off in one go.

Do you have a friend or family member who would make your cake as a wedding gift? My mum did mine.

Flowers are stupidly expensive. If I were to do it again, I think I'd probably go down the flower market early on the morning of my wedding and do my own bouquet. My bridesmaids wore wrist corsages which were very pretty and only £15 each.

Favours...I made star shaped shortbread cookies and wrapped them in squares of netting I bought from Hobbycraft. I bought 2m of fabric and cut it up - much cheaper than buying the ready cut squares and nobody was checking if I'd got the edge straight! My bridesmaids and brother sat and wrapped them for me the night before the wedding. Total cost was about £10, for 100. My little bridesmaid carried them around in a basket and handed them out at the reception.

We only had a budget of £2000 for our wedding (though we ended up spending about £4000). When we started planning, we made a list of the things we were willing to spend money on, and the things we were going to scrimp on. And then we ignored it :rotfl:

Ebay was my friend, though. I sold a lot of stuff in the spring and then used my paypal balance to buy lots of little niggly things - dye for my shoes, bridesmaid's presents....

I'll make your cake for cost, if you live nearby I love making cakes!

overbudget

Congrats BS - you'll have a ball planning this! We just had ours a couple of weeks ago - our key principle was that we only did stuff that we wanted to - regardless of what was "traditional". It was a fantastic day - and I think it was good value (about £2.5K including lunch for 40, party for 100 and honeymoon!).

So first thing I would do is work out if you want/need all the trimmings. For instance, we decorated our own car (a white hatchback) to get us to the registry office. It looked pretty cool actually among all the stretch limos and was definitely much more "us". We didn't have a formal wedding cake but had lots of bite sized cakes which went down really well. We didn't have favours (actually have never been to a wedding that did! ) We made our own invitations and emailed as many as possible. We only invited people we wanted - no distant relatives that noone actually knew!

We also had the reception in the garden - gazebo from homebase in case it rained (it didn't!) fairy lights and garden flares for atmosphere. Borrowed chairs and tables from friends and family. We had a caterer for the lunch (one of the biggest expenses - £600 - but lovely - and we really appreciated having her waiting for us when we got back and not having to do that bit ourselves) - then we self catered the evening party using lots of party food from Tesco's - was great (and we're still living on what was left over!). Drinks also came from Tescos when they had a half price sale (but guests also brought loads - we now have enough to last us years! ) We got plastic plates, forks, glasses etc from a catering wholesaler - paper tablecloths, decorations, party poppers etc - really cheap but much better quality than supermarket ones and so much easier afterwards! It was wonderful - lovely informal atmosphere - people really enjoyed themselves and we got to really circulate and spend time with everyone.

Photos - we didn't have a photographer as we'd been to some where they acted like it was their day and bossed everyone around! Instead we asked everyone to bring their digital cameras and we got one of our witnesses to take mine. So far we have hundreds of gorgeous shots - and many more promised. My father took a video of the whole proceedings too. We left disposables on the tables - quality was very hit and miss (mainly I think because the kids commandeered them!) but some fun shots. But I woudn't rely on them.

In the end we did have a present list - because people asked for it - but we gave it to OH's parents to manage (they offered!) and made it clear presents weren't expected. In the end we got a few things off the list but most people got individual things which was lovely. I think some people like a list as long as it doesn't feel like it is obligatory.

Anyway - hope you have a fantastic time. We had almost as much fun organising it as we had on the day - and it was a magical day.

black-saturn

Well I don't know if I have jumped the gun or not (hope not) but I was just browsing ebay and came across the kind of corset top I want to wear for the wedding. It is BNWT and in the size I want so I bought it. It was £12.97 so I felt like I didn't want to let that kind of opportunity go. So it's official - I've started buying for the wedding :j :j :j

black-saturn

saliekat wrote:

I'll make your cake for cost, if you live nearby I love making cakes!

Where do you live? PM me if you want.

Rachie_B

black-saturn wrote:

Well I don't know if I have jumped the gun or not (hope not) but I was just browsing ebay and came across the kind of corset top I want to wear for the wedding. It is BNWT and in the size I want so I bought it. It was £12.97 so I felt like I didn't want to let that kind of opportunity go. So it's official - I've started buying for the wedding :j :j :j

:T

i remember falling in love with a pair of Rainbow Club shoes for my wedding ,after seeing them in a wedding mag
and that was the first thing i purchased 2 yrs in advance too lol then nearer the time i got the bag which matched on ebay ,was well chuffed :beer:

StockportGerbil

black-saturn wrote:

Thanks everyone.

On the whole do you think it's worth having a wedding gift list or not? And if so wheres the best place to have it?

FWIW when I got married recently we had squeezed two houses into one and the last thing we needed was more 'stuff'! :-) So we asked for Thomas Cook vouchers.

I hope that helps

Kev

VickyA_2

Hi there black-saturn :beer:

We got married 3 weeks ago tomorrow :beer:

The things that we did that might help you (or not ):

We didn't have favours - having spoken to other friends who had got married, they had so many left on the tables that they wish that they hadn't bothered. So, we didn't bother...

We had disposable cameras in the middle of the table. Some photos are erm, of questionable quality (but we only had one picture of someone's food :rotfl: ), but others really capture the day. We're really pleased that we had them.

We had ushers and they were in the same suits as DH. If you do have ushers, make sure that they do the ushering that they're supposed to! My dad (who is a church warden) is fed up of doing the job of an usher - ie pointing people to their seats (not that difficult, is it?) and handing out an order of service. I know that you're having a civil ceremony, but if you do have ushers, it's something to consider. Needless to say, our ushers did so much "ushering" that my dad didn't have a single complaint

My mum made my cake and a lady in her village iced it. It was a traditional fruit cake, not sure whether that's what you're wanting? The icing just had cats paw prints on it with 2 roses on the top tier. Other people that I know have (successfully) had different sized cake tiers from Marks and Spencers which come pre-iced.

We had a gift list at John Lewis. Although we'd lived together for 3.5 years, nothing we had in the house matched. Older relatives snapped up the nice plates etc that we were "collecting", even though they hadn't been sent a gift list......

We didn't have any "Save the date" cards or magnets. I must have told everyone what date it was going to be, incessantly, so there was no need for them

Don't know whether that's of any help to you?

Take care, and I look forward to all the updates. :beer:

black-saturn

Congratulations to anyone who's replied who's recently got married :beer: