minimum wedding spend

newlywed

My mum made and paid for the material for my dress.
Bridesmaids were asked to buy their own shoes and agreed to pay for dress if they would wear it again (but mum made and paid for them too).
Wedding car - asked around and a friend of my brother in law kindly drove us in his posh Mercedes. Wasn't bothered about having a white car.
Reception hall was a village hall we dressed it all up the night before with table clothes (ebay) rose petals on the tables (ebay) etc.
Buffet meal - with the invites we asked if anyone wanted to contribute a food dish to the buffet to call a friend who was organizing it for us. We only bought the wine (day trip to france in unpopular time of year saved us loads) and soft drinks, tea coffee etc.
My shoes were £30 from a high street shop rather than a wedding shop.
Me and OH made all our own invites.
DJ costs a lot less than a band.
Rings were from a high street jewellers.
Honeymoon was self catering accommodation in Europe. We ate out for most things anyway.

We saved everywhere we could so that we could have the flowers I wanted (rose bouquets), and have a couple of nights in a really posh hotel before we went on honeymoon!

I couldn't justify spending anywhere near my year's salary on a wedding and honeymoon. I know it's a special day but it is one day and you have the rest of your lives together and that's what the whole day is about.

Oh... I made jewellery and tiaras for me and the bridesmaids so it would all match. Tiaras really aren't that difficult to make either

Gem_

It can be done on a low budget. We had a full white wedding in church plus a reception for 50 people and a honeymoon in Turkey for £3000!
- a good tip is not to mention the dreaded W word until they name a price!


Church fees £350

Flowers £300 bought roses from a wholesaler for 50p per stem could have been even cheaper but I wanted a specific colour. Regular pink ones can be more like 25p per stem. Did my own bouquet 20 roses ‘hand tied’ (just got then all level, used some wire to secure and then rapped in ribbon – took about ½ hour), did same for bridesmaid but only 10 roses.

Vases £1 each for 15 from Ikea, I just put seven roses in each and spread them around the tables.

Three course meal at local ‘good’ pub managed to haggle this down to £10.50 per head.

DJ £125

OH suit £100 - if you pick black then most men will have a black suit and you won’t have to go to the expense of hiring one (I personally think morning suits look stupid and OH wouldn’t wear one).

Ties for wedding party £7 each – Debenhams

My Dress £13.50 – ‘proper’ white one: ok bought in a super sale in USA (and shopping is my hobby!) it is easy to get one for under £100 though. Try monsoon / Debenhams sale etc.

Veil £25 Debenhams

Shoes £20 Barretts do a lovely range of bridal shoes (its not like they have to last - well only one day!).

Rings his £50 H Samuels, mine £99 Earnest Jones (mine is diamond set or would have been even less – Argos do a 9k one for £9.99 )

Cake - 3 tier stand £35 off ebay and 3 cakes £70 from Marks and Spenser (and oh god was in nice - I eat half on one tier on my own!). Covered cake in Thorntons chocs, bought the mis-shapes so much cheaper. There is an outlet store in Stoke on Trent where they do these on BOGOF.

Hope that helps

Gem

angeluk69_2

Gem_ wrote:

OH suit £100 - if you pick black then most men will have a black suit and you won’t have to go to the expense of hiring one (I personally think morning suits look stupid and OH wouldn’t wear one).

If my OH had worn a morning suit he would have looked as if he was 2, they do look silly.

newlywed

We bought a cake stand from ebay (2 tier so it'd cost less to decorate the cakes). Got M&S cakes and everyone asked who made them!! Had an extra one out the back too to cover the numbers there.

Bought sugar flowers from ebay seller and just put them on the top of the cake.
Afterwards sold the cake stand and cake knife I'd bought - put them back on ebay and made over half the money back again!

angelfire

I have to say that reading through the messages on this thread it does all boil down to the budget you set yourself - basically it can be done for £100, £1000 or £10,000...

i think what we'll do is decide on one or two things that we really don't want to compromise on, like the reception venue for instance and money save for the rest - cheap flowers, friend's cars, mum to make my dress etc and most importantly stick to our budget. I think that that way we'll have the thing we really want without a great big debt at the end of it!

cupid_s

there's been some really helpful tips here cheers everyone

unfortunately it's very difficult as i don't live in the city where the wedding will be so that makes things difficult for a start - getting people to help with making things will be very awkward as i wont even be around most of the time

the bride will have to get her dress made beforehand so getting a cheap one from debenhams or monsoon isn't an option as they don't have these where she lives and i don't think there are any similar cheaper alternatives (according to her) and she doesn't know anyone who could make one

and she says she trusts me completely but with such a low budget i will worry so much. and if anything goes wrong i know it'll be my fault.

lisa_75

I was thinking you need:
suit hire for groom, best man and father of the bride. You don't need to hire suits. They can wear their own or just hire for the groom like we did.

A wedding dress and shoes. Try sales in bridal shops. Dresses can be bought from as little as £50. or eBay. BHS do cheap wedding shoes

Bridesmaids dresses (not having a bridesmaid is NOT an option) and shoes
Ebay. My brand new BMs dress was £20.

Wedding bouquet (nothing extravagant) and bridesmaid’s bouquets. You could easily do this for £50 if you have something very simple

Registry office/church fees. None negotiable I am afraid.

A photographer. You don't NEED one. However, mine was £200 for 100 photos on a CD and an album of 30 photos. Shop around

Possibly wedding cars if you have to travel from church to the reception. Again, not needed. I put some ribbon on a relative’s nice car

An evening buffet. Have you a friend who is good with food? £4 a head will get you a very good buffet if you do it yourself. Also be selective about who you invite to keep numbers down.

Wedding cake (i know this doesn't have to be expensive) Not vital, but M and S do plain iced cakes. You could get a friend to decorate it with flowers. I got a small wedding cake for show from a cake shop which cost me £70.

Wedding rings. I think these are worth spending money on as they are a lasting memento of the day. I would rather cut down other things (like guest numbers) and have more expensive rings. However, Argos and H Samuels do cheap wedding rings.

But all this alone seems to go over the budget we have (about 3k).

We did all this for £3k. Dress, BM dress, grooms suit, food, registrar fees, rings, shoes, jewellery, tiara, hair and make up, nails, photographer, cake, favours, gifts for parents, BM and witnesses flowers and a weeks honeymoon in the UK plus spending money.

It can be done, but you have to be prepared to shop around and compromise. You can’t have everything on a budget that low. Some things do need to be cut out.

lisa_75

ianandjody wrote:

I am amazed, I know this is money saving but some things are too far! ;-)

Our wedding rapidly apporaching in December is going to be jujst short of £30K and that doesn't include the honeymoon!

I know each to their own but why would you scrimp on some things, isn't it meant to be special (the first time at least ;-) )

(all said in a joking manner!)

Ian

LOL. What if you don't have £30k? Our budget was £3k. That is all we could save in a year so that is all we could spend. I could have saved up for longer, but I wanted to get married soon and a years planning was enough for me.

black-saturn

I'm planning a wedding at the moment for me!! :j I'm trying to stick to a budget of about £3,000 for the whole lot including cake, reception, outfits etc. I'm getting quite a lot of stuff from ebay and also if I spot anything second hand I won't be too proud to buy it.

lisa_75

cupid_stunt wrote:

the bride will have to get her dress made beforehand so getting a cheap one from debenhams or monsoon isn't an option as they don't have these where she lives and i don't think there are any similar cheaper alternatives (according to her) and she doesn't know anyone who could make one

She needs to try bridal shop sales or eBay. Also sometimes charity shops have dresses in.