Wedding abroad on a budget....

miss_renegade

Hi, we're in the process of saving up for our wedding and have a few ideas floating around. We know we want to get married abroad to save on cost and only have close family/friends there.
I want to get married in Thailand (on a beach!) and this has been our plan for a while BUT now my OH is worried about our daughter and malaria as she's 2 1/2 at moment so will still be young when we get married(apparantly the malaria tablets make you just as ill as if you had malaria!). So he came up with another option-get married somewhere else then honeymoon in Thailand without our daughter.

I'm open to looking in to this but the prices i've seen are £5000 just for the wedding-no travel included!! :eek:

Our budget is around £5000 for the wedding and travel for the 3 of us. But if we were going to do Thailand as a honeymoon that'd cost around £2000 so would leave £3000 as the wedding budget (inc flights and accom). Is this do-able?? I think somewhere outside of the euro would definitly be cheaper, and was wondering if anyone can reccomend any websites etc to help me??

Thank you!!

lupyloo

How about getting married in this country, then having a fantastic honeymoon. I really didnt think it would be possible to have my dream wedding on the budget I had but have been amazed at what I have acheived. Have a look here it might give you some ideas about what a fantastic day you could have on a very tight budget https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3194282 I really cant believe how much I have been able to acheive from what I have loved reading about on here :beer:

miss_renegade wrote: »

Hi, we're in the process of saving up for our wedding and have a few ideas floating around. We know we want to get married abroad to save on cost and only have close family/friends there.
I want to get married in Thailand (on a beach!) and this has been our plan for a while BUT now my OH is worried about our daughter and malaria as she's 2 1/2 at moment so will still be young when we get married(apparantly the malaria tablets make you just as ill as if you had malaria!). So he came up with another option-get married somewhere else then honeymoon in Thailand without our daughter.

I'm open to looking in to this but the prices i've seen are £5000 just for the wedding-no travel included!! :eek:



Our budget is around £5000 for the wedding and travel for the 3 of us. But if we were going to do Thailand as a honeymoon that'd cost around £2000 so would leave £3000 as the wedding budget (inc flights and accom). Is this do-able?? I think somewhere outside of the euro would definitly be cheaper, and was wondering if anyone can reccomend any websites etc to help me??

Thank you!!

vintage_beanpole

Thailand has a very low malaria risk in any event. I wouldn't be worried about taking a child there. And if I were going I wouldn't take the tablets (because they do make you rather queasy!)... You should simply use insect repellant.

Things are rather different if you're going towards the rural borders (with Cambodia for example, where there is a higher risk of malaria). But given that you are suggesting a beach, I'm guessing you're not! (The islands, for example, have no issues with malaria).

Take a look at the FCO website or similar - I'm sure they'll have some sort of a map. It's really not the concern that you seem to think it is.

nublue

Hi,

We have just come back from our wedding abroad which was wonderful you can see pictures here: http://s942.photobucket.com/albums/ad261/nublue1/

We decided to get married in a hotel called Le Victoria in Mauritius. We chose it as we wanted a luxurious holiday/wedding but that didn't cost the earth, but also wanted somewhere which was child friendly as we have a 4 year old.

Mauritius itself is a lovely island, and you don't need any injections or malaria tablets to go, it's also very very safe. It's in the indian ocean (near Madacascar) and has a lovely tropical climate best months to go are May to Dec - their winter but less rain in winter, we went in May, I think June may have been even drier, we had one day which was rainy, the rest were lovely.

The hotel itself was amazing - it is known for welcoming children and there were several other children there. They do have a kids club,but that is 3 plus I am afraid. The bedrooms are absolutely huge, apparently the biggest on the island!

Even better it has a fantastic all inclusive service which really is very inclusive - for instance if you want wine, there are about 12 bottle of red/white/pink to choose from, all the quality of a £10 - 12 bottle at Tesco. The food is pretty good, the buffet is all inclusive, and then there are two restaurants which each have a fixed 3 course menu each night which are part of the all inclusive. The hotel also has all inclusive watersports, so if yoiu fancy a snorkelling trip to the reef, a glass bottom boat, some sailing, pedalo, or waterskiing, it's all included!!!

The wedding was amazing we chose the basic package and it was only £500 on top of our holiday! It also includes bridal hair and makeup (with trial) and also bouquet and buttonhole for the groom. It included a wedding dinner for all of the party at one of the special restaurants, and we were even able to get a bottle of sparkling as part of the AI! They filled our bathtub with petals and scattered petals in the room while we were eating oiur wedding dinner, and gave us a bottle of champagne. There is only one wedding a day which means it feels more private/personal, and also means you can choose the best time for you to get the sunset in the photos too.

So vital bit of info missed, in May the total cost for the 3 of us was just very slightly over £5000... I have to say though, we ended up paying more, because we ummed and erred, and in that time the flights went up. If yoiu can book ahead (like a year) then you will do well on price.

Anyway good luck, and I hope yoiu love whatever you decide! We are so delighted we did a wedding abroad, it was def more "us" than a traditional wedding, and so relaxed!!!

Leah x

EDIT: Just to say we went to Thailand and there was no suggestion of taking Malaria tablets! As the poster above says the risks are in the remote areas, and on the beach you wil be fine, a good high DEET ttropical strength repellant will be fine! Interestingly, children tend to get bitten less than adults, because the mosquitoes are attracted by the gases in our breath and little ones produce far less. In Mauritius, of the five adults, no one escaped mossy bites, and the number ranged between 2 and 10 each, our little girl did not get bitten once!

miss_renegade

Thank you all for replying to me!!

@ Lupyloo: I really want to get married abroad, as (even if i wanted to marry in the UK) too many people would need pleasing for my liking!! I like the idea of very few people being there as i don't want to be the centre of attention.

@vintage_beanpole: I think my OH's worried as his cousin (who's part Thai) managed to get malaria when she was over there last year AND she wasn't in a high risk place either. :undecided

@nublue: The photos of your wedding are amazing. It's exactly the kind of thing i've had in mind. Looks gorgeous with the canopy thing over you both on the beach. And the table on the beach for the meal-so simple but looks stunning! £500 for the actual wedding is such a bargain! It sounds really good that All Inclusive really meant All Inclusive, you rarely find that nowadays! Looks like you had an amazing time
Couple of questions,
Did you have a professional photographer for your photos?
How did you book it all (separately or through travel agent)?

I've been finding it quite hard to get specific prices from a lot of places! maybe i'mlooking in the wrong places for prices....

nublue

Hi MissRenegade,

We used the hotel photograoher, it cost us £250 for the album with 50 photos, and then the dvd with all 450 or so pics he took...

I organised it all via Amanda at dreamweddings.co.uk who was really good and really knowedgable having been to the hotels personally (and she is getting married at one of the sister hotels)...

Hope you manage to find what you want, but we were absolutely delighted with Le Victoria.

Leah

hayhay2010

Have you tried tour operotors?
I recently booked our wedding abroad though first choice staying in the holiday village cyprus my first child was free and planned it so my other son will be 2 5 days after we return so only paid £30 for him,

I think without checking all the paperwork it was approx 3500 that was for 2 weeks an a basic wedding package at Preyia town courtyard in july, we also upgraded rooms etc so could of got for cheaper.

the free kids place really makes a difference to the price.
tht

Afitos

Hi,

Just a thought but have you thought about a Florida beach wedding ? You could easily do it on your budget