MoneySaving Weddings Article Discussion
Former_MSE_Archna
Senior ResearcherFormer MSE 1.9K Posts
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This thread is specifically to discuss the content of the updated article:
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For more wedding tips, check out the 'What I wish I'd known before my wedding' Great Hunt or click here to read the old discussion.
For more wedding tips, check out the 'What I wish I'd known before my wedding' Great Hunt or click here to read the old discussion.
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After visiting a few tailors I was looking at £500-700. Then one day I stumbled into Debenhams and saw that they have a 50% OFF deal on tailor made suits at the minute. This means that my wedding suit made to my specifications is costing £275 - only £40 more than off the peg business suits in the same store.
I know that it's still a bit extravagant but I thought it was a great saving and hope other grooms-to-be find this useful.
OH fell in love with an £800 wedding ring! NOT MSE at all but we have found someone who will design something similar for £250 - cost of gold is increasing so we are buying custom made cheaper than off the shelf. of course there's always cheaper stores too
Yes, there are tips about things like cut-price favours, or making your own invites. And if those are important to you, then have them. But we didn't have favours, and we had invites designed by my husband and then printed on fairly basic cream card that looked lovely. Bear in mind that most people aren't going to keep things like the invites and order of service - no point spending hours hand-decorating them.
We wanted to have a church wedding (I'm Christian) and really all you need to get married is yourselves, the vicar and two witnesses. Everything else you just add on, so it's up to you how much you add.
The church was fantastic value - the whole thing cost about £800 for the service, absolutely masses of beautiful flowers arranged by people who took a great deal of care, organist, choir, bellringers and the most important bit - marriage preparation classes (I would highly recommend, really helps you put things in perspective rather than obsessing over wedding details).
We had several conversations along the lines of "do we really want..." etc. In the end we decided we didn't care about having a wedding cake so didn't have one, and no one noticed. We had an afternoon tea reception in the pub by the church rather than an evening do, which only cost £450 (65 people) and which people loved (especially as they didn't have to fork out to stay overnight). It gave us a chance to see and talk to everyone at our wedding and worked brilliantly for us. The pub put on a really good buffet as they were keen to attract custom, and also decorated beautifully at no extra cost.
We went to Stratford-upon-Avon for our honeymoon for a week. I'd recommend not trying to go somewhere exotic or a long distance - getting married is exhausting and only having to drive for a couple of hours to get on honeymoon was wonderful! I definitely would not have wanted to be stuck in an airport.
Our whole wedding, including honeymoon and putting our relatives up in a hotel for two nights cost less than £4000, and it could not have been more perfect.
Totally agree with this, however some forums are brilliant for idea's and then the game is on to find them at a more suitable budget! This is what I've done!
I don't want favours at our wedding or other frilly stuff, I hate that I am almost expected to out do the last bride who's wedding I attended!
Tip no 2: we got a quote from a travel agent and thought it was pretty steep so we decided to shop around. Martin's money tips was great for finding flights, we used skyscanner to compare and found flights for a great price (just over £500 each). It wasn't business class but left us with more money to enjoy our Honeymoon whilst in Thailand. All n all we saved about £600 on flights, internals and hotels by booking independently and shopping around.
I fell in love with my wedding and honeymoon that much that i decided to start a wedding recommendation website where married couples can recommend wedding supplier products and services to other brides-to-be to help make their perfect day a reality. Whether they're looking for the best price, product, customer service or wow factor...Your Wedding Unveiled. Hopefully it will give the budget savvy bride some ideas & let all you married couples help them on their way with your recommendations of fab suppliers.
There are certain things we really want – like the church, the venue we have chosen and my H2B will not budge on having a sit down dinner whereas I would be happy to have the cheaper option of a buffet dinner. So we have had to make savings elsewhere.
Dress
I was going to get a dress on eBay to save us a fortune. The plan was to try on loads of different dresses, get an idea of the style that suited me and find one from an eBay seller in China – there are loads for around £100. It turned out my Granddad offered to pay for my wedding dress from a shop which was so lovely of him. I found my prefect dress and lo-and-behold… it was being made in China! Most probably by the very same people who sell the dresses on eBay. My dress from the shop cost £1000. Even if I bought a dress off ebay for £100 and had to spend £100 getting in tailored I still would have saved £800… oh well I was not to know. My advice however is to try on loads and loads of dresses to find out the style that suits you. It’s hard to tell online if that style will even suit you.
Bridesmaids dresses
These I did get off eBay. £30 each from eBay in China for some pretty, summery cocktail dresses that the girls can wear again. Don’t be afraid to ask for your bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses, or their shoes and accessories etc, it’s apparently fine in terms of etiquette.
Groom and Ushers
Many formal wear hire places like Moss Bross do offers like hire 5 pay for 4. Which is a great deal. The simple classic tails are the cheapest and look fab. Again it’s fine in wedding etiquette to ask the ushers to pay for their own suit hire. Could save you £100’s.
Dressing the venue
I think balloons are pretty unnecessary to be honest. I personally think they can look a bit tacky. If you are dressing your venue – chair covers and sashes alone have a huge impact. No need for balloons at all. You can get your own flowers and put 4 or 5 in a small bowl in the middle of the table. Looks lovely!!
We have ordered lots of little bits like paper sun flowers and gems from eBay which look lovely for table decorations.
Make Up and Hair
Kate Middleton apparently did her own make – up for the Royal Wedding! She apparently had a lesson on how to put her wedding make up on and did herself! So if it’s good enough for her it’s good enough for us! You can go to a makeup counter like MAC, they are really good will go through things with you and send you away with a few samples which you can use on the day. They usually give you enough for about 5 days.
If you have a friend who is fairly decent at hair, you have plenty of time to get practicing with styles so no need for a hair dresser.
Cake
I don’t know why more people don’t attempt to make their own cake. You can do it! It doesn’t have to be iced in white either, you can do a yummy choc cake and decorate it with posh looking chocolates. Again you have lots of time to practice. If you have a tiered cake, have columns between layers and put flowers between those layers. This gives the illusion of a grander and taller cake than you have.
You can also save money by having no dessert on offer and having the cake instead, especially if it’s something like a chocolate and Turkish delight cake.
Party favours
A few hundred coloured foil covered choc hearts and organza bags come in at around £40. It’s all you need! You can get them to match your colour scheme.
Hope it helps someone!
Crystalpearl
First time user of the Forum and think this should be a new thread but not sure how to start one - sorry!! Can someone move this to where it should go please?
TAKE OUT INSURANCE, we are a good example of why you should.
We had to take out wedding insurance as we needed Public Liability Cover. We did a mix and match option with Ecclesiastical (assume I can mention them as you have quoted them in your examples?) and took the "Failure to Supply" option. Then the wedding shop supplying all the outfits except the bride's and lots of other costly things shut down. The owner wouldn't give us our money back or offer the goods and refused to go bankrupt or into liquidation. Our bank confirmed we would get our money back under the Visa Chargeback scheme but only after the wedding as until that date the shop still had time to supply, in theory.... Then we were told that the shop had filed for liquidation. I rang Ecclsiastical and within a week the full amount we had lost (minus a small excess) was in my account. Not only that they have also paid up any additional costs for getting the same services replaced. So what could have been a nightmare (and was for three months) was made so simple by the lovely staff at Ecclesiastical. If you are spending money, and who isn’t? take out insurance. The amount we paid was nothing when you think of all the other money spent and it has made a HUGE difference.
PS if you do mix and match check what your household insurance covers, no need to pay twice.