minimum wedding spend

lisa_75

black-saturn wrote:

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.

Ebay is fantasic. I got some great wedding bargains on there.

jen30_2

I got married 6 1/2 years ago and my wedding cost less than 1000 ( includes wedding dress, flowers, car, buffet, invites, rings, suits, venue hire , music, decorations, hair & make-up). Plus it was organised in 4 weeks. My DH and I had a great day and it didn't break the bank doing it.

Rachie_B

cupid_stunt wrote:

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.

she either needs to rethink the budget or her plans lol

inkie

We have been married 14 yrs this yr, and it cost a grand total of £700 all in.
I hired my dress - well, I wouldn't wear it again now, would I?
£400 for reception/hotel/DJ
£25 Veil
£60 - flowers
£100 - photo's - my boss at work did photos semi-professionally and so did us a good deal.
The rest was for transport/rings/invites. Just shopped around. just 'cos we were getting married did not mean I was prepared to pay through the nose.

No Church fees /banns at all, as our priest did it for free as we were Church goers.

And knowing what I know now since MSE - I wouldn't have even spent what i did.

moohound

Asda do bridemaid dresses for £14

Claires accessories is really good for sparkly hair clips etc for £2 to £3 which are suitable to bridesmaids, or brides who want a funky look

tesco do iced cakes for £7 , £13 and £20 going up in size these look just like a £300 white iced cake when put on a fancy stand. A small spray of sugar flowers from a cake dec. shop would finish it off nicely.

try QVC diamonique for bridal jewelley in sterling silver.

If anyone wants nice stationary in small quantities we used bee happy designs, they dont have a minimum order. some places you need to order 20 or even 50 invitations and we only wanted 7.

my best friend had her recption in her ( admittedly huge ) garden and an indian restaurant did the catering, for £4 a head and it was fantastic.

gingin_2

Good luck with the wedding but I do think 30k is a completely excessive amount to spend on a wedding. It is one day in your life and I hope you don't have to spend the following years sacrificing to pay it off. I am fascinated though, what do you get for £30,000?

We went to Vegas. My Mum and Dad very kindly gave us £5000 to spend on whatever wedding we wanted and so they and all the other really close people came with us. We had a brilliant laugh and have many fond memories.

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

Bogof_Babe

You don't need bridesmaids for a Register Office do, just witnesses, who can wear their own Sunday best outfits .

We will have our 32nd anniversary in a fortnight, so there's no point listing our prices as obviously inflation makes them meaningless now. However I reckon it would equate to around £2K in today's money, all told - including a 5-day bed-and-breakfast honeymoon touring South Wales in a borrowed Mini and it never stopped raining. But we didn't have the expectations in those days.

We had just bought our first house and any spare money was for furniture, as we moved in with virtually nothing.

nickij_2

Definately each to their own- it wouldn't do for us all to be the same.

However, my thoughts were - the wedding is just ONE day, the marriage is forever. Why spend more than necessary? My dh and I spent less than £3000 on our wedding and honeymoon 11 years ago. I made the table decorations, bridesmaids flowers and headbands out of dried flowers, my friend iced cakes I'd bought in Tescos, another friend did the wedding photos, my dress was in the sale £75, we got rings from Argos. Anything really to keep the cost down. A friend of mine who got married the same year, spent about £15000 of her parents money on her dream white wedding. Unfortunately, the marriage only lasted 18 months. She went to Gretna for her second Wedding!

thriftlady_2

moohound wrote:

this is what we spent 6 weeks ago

venue hire £350 Langdale chase hotel windermere
registrar fee £200
harpist £200 for 2 hours
my dress £1350 pink and a one off incl. underwear and hoop
veil £180
tiara £210 a one off
shoes £60
bridesmaids £550 for 4 not bad
suit hire £210 groom, Best man, ring bearer
cake £310 for 3 tiers
bridesmaid shoes £35
bridesmaid hairclips £100 for 4
bridemaid gifts £75 for 3
chief bridesmaid gift £245
ringbearer gift £15
bestman gift £40
groom shoes £80
bridesmaid earrings £50
gifts for mums £150
favours £100
canapes £80
wine £120
champagne £600:beer:
mineral water £14
misc drinks £20
boat ride £215 for 1 hour across the lake
dinner £900 for 5 courses for 23 guests
bridal suite £400 B&B 2 nights
grooms ring £500 handmade platinum
brides ring £2500 with 2.1 ct diamonds (valued at £4200)
brides jewelley £4175 diamond suite, all antique:eek:
photos £700
flowers £409 mixed colours of roses
honeymoon £3000 2 weeks italy 5 star
invitations £21
placecards £20
guest book £10
confetti cones £14
confetti £25
hair and makeup £140
nails £30

i can't think of anything else

some of these things may seem extravagant but they are mostly things to keep and will be heirlooms.

