Wedding planning - how would you reduce the costs?

catkins

CL wrote: »

There are certain costs that remain the same whether you have 10 people or 300 (dress, suits, cars, honeymoon).

That's not really true. You can get a dress and suit from ebay. You don't have to hire a flashy car - go for a cheaper option or see if anyone you know has a car you can use. The honeymoon can be as cheap as you want it to be.

When I got married we only had parents and siblings at the actual marriage ceremony then in the evening we had a reception with a buffet. I personally do not see the need for a sit down meal as it is just a rip off.

Weddings don't have to cost a fortune - it is meant to be about the marriage not one day. Half the stuff there is no need for and the rest can be done cheaply if you want it to be. If you know a someone who is good at photography they can be your photographer, likewise if you know someone who can make your cake, be a dj etc etc.

Our wedding cost hardly anything - ok it was quite some time ago - but not even £1,000 and we and everyone who came enjoyed it and we paid for all the drinks all night

Gloomendoom

CL wrote: »

There are certain costs that remain the same whether you have 10 people or 300 (dress, suits, cars, honeymoon).

We had a budget 'big-ish' wedding.

Wife's father provided the wedding car and we walked from the church through the woods to the reception venue which was in the grounds of wife's uncle's house. No fancy hired suits or even bridesmaids

We kept costs down by having the ceremony later and by having an informal garden party theme for the reception. Afternoon tea instead of a sit down meal so people could eat what they wanted. Many guests brought along cakes etc so there was plenty to to go around (and plenty left over.) I can't remember the exact numbers but I think we invited around 150 people. We didn't have a separate evening list, people were just invited to the wedding as a whole.

In the evening we had a (fairly lavish) hog roast and a live band.

We bought second hand marquees and sold them again afterwards. It was cheaper than hiring. In fact, with several things it was cheaper to buy new than it was to hire, cutlery springs to mind.

One thing I was insistent on was that there should be unlimited free booze. I've been to too many 'package' weddings where the 'free' wine is rationed to two half full glasses and guests need a small mortgage to pay the bar prices so we provided all the beer, cider, wine, tea, coffee and soft drinks for the whole day. No spirits though.

It was all bought cheaply from France or while on offer at local supermarkets. We grossly overestimated as we were still drinking the stuff a year later.

For rings we went to the jewellery quarter in Brum and got a ring made up to Mrs G's spec at a fraction of the high street price. I rarely wear a ring so just had one made in titanium rather than a precious metal.

Having a later ceremony also saves the guests money as it gives them a chance to get there on time without having to book accommodation for the previous night. Important if, like us, most of your guests have a long way to come. We also provided a field so that people could camp if they wanted to. That was surprisingly popular.

Don't be afraid of being a bit different. It can be more work, but we have had nothing but complements about the wedding ever since. One guest commented, ruefully, that she didn't realise that you could do weddings like that. She'd had an 'out of the box' package wedding.

ViolaLass

I really recommend talking to your fiancee first about what things either of you KNOW you want e.g. do you want to have your cousins there, does she feel she really wants a wedding cake etc. You may well find there are aspects that you (both) don't really care about and can omit.

You may also find that your expectations of what the other may want may be off target - when we got married, I (female) didn't care about the day and would have happily eloped with two witnesses. My husband wanted the big do with family, reception and all. We compromised to some extent - most of the family, good food but a lot less decoration than is 'traditional' e.g. no flowers anywhere.

So have that conversation with each other first, before anyone else starts making assumptions about what you will have. It will save you a lot of time and hassle later on.

bylromarha

We got loads of flack as we did it our way, not the way MIL wanted it to be. She insisted we invited a relative who she knew wouldn't come anyway, but we had to invite them to keep the peace.

MIL also grumpy that we never invited the kids of the aunts and uncles. MIL also grumpy we never put wine on the tables. MIL also grumpy that we changed venue between our afternoon and evening do.

MIL basically grumpy we didn't do things her way - she forgot it was our day, not hers.

We had a 60 people afternoon do, then a 200+ party in the evening at a different venue, meaning it was a seperate shebang. Much cheaper. Friend did the photos.

We booked everything the year before the wedding, so we got the current prices, rather than the prices of the wedding year. Dress was bought when wedding shop was having a 20% off everything sale, 14 months before the wedding.

Have a great planning time - and remember the wedding is actually the start of a marriage. It can be easy to forget in the planning.

Perdi

If you're not religious yourselves then don't go for a church wedding, it leaves you with loads more options. Your local council website should have a list of approved premises. We found one that was just down the road from us that we never knew existed!

Go round them all and compare. We got married on an August bank holiday Sunday and it was ridiculously cheap as on a sunday they had a reduced rate package that included the ceremony room hire, 50 wedding breakfasts and 100 evening buffet guests (we had a bbq), dj and drinks for the tables. People raved about the food. If I did it again, I'd go for a later ceremony and drop the wedding breakfasts as, like someone said above, the day guests were still full and lots of the bbq and cakes went to waste.

I planned to get my bridesmaid dresses from the high street but couldn't find the colour I wanted in the end, got the flower girls' dresses from BHS though and my shoes from their end of summer sale for £5! Claire's Accessories do nice sparkly jewellry and hair accessories that you can't tell from a distance aren't the 'real deal'.
If you go the high street route, start looking now.

I did my own invites, table plan and place settings, I even made my own table confetti with some cheap sheets of coloured paper and a heart shaped hole punch.

For the hen / stag do's don't get sucked into the whole industry round it. I had my hen do at my friends house, we had a bbq and lots of drink flowing, my friend surprised me with a cake she made (a rather rude one!) and we had loads of fun without spending much at all.

so3003

Thank you very much for all the replies so far - very helpful! I'll definitely check out the specific wedding forums and there is lots of very helpful advice here too!

Scott

Auldreekie_2

Sunday weddings tend to a bit cheaper than other days of the week. Accommodation is slightly cheaper on a Sunday too for the guests.

If you are not planning on getting married in a church, some hotels offer packages, including things like ceremony (excl. registrar), flowers, cake stand and knife, Master of Ceremonies, bridal suite with champagne for the couple. We did that and got a good deal at £500. Only things to pay for are guests meals, entertainments and clothing etc.

I read an article on weddings-matter.co.uk that said they bargained with the hotel and provided their own chair sashes (from EBay) and gave them to the hotel instead of paying for covers and sashes the hotel provided and saved a couple of hundred quid that way. :T

pinkclouds

talulahbeige wrote: »

Decide on the people that you actually want there and stick to your guns.
I recently got married and we chose to have minimal family there, just the ones we see and are close to. We didnt get any flack or stick for this.
Be prepared tho as you may get some. Most people tend to forget that a wedding is about a couple committing to each other for the rest of their lives, they see it as an excuse for a "free" knees up.

All in all, remember that it is yours and your fiances day, do what you want, how you want it.

Agree with the quote above. It's your wedding day: do it your way. We had immediate family only so it was a tiny number of guests. If you want a big party, then that's different. But if you are just interested in getting married, then do it as simply and cheaply as you like. If friends and family object... well, they clearly don't care about you as much as they should. You're not getting married for the sake of giving them a free night out. All you really need is a marriage license, suitable celebrant and two witnesses. The rest is a bonus... or a major expense.

Gleeful

I have a blog dedicated to budget weddings that may be of interest.

http://www.champagneweddinglemonadebudget.co.uk

I don't make any money from it so I think I'm ok to post it here.

so3003

I should probably reply to this thread to let you know how it all turned out in the end... (checking out my old threads for nostalgia!)

Well, we got married in January 2012 and in the end had a fabulous wedding day! We did end up with a "big" wedding (140 guests) but managed to control costs to some extent, and ended up with what we considered decent value for money. Some money saving suggestions, to help others in the same position:

- A winter wedding saved us a massive 30% on the reception bill, including room hire / meal / drinks reception etc - a massive amount saved just by asking if they offered any discounts!

- Sparkling wine tastes just like prosecco or champagne (unless you are buying very expensive champagne, or have wine-connoisseur guests) - so don't waste your money on this at the reception!

- We included a clause with our hotel that any table wine not drank during the meal was to be left out for our guests to drink during the reception. All the unfinished bottles (and full bottles!) we'd paid for and not drank at the meal sat at the bar with lots of glasses, and noone had to buy any wine all night. The final bottle was seen disappearing into our bridesmaid's room as the reception closed! (We've seen other weddings where the paid-for table wine is then resold back to guests an hour after the meal...)

- Our winter Saturday was a gorgeous crisp day, as opposed to many of the stormy May/June/July Saturdays that followed later in the year! The only issue is planning for outdoor photos a little earlier, as it got dark by around meal time - which is when most couples want to end the photo-taking in any case!

- We decided to cull our 250+ guest list with a rule that if neither of us had seen them in the last 12 months - then unless there was an overwhelming reason, they weren't invited.

- Haggle over everything, and don't become caught up in emotion over random things like table decorations or napkins etc etc.

- We sent bulk emails to cars / photographers / flowers / bands etc asking for quotes. Decide what you want and ask for quotes, then you won't be upsold add-ons that you don't need.

- We simply didn't deal with anyone who approached us with "what is your budget?" style questions rather than giving a price. We also found that insisting on email rather than phone contact until a price was quoted made life a lot easier. A business who won't put their price in writing isn't trustworthy enough to provide a service on your wedding day. Asking for quotes soon reveals a vast difference in the cost of the same thing from different suppliers, eg a car company quoted over double the cost that someone else wanted for the same model of car, and obviously for the same journey on the same date!

- (I only found out about this on the honeymoon!) Wedding dress shops charge enormous amounts of money for dresses, and they know the dress has to be "perfect" to be considered for sale.... my wife spotted a small blemish in the fabric of her preferred dress (and it was preferred before this was noticed!) - the shop offered a small discount, but when she said she'd only pay half price for it (and let the shop stew for a few hours by initially declining to buy it at all and leaving!) they eventually caved in - so £700 became £350.....

- Wedding dress shop tried to charge £10 / week for "storing" the dress so the husband-to-be doesn't see it - however the mother-in-law charged zilch for the same service in her wardrobe (and let's be honest - how many men would randomly be looking in the in-laws' wardrobe?!)

- Dress shop wanted outrageous amounts of money to do alterations - you'll be amazed how cheap this can be when someone else (yellow pages / google / word-of-mouth recommendations) does it instead.

- We hired a (brilliant!) photographer to take photos, with a contract that stated we had copyright of every photo, and we asked only for a CD with our final images. This still cost £500, but that's about £1k less than others charge for the same service and production of a photo album. We and our parents each produced albums from the official photos that look amazing and cost hundreds of pounds less than anything a photographer could have given us.

- Instead of paying hundreds of pounds for church flowers, we (well, my wife...) got some books from the library and learned how to make artificial flower arrangements - and the total cost for what people commented on the day (while smelling them! ) were "amazing flowers" was about £60..... and she has a new hobby!

Happy memories from the planning and from the day itself :-)

As for all the money we saved - well let's just say that we had a brilliant honeymoon.....