MoneySaving Weddings Article Discussion

marilin

Hi I was a photographer at a family wedding a couple of years ago. My sister did the wedding cake. Saved a fortune.
It was good being a bit freelance ( it is just a hobby of mine) as there are lots of deals to be had on free prints, photo books and photo albums. Plus getting the prints enlarged for the albums with ecodes for 10% off or a promo at the time. Keeps costs down. I went to wedding fayres to find out how other photographers did their poses, got lots of advice from books on what shots to take, and kept a file with poses to use. I did do a pre wedding photo shoot in which I did buy my own studio kit and hired a cheap room one Saturday afternoon. There are studios that do hire out studios with all the kit (scoop backdrop and lights) except the camera. Photographers charge a good £100 for this on top of the wedding photography and then there is copyright to think off too. Best to have some kind of system of what to take and who to take plus not to take over long in time. The day goes so quick. Take every detail from the reception room before it's filled with guests to church.
One thing I couldn't have done without is portrait professional for airbrushing the photos in post production. The only problem was that I kind of was elbowed out of main position for group shots and I was trying to keep some special shots for the album. I wanted some romantic shots at the reception and set up some poses with the bride and groom. I don't mean this in a bad way but guests were snapping behind me and posting them to facebook when I was wanting them specially for the album. There was three shots I forgot/or didn't get and it was rings in the grooms hand, posed signing of the register and cutting the cake. I did create a free website as well.

canterburygirl

I couldn't face paying the extortionate prices of most florists so I scouted around and found that our local college has a floristry department. They already offered a service for making up bouquets at reduced prices, to give the students practise.

They were fantastic and so much cheaper than high-street florists. We got 3 hand-tied bouquets, 8 pin holes, 14 tables centres and a 'long and low' (to go on the top table) including a large number of roses for £400.

The results were beautiful and you couldn't tell that they were made by students. Afterwards I sent the college some pictures as it was the first wedding that the students had worked on and they were really proud of the result. Win win!

Gem-gem

My husband and I got married last October. We had a very small wedding - my husband, me and two witnesses.
Top Tip
Don't buy your rings in a big chain jewellers but at an independent shop.
After going round the chains we went into an independent shop - the sales assistant got out the rings and they were all different prices - there was a few that cost £100 + cheaper than others - we enquired why - she weighed them - and they weighed more!!! She then explained that they were cheaper because they bought those in when the gold was cheaper. And they have to sell them at the price that they got them in.

Cream_Tea

I married last October and using Martins article and a very helpful best friend and mum managed to achieve a budget wedding with 150 guests (we have a massive family both have dads with 6 siblings and both one of four kids ourself)
My big saving ideas...
-Don't do starters,
-Had hog roast, it feeds 200 people, people can have small, medium or large amounts and go back for more, it costs £500 so just over £5 a head.
-We had wedding cake which we cut before the meal and had served as pudding.
-DJ was a friend of friend,
-Bought beautiful full length bridesmaid dresses on eBay, it was a risk but they got beautiful dresses for £45 each. I bought one to check quality then ordered the rest.
-Shoes were bought in the sale. My shoes were from next very sparkly and beautiful!
-Table centre pieces were hurricane glasses and fish bowls which various friends owned filled with building sand, pearls from amazon and candles from ikea. About £5 per table compared to the £50 we were quoted for flowers per table.
-kept favours simple and bought sugared almonds from amazon and bags from eBay. Less than £1 per guest with poem about the meaning if almonds in a wedding.
-Place names and invites hand made.
-Hair done by my hair dresser I've had since I was 11 so she waived cost.
-Makeup done by a friend who did a nice a trial and took the stress out on the day.
-Photos done by old school acquaintance who I saw on FB photographed and she
kindly did it for £200 got to keep the memory stick at the end of the day.
-Rings bought from independent jeweller who we got the engagement ring from so did a deal.
-wanted chair covers because chairs weren't very nice but only had bows on every second chair to save money but still achieve the colourful look.
-Wanted beautiful confetti id seen for the table which was heart shaped and it was sheet music and old books so we bought the heart cutter and went to charity shop for old books and printed sheet music and tea bagged it to age it and bought some pint paper and brown paper and cut all four. The mix was beautiful and much cheaper than the stuff we saw online.
All in all under £8500 including wedding dress the whole works for 150 people an absolute bargain I think!
Best day of my life!

GraceDalton

While we in the UK spend an average of £22000 on one wedding, other - equally deserving - human beings, are wihout food, clean water, education etc. So why not save and transform the lives of suffering people with your wedding shopping - and save loads at the same time?
(Sorry that sounded like an advert! I'm just SO desperate for people to be helped)
I'm not able to insrert a hyperlink - but you need only put Oxfam Wedding into a search engine : )
(the address is OxfamDOTorgDOTukSLASHshopSLASHbridal)

tripled

We got married this summer in the beautiful Jersey, followed by a blessing on the beach, with a budget of £6500 (including our flights and accommodation). Ultimately we came in £150 over, but that includes everything down to stamps and thank you cards, and doesn't take into account savings interest and cashback. We used a number of tricks to have a fantastic day on the (relative) cheap!

The ring - this wasn't part of the wedding budget, but I bought it from an online jewellers in the states (Ritani). I put a lot of effort into researching diamond cuts, clarity, certifications, etc. in beforehand though. It was nearly half what you'd pay on the UK high street and as I was able to get a much better ring for the money my wife-to-be was delighted with it.

The proposal - A night in London, managed to find a dirt cheap Hilton Doubletree hotel room, then booked a Thames cruise on sale though Virgin Days Out and a dinner at a celebrity chef restaurant through Groupon - with cashback of course!

Savings - We saved up over just over 18 months, using a regular saver for the first 12 months (6% interest). We then opened a Nationwide, a TSB and a Clydesdale current account to store saving in, netting us quite a bit in interest (enough to cover the overspend).

Credit card - Amex 5% cashback on £2k means that we'll actually have ended up under budget (taking into account the interest) when we get our rebate next spring.

The rings - We bought these in Jersey (no VAT) at a high street retailer, and got a discount off the advertised price just by asking.

The dress - bought on sale from Monsoon (with cashback) - it was the wrong size (too big) but we got it adjusted by a local seamstress. It looked fantastic and came in at less than £200.

Suits and dresses - I bought mine on sale back in January. We didn't think it was important they matched so the groomsmen just wore their own and I got matching bow ties off ebay to give some consistency (the ushers also had matching little red bow ties). The bridesmaids' dresses came from Groupon and the flowergirls' from ebay.

The rehersal dinner - A BBQ on the beach! Cost me around £150 (closer to £75 in cash terms) to feed and supply drink to supposedly about 15 people, although closer to 30 showed up! Alcohol was bought on a previous trip to France and of the remainder, a lot was bought in M&S using a voucher I got for switching bank accounts, supplemented by some stuff reduced in Co-Op.

The venue - We booked into a hotel (The Radisson Blu) that was licenced for marriages for everything. They did a great package (£3750 for 50 guests including all room hire, chair covers, uplighters, foot massage, canapes, 4 course wedding breakfast, welcome and toast drinks, wine, evening bbq and suite for the night with champagne) which I paid on Amex (5% cashback on the first £2k). They great thing about this was it massively reduced the stress, there was no transport or multiple venues to pay for and organise, and they had a fantastic location by the marina and beach. We can't praise them enough for their service. We had the legal bit in the hotel and then a blessing on the beach, it was wonderful.

The photographer - We booked a great but reasonably priced photographer (Dasa Wharton) for two and a half hours. She did a fantastic job. We asked people to take loads of pics for the rest of the day and we got some good pics back afterwards. My boss got a fantastic photo of us cutting the cake as well as a few other great snaps.

The cake - This was made by my (now) wife and her family, saving hundreds.

Favours - cost about a pound each from an online company, which was a little box containing 5 chocolates. They came flat packed and we made them on the ferry out to the island (I got an NUS discount off the ferry and then claimed a partial refund for a delayed departure on the way back).

Decorations - I made sashes from organza for the chairs. My wife decorated old jam jars with glitter, which we filled with sand and sea shells we collected then popped a red candle in. We also used organza roll as table runners and leftover shells were scattered about. We bought a garden arch for a tenner which we hung tissue paper pom poms off, this made a fantastic backdrop for our ceremony on the beach and with an uplighter under it, was a focus for people to take photos in at the evening reception. We also bought balloons and various other bits off Amazon. The hotel allowed us to get stuff delivered straight to them, often saving us a few quid here and there (Amazon don't charge VAT on their own stuff shipped to Jersey).

Presents/Honeymoon - We asked for donations towards us doing activities on our honeymoon. This meant we were able to go on some fantastic excursions and still have money left over. When we booked the honeymoon in January, although we did it through Thomson, we got them to price match a similar BA package and throw in private transfers on top.

TwentySomethingGirl

My husband and I got married last July. We had a friend of a friend be a photographer, 2 other friends were our cars and drivers, BBQ and hog roast for food, fake flowers and buttonholes (such a waste to throw away real ones, IMO). Got married at the registry office and had a village hall for after, with a massive field and a gorgeous day so folks were just outside chatting and playing with the outdoor games we bought. It came in just shy of £5K. The honeymoon was less MSE....it cost slightly more than the wedding, but for 2 weeks was well worth it!

Bumblebear

I got married last year, for around £500.

Hubby in the army, so wore uniform
Just over £100 for the fee for a room in a registry office
A friend made a bouquet (for me to "fiddle with" according to mother!)
Another friend took photographs (with a whizzy camera)
Spent £250 on a pub buffet for 22 (family and a couple of close friends only)
Spent £30 on a taxi to get there with my friends
My dress cost £50 from BHS (remember them?!), but I got £6 cashback. I did all my own alterations, ok that was mostly shortening and taking up at the shoulders...
£8 shoes from Debenhams
£3 bra from Primark
The cake was £10 from Sainsbury's, Mum did a bit of decoration
Did my own hair and makeup, used what I usually use, just did it more carefully than usual!
I bought a nice handbag for the day, but it'll do as my "evening bag" for the rest of my life, for the amount of times I need an evening bag! £20

lesleywaldrop

Just use dermalmd's glowing serum twice a day.You will be the most beautiful wedding girl.no need to go to spa.its very worth for dollar.

Lucy5781

Our wedding, in October 2015, wasn't the cheapest you could manage, but we think we didn't do badly on a few points and we benchmarked it against the 'Don't Tell The Bride' TV show budget which is £12,000. We came in just under that over all and that was with 145 guests, which included about 20 children. The venue (inc Food, Prosecco reception and DJ) and the suit hire for six in the groom's party, were the biggest costs.

Our parents provided £9,000 between them, DH and I paid £2,000 between us and the rest was paid off with part of our gifts (some very generous family and friends that we are very grateful to have in our lives!).

A few of the main ways we saved:

Venue was hired at a cheaper rate as it was a Sunday in October.

My bouquet, four bridesmaid's bouquets and three flower girl baskets, all artificial flowers and all put together by me.

My dress, £85.00 from Debehams.
My underwear was half price in Peacocks, that was including a basque with suspender belt.
Veil - £5.00 in a charity shop.

Two adult bridesmaid dresses £40 each from a seller on Amazon.
Five bridesmaid dresses (in ages 1-12!) £40 each from an online seller after finding them via Google image searching 'purple bridesmaid dress'!!

Guest favours, bags and personalised chocolates and personalised gifts for parents, for two best men and two maids of honour and five necklaces for the younger bridesmaids, all from Amazon retailers.

Our table settings were lanterns with battery candles and silk Ivy inside. They were bought from The Range and I put them together myself. I made all our numbers and tags as well with our childhood pictures on them. We used the same images on the table plan which we made between us as well.

Our invitations and thank you cards were all done via Vistaprint and our menus and orders of service were all printed at home on Word.

DH needed a slightly rarer kind of tartan kilt. The rest of his outfit was hired but he was able to buy a ready made kilt in the right family tartan from a sample supplier.

My God-brother's wife (long time family friend) did mine and all the bridesmaid's hair as our wedding gift.

I was driven to the venue in a Black London Taxi by a family friend of my husband, who was coming as a guest as well (whilst my Aunt and Uncle drove his wife for us!).

My DH and MiL made our three tier, Purple, Lego wedding cake themselves, based on one we'd seen on Pintrest.

I did my own make-up and MiL took me out the day before to have my nails done as a gift.

Our honeymoon was our present from my in-laws, we were able to have a week all inclusive, 5* in Tenereife in November a week after the wedding.