I dont think it matters what you spend, you can have fun for £500 or £50000 just dont get into debt for it.

:eek: Thats £18,000, I bet you had a lovely day, mind you so did I on about £100:)

emujuice

Hi, here's my reply from the other thread but with more details. We got married 3 weeks ago and it was awesome - a full traditional wedding for around £5000 (we were given £6000 by our parents, but any spare we can put towards buying a house)
We had a bridal party of around 26 who we had a meal with then around 100 more in the evening, we had to cater with a buffet for a minimum of 100 in the evening, so we invited everyone we wanted (which also means more gifts! - we mostly got money as we're emigrating for 18 months on Saturday!)

A church wedding, 6 bridesmaids, 2 best men, 4 ushers, sit down meal, live band and dancing till the wee hours for 120. Wow - it was so great!

Advice: try making as much as time allows - the tiraras were easy - give it a go twisting beads on wires.
I borrowed a friends tiara for me - beg, borrow and steal whatever you can. a girl on a local forum gave me my veil, but similar ones are less than a tenner on Ebay - don't use bridal shops!
dry petals by putting them on kitchen roll in the microwave for 30 secs - rose petals work well, but many others did, we just tried everything, and after all that it was over in seconds, so don't spend a fortune!
get a hole punch in a relevant shape to make confetti and table decorations (we had buterflies)
we got little gift baskets of smellies for the bridesmaids and managed to find sheffield pewter tankards for the buys in Oxfam of all places, which we got engraved.
the necklaces for the girls were £1.99 from H and M and very pretty. my necklace was from Debenhams in the sale - paid for with the £50 debenhams give you for registering a weddinglist with them (only one thing got bought, so we kind of made a profit!)
we also had an amazon list with cheaps things for our friends to buy us!

costing roughly:
church £370
special licence £70 not normally necessary though.
order of service, place names etc... printed at home, just did an A4 sheet for the order of service and rolled it up as a scroll. £5 for card, paper, ribbon and ink
car £100 - long limo from local funeral home with flowers and ribbons - used him for around 4 hours.
my dress £25 - tk maxx in sale, but only around £40 full price. I added some organza ribbons on the back as it was a bit plain.
bridesmaid's dresses £10 each - tk maxx bought everyone in the same colour and picked the ones that fit
shawls 6 for a tenner, and really nice, from leather lane market in london, my friend got them for us.
flowergirl £20 from debenhams in the sale (he mum got the cardigan)
men's suits £385
food and wine for 26 (gorgeous food!) £840 inc 13 bottles of wine, 6 cava and 3 courses. we also took our own special bottle of champagne, which we weren't charged corkage for, so if you really wnat champagne for the 2 of you, try this.
Buffet for 100 £1300 - twas huge!
Ceildh band £360 - very highly recommended, it was so much fun, they played from 7.30 till 8.30, but if you dont' want a ceildh then make your own mix cd and play that if there is a PA system. we were in a trendy bar/restaraunt that woudl normally have music, so that was handy for after the band finished as we had a 1.00am bar.
Invites £5 - marks and spencer ones reduced to 50p for ten in dunelm mill!
table decorations £15 - reduced silk flowers in dunelm mill (44p each instead of £3.50 wrapped in a bit of voile)
shoes £35 his £7.50 mine his debenhams mine from cheap shoe shop in town, but pretty.
underwear (bhs) £15 for stapless bra and top (also try tk maxx, debenhams and bhs)
Hair: paid for by friend, but around £20
tiaras: borrowed mine, made others £15 ish
gifts £20
Flowers in church £60 - ask if the local ladys will do this
Flowers for us £60 - used hydrangas for the girls which were free from various friends gardens, then 12 button holes, 2 lady's corsages and mine done by a friend of friend.
Flowers for mums £20 - same lady, but try M and S ones that come in water.
Favours £10 got voile and sugary sweets from market stall and chocolate cigarettes for 25p a pack for the boys (a big hit!)
Lovely hotel in Sheffield after the wedding £89 on lastminute.com instead of £160
Cake: £65 in M and S and £10 to decorate - ask in local cake decorating shop for advice, borrowed the stand
Photographer: £60 costs and donation to recent gradute - which was ok, but she constantly took out of focus shots, which was a bit disapointing, but there are some great ones, and we got 250 shots and she did all day, so worth asking around on local forums.
Video: everyone with one did bits of the day, it's still coming in, and looks ace
Disco after band left: did a mix CD with Nero Soundtrax, which worked brilliantly and finished the day off well
Rings from HL Brown in Sheffield - £200 for his, £90 for mine and engraved for free - great service.
Balloons £8 paid for by mum!
Did a post box for guest comments instead of a guest book.
got lots of photo albums bought for us, so haven't needed to get one - also can get lots of free prints if you look on the freebies board!

All in all a truly fabulous day! Enjoy yours!

Some photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chocola...7594263766205/