June 2012 brides

becca0417

I agree with Rahven re the venue. Also our DJ is £250 for 7-12 and we have a website where we can upload our music requests. So they are out there, just keep looking!

costcutterkaz

Pernicious wrote: »

Little update from me:-

We gave notice yesterday so all the important legal bits are in order, yay! I was feeling really excited but after a couple of email exchanges with my venue I've sunk into a bit of a funk Basically I asked for a revised quote from our caterer a few months ago, not sure if any of you remember that, but yes finally got that through from our venue instead of caterer & all is ok there...but she has added a £500 charge for table linens :eek:

I clarified what exactly this entailed & it turns out that's for the table cloths & napkins in white & purple, the bar, & staffing for moving the furniture around after the wedding breakfast, ready for the evening do....

Now perhaps this is my fault, but as this charge was never mentioned before I assumed this was included in the hire charge! I don't know what to do as that seems really pricey to me, but our contact at the venue is ever so nice & I don't want to offend her...but I just feel like costs are spiralling out of control now. The extra charge for that, combined with the flowers being more than I budgetted for (still not made a decision on that one!), the rings being more than I budgetted for (again, still not made a decision here), & the idea of a DJ being double what I imagined it would be is making me feel overwhelmed - I really don't know what to do unless we don't have a honeymoon?! We were already going to put that on the credit card & I don't want to rack up thousands & thousands of debt for one day. What can I do or do I just have to suck it up & pay for it?

Congrats on the notice!!!
Sorry ur having trouble with the rest,did you get a written qoute as I'm sure they just can't add it all on after, I'd ask why it wasn't mentioned earlier?

You can seriously cut down on DJ costs, if you only have him for the evening and just set up a cd player for the day!
I'd ask around ur loal pubs etc. they'll give you a better idea of good dj's and price guide, just don't mention wedding when booking!!!

Well finally spoke to my caterer friend, the problem is she wants to use their kitchen and although this sounds reasonable to start with, I apparently have to go in to book this separately from the function room, which of course means that we will have to hire it which means more money, so I've p***ed her off by saying that if it costs too much, I'll do the food at mine, lol she not happy at all!

Pernicious

Rahven wrote: »

Eek sorry to hear that Pern, I can imagine how you might be feeling :S
Do you have a contract with them? If so what does it say about charges etc? I think I'd be tempted to go through all the written info you've had from them and check with a fine toothcomb!
Are you able to voice your concerns? Not necessarily in an OMG I can't believe you're doing this way, but maybe say you're getting a little worried that with all these extra charges you won't be able to afford to get married anymore or will have to drastically reduce the services you are purchasing from them? I am sure they'd rather come to an arrangement than lose you altogether if they think that's a possibility?

Seems I'm developing a bad memory My OH remembers this charge being brought up, but we were not given a figure at the time. Apparently I did have the sense to ask, but our contact said she couldn't give us a price just yet so we accepted that. This was back at our very initial stages of planning & I hadn't realised just how expensive everything else was going to be!

becca0417 wrote: »

I agree with Rahven re the venue. Also our DJ is £250 for 7-12 and we have a website where we can upload our music requests. So they are out there, just keep looking!

Thanks for this - I was working myself up into a bit of a state worrying we wouldn't be able to afford a DJ as well as everything else but after reading this & some googling my mind is a little more at rest! Although I'm finding most places don't have prices up on their websites, I did find one that started from £100 & one that started from £300, so there is hope!!

costcutterkaz wrote: »

Congrats on the notice!!!
Sorry ur having trouble with the rest,did you get a written qoute as I'm sure they just can't add it all on after, I'd ask why it wasn't mentioned earlier?

You can seriously cut down on DJ costs, if you only have him for the evening and just set up a cd player for the day!
I'd ask around ur loal pubs etc. they'll give you a better idea of good dj's and price guide, just don't mention wedding when booking!!!

Well finally spoke to my caterer friend, the problem is she wants to use their kitchen and although this sounds reasonable to start with, I apparently have to go in to book this separately from the function room, which of course means that we will have to hire it which means more money, so I've p***ed her off by saying that if it costs too much, I'll do the food at mine, lol she not happy at all!

You know, I hadn't even thought of asking around local pubs! Thanks for the tip. I think the plan will definitely be a CD player during the day - a cellist is definitely out of the plans now unless we win the lottery!

How much do they want for the hire of the kitchen? I can see your friend's point as it would be hard to transport that much food & keep it fresh, but I most definitely see your point with the cost! Hope you manage to sort it out.

becca0417

Pern I hope finances work out a bit easier from now on. Weddings are so expensive!!

Pernicious

Thanks Becca, your spreadsheet is proving to be extremely helpful so an extra thanks for that. It's really helping me budget better then I was before as well as helping me with things I hadn't even thought of doing yet like a timeline of the day.

Has anyone had any experience of buying dresses from the American Amazon rather than .co.uk? My friend bought her bridesmaid dresses from there last year & they are actually fantastic so I was thinking I might do the same as they are so much cheaper on there, just wondered if anyone else has any experience of them? I was looking on ebay too as they're much cheaper on there but I'm scared of getting rubbish quality dresses. I could save a couple of hundred pounds going through 1 of these places rather then Debenhams or a bridal shop though!

MissGG

Hello all,

Well done on the DJ front. I thought we could do the smae and just have the DJ who did our engagement do - he was great, had everyone up dancing and was £"50 to play from 7pm-1am. However, we can't have him or a local mobile dj for our reception as they have to be a fully licencesed company and our venue has to see the dj's 'public liability insurance' too. So roll on our £1,000 quotes from fully fledged 'entertainment companies'. Just beware in case your venues request the same, if not, bonus and i'm very envious of those £200 quotes!

Gemmzie

We've actually got 2 DJs at the moment - both free :rotfl:

becca0417

Glad it's helped Pern. I haven't used it in ages, had better get looking!
I'm finding lots of little costs that I hadn't really accounted for so will track them using spreadsheet now I think.

Also, our DJ cost £250 and has full public liability insurance as this is a pre-requisite of our venue too! I think most have that type of insurance now.

Rahven

Bargain DJ! We weren't gonna have one but if they can come in at that price I might look!

Some progress at last here!! We have an appointment to give notice of intent to marry, but the registry office couldn't fit us in until October! :eek::eek: Thankfully the lovely lady rang the registry office of where we are getting married to let them know it's their fault it's so late (short staffed, backlogged etc) and not ours and they said they're alright with that. *phew*

Have asked the bridesmaids to start trying on dresses, and sent them some links to some debenhams dresses last week. One has already tried them on and I'm going with another tonight and one next weekend :T (they're all over the country so figured it'd be easier for them to go try stuff on individually then feedback on my wedding forum). Most of them have a lot less going on at the moment so should be in a position to start doing things

Next up I think we need to sit down and start looking at things like photographers and flowers etc. But before that imo we really need to sit down and make a list of stuff that needs doing and when. I feel so disorganised next to you lot!

Rahven

Oops me again, nowt for ages then spamming the thread

Went shopping with one bridesmaid last night, got some decent ideas from the dresses, and ended up buying myself a dress as well, lol! It was in the bridesmaid/prom section and it beautiful. It's red, long and has such a nice fit I felt amazing in it It's so nice that it could actually be used as a wedding dress if I don't find anything else that I like, so I think I'll use it as a back-up Best bit is it started at £120, then reduced to £70, then reduced to £33, then I noticed some loose stitching so they reduced it to £26 - very happy!