Repost...wedding on a budget...please help!

Owl

I got married in a church, had 50 guests sit there and for sit down meal, and 100 guests (total) for the evening, had a brand new wedding dress, gave favours and did invites. We had change from £5000!!!

So:
Make own wedding invites (FIL did mine)
Make own wedding cake (Mother!!)
When you find the dress you like, ring round all shops in area to get it cheapest!!
Shoes I got in BHS sale (£12.50!!)
Bridesmaids wore Debenhams ballgowns! (£100)
Negotiate with cars - I had one car do both bridesmaids, and come back for me - considerably cheaper......

Hope this helps

Owl x

RedBern

lots of good ideas already - we went to a nephew's wedding at Sudeley Castle, which was fantastic, and my OH did the photos. He was looking at the website before the big day to get ideas about where to take good pics, and they had 'special offers' and - if you could get married at short-ish notice the prices were an absolute steal. Again, midweek was cheaper but it's worth seeing if there are any cancellations anywhere - they'll be glad to re-sell the day on.

jetta_wales

Personally I think unless you're good with art and crafts and going to buy plush card stock then home made computer printed invites (no offence folks) often look really cheap and tacky where as multi packs from M&S or WHSmiths look lovely without it being really obvious that you had to be low budget (not that I think £6k is at all low budget for that sized wedding though, I could manage that no problem). Also there's a web site called celebrations which do professional printed invites starting from really low prices. You often get a little catalogue of their in wedding magazines too. I made my own wedding favours but it took bloody ages lol. You could buy just little White boxes and look in The Works or even pound shops for little crafting pieces to add to them (like fancy Lacey butterflies or pretty flowers etc) they sell them to be the centre piece of hand made cards. Fill them then with anything you want from chocolate Brazil's, to humbugs anything at all.

For the cake a lot of the supermarkets do 3 tier wedding cakes that you can have somebody just make the sugar flowers for, the student idea for this was a good idea too.

Get whichever of your friends is best with make-up to do the brides on the morning and give her a champagne breakfast (or schlere or something if she can't drink due to meds) it can even just be Asti which is cheap but yummy as it's sweet or Cava if she likes dry. It doesn't cost much but bubbly and strawberries does make you feel all special and spoilt which is exactly how the bride should feel on the morning of her wedding. Make sure she has had an actual proper breakfast first of course don't want her fainting at the alter because she's had nothing to eat lol.

lisawood78

There is also a wedding board, I don't know if you have tried on there?
Good luck

gonzo127

my wedding was a low cost affair for about 30 people (4 years ago cost just over 3k)

had it all at local hotel/B&B so no travel costs from wedding venue to reception and was able to haggle on price due to them doing it all
one person (in this instance my mum) made the cake for us for their gift to us
another person (wifes aunt) made the dress for her as their gift to us
had another person do the flowers for us as their gift to us
another friend did the make up for their gift to us
my step daughter (9 at the time) did some drawings for the wedding invites which we scanned and printed off at home
place setting name tags where printed at home (remember to put on what they chose on the back as most people dont remember)
had another person do the photography/video for their gift to us (also asked everyone to allow us to copy their cameras memory card onto the laptop before they left aswell)
bridsmaid dresses for BHS
look at cheap shoe stores for the groom, bestman and usher/s, we found that shoe hire was going to be £15 for the event, but at the local Shoe Zone found simular shoes to buy for £10

kymbo82

The budget is very do-able for that amout of people. I had 45 at our wedding and it costed us around £5,000. We married in a church then had a meal at our favourite restaurant which meant we weren't tied to 'wedding packages' hotels etc seem to do. We paid for sparkiling wine for toasts but guest paid for all their drinks.
Second hand dress? I just sold my designer dress (which I bought in the sale) for £300 on ebay and it is in mint condition.
Call on everyone you know with skills- I had a wedding cake as a present from BM her sister made it.
Make up/hair can be done on own with a bit of practice or a friend

bmj191

We got married two months ago on half that budget!
Dress from ebay, Vera Wang, £60.!! :-0
(although changed my mind and bought a tailor made from light in the box .com -absolutely beautifu,l for £250.
Dad and MIL cooked chicken coq a vin with veg and potatoes in the church hall kitchen.

We had the service and reception at our local church.

We bought metres of material for the table cloths, and cute linen squares for the napkins.
Table centrepieces were candles in jam jars.

My 12 bridesmaids dresses wore blue silk evening dresses from the M&co sale, the smaller bridesmaids wore BHS.

My shoes were Next sale, reduced to £9

We had an 11am service, then a 12-4 reception, no evening do. It just suited us better. We had a very good swing singer called dan martino, who was really reasonable and we got him at very short notice. Everyone loved him, and he sang our first dance.

Best of luck, you seem like a wonderful friend :-)

Sezzler

We found a lot of the churches in our area to be quite expensive for the amount of time we were actually there. Prices ranging anywhere between 500 - 670 pounds (this included the choir and the church bells). For out reception we hired out a local stately home (the whole house) for approx £3000 incl food.

We didn't have an evening do as we had a later wedding breakfast. So saved on buying extra food etc

- The invitations we made ourselves along with the table plan. (This took a long time to do, to make sure that they didn't look tacky but worth it in the end)
- Shoes etc from Next.
- Swarkovski (spelling) crystal hair accessories and tiara from ebay - we found someone who makes them and so much cheaper that in the shops. Got the tiara for around £20 and the accessories ( box of twenty hair grips with crystals attached to the ends) for £7
- We had a local cake maker (friend of the family make the cake) to feed 70 people. It was three tier and this cost £180.

- Getting married on a Friday also reduced the cost for us
- We kept church flowers to a minimum ( two pedestal arrangements)
- Flowers for the bride were roses but the bridesmaids had ivory colored gerberas I think. which also reduced the cost.

One thing I prob would suggest getting is wedding insurance, ours cost £60 and did cover a lot of things. Including the DJ not turning up as he thought we were getting married on a sat (despite all correspondance stating a friday !!!). Thankfully the venue got another DJ within 15 mins of telling them our booked DJ couldnt be contacted.:cool:

cyclingyorkie

a friends daughter who got married recently did so at 4pm - so just 1 lot of food had to be provided which was a hot buffet - everyone loved it!

Having watched a load of the Don't Tell The bride episodes on BBC3 - choose bridesmaids dresses from BHS or other such shop - Next and Coast seemed popular - they don't have to be long ones......

Whatever ideas the bride had about her perfect day they were always bowled over by what was sorted for them - which proves that it's not WHAT/WHERE you have it - it's who shares your day with you!

Good luck!

VfM4meplse

PoorCharleyBear wrote: »

Try negotiating with suppliers- they will always say if they cannot reduce costs, but if you don't ask you will never know if they can!

I agree with you, esp relating to the cost of hiring a castle as a venue as this is likely to be the biggest single cost. Maybe you could also appeal to the sense of humanity as your friend is dealing with exceptionally difficult circumstances. A bit of goodwill might do the venue's reputation a great deal of good.

I would suggest cutting back on other costs - do you need a catered meal if drinks and canapes will do? If you go down this "cocktail party" route, then arrange a pre-wedding brunch buffet at the home of the bride / groom's parents before hand so folk aren't hungry.