Worrying about the details after going to a wedding

July2012

We are planning our wedding for next July and trying to stick to budget.

For me thus meant not worrying about lithe details at all and having nothing that was not 100% required.

So I assumed that I wouldn't do favours, would do fancy centre prices (or maybe no centre pieces at all)

But we went to a wedding last night and everything was perfect. In fact it was stunning and had a real wow factor. Neither of us could stop going on about how much effort they had put into their detail and we heard the same being said by most people.

We obviously don't have the same money to spend, so not expecting ours to be anything like as fancy, but I got home and have started to worry that people actually do notice and care about the final details, and that we should make an effort with them.

What are your opinions?

MrsDrink

I think you can have the finer details on a budget. You just have to be MSE about it and find real bargains. There are plenty of brides to be on here who can tell you all the bargains they've found.

My biggest one has been making these: (They spell out 'mark & natalie' and will be on the little wall down the side of our house). (Oh we're having our reception at our house). They cost me £12 including the tealights!


Other 'little touches' I'm doing are:

A large picture frame full of cards we've given each other on our 'we met x years ago' anniversaries over the last 12 years: (cost nil - had the frame and the cards already).


A dessert spoon and dessert fork engraved with Mr and Mrs - I plan on getting these out every anniversary and eating some cake mmm. Cost £18. Could have probably got these cheaper but they match our normal cutlery range.


It is doable on a tight budget

*Scottish*Lass*

Forums like these are brilliant for having a wedding on a budget because there's so many people you can ask for advice.

Favours don't have to be expensive if you make them yourself - I made the favours for my friends wedding, made 100 for less than £20! 100 x small red organza bags, 100 x small plastic resealable bags, poppy seeds and 100 x small packs of love hearts. Seeds in plastic bag then inside organza bags, together with the love hearts, add a small business card sized tag with a personalised poem on it and hey presto! 100 favours that fit in with the wedding flowers for much cheapness

My friend is making her own cake - she's bought ribbon and a topper from ebay for just over £7, ingredients for cake about £10 all in.

Flowers are silk as it wasn't pratical for us to have real ones.

She was luck enough to get her dress half price as the last one and mine came from ebay - never worn and really nice!! We've sewn some pearls along the top of it to make it a bit less plain.

I'm doing her hair on the day and she's allergic to make up so no worries there lol I'm the only bridesmaid and will be doing my own hair and make up.

Bought a postbox from ebay which is lovely. Cheap wooden Mr & Mrs sign for top table - again ebay!

This wedding is on a serious budget but we didn't want her to lose out on anything so between me, the bride, her future MIL and a couple of other friends we've spent some serious internet hours looking for the things she'd like to have but couldn't afford to splash out on.

Doing it yourself means you don't get charged for the time it takes someone to do it but you still get what you want. ebay is a god send! We've ordered a lot of stuff from China at half the price (and sometime a quarter of the price!) of what we would have paid here. Takes a bit longer to get here but everything we've ordered has been in perfect condition.

Good luck with your planning and remember to come on here if you need to ask anything, there's always someone who can help

74jax

July2012 wrote: »

For me thus meant not worrying about lithe details at all and having nothing that was not 100% required. If this is what you want then I wouldn't be swayed by other people's weddings.

So I assumed that I wouldn't do favours, would do fancy centre prices (or maybe no centre pieces at all) Entirely your choice, we are doing our wedding our way also, we are even not sending out invites, heaven forbid, but are inviting people via email.

But we went to a wedding last night and everything was perfect. In fact it was stunning and had a real wow factor. Neither of us could stop going on about how much effort they had put into their detail and we heard the same being said by most people.

We obviously don't have the same money to spend, so not expecting ours to be anything like as fancy, but I got home and have started to worry that people actually do notice and care about the final details, and that we should make an effort with them. Don't worry about your wedding - or try not to, it's suppose to fun and exciting and you're planning on the start of your married life together, please don't get hung up on what your guests 'expect'.

What are your opinions?

I think an important question is did you choose not to do certain things (for example favours) to save money? or do you actually not want favours?

Maybe if you list here some of the 'wow' things you noticed and we can all help you with ways of doing them? Was there anything in particular you would like to do?

RainbowDrops

The "perfect" weddings are lovely, but they can also be a but unoriginal, straight out of a wedding mag, and a bit forgettable as they blend into one.

Do it your own way, don't feel like you have to be a sheep & have a textbook wedding.

You don't have to have favours if you dont want - a certain percentage get left on the tables at the end of the day anyway.

We just had home made seed favours,which cost about £20, and somepersonalises mini lovehears which were about £40.

As for centerpieces - the problem with massive ones is that you hav no space for wine glasses etc, or the tall vases mean you can't see other guests on the table. We just had garden flowers in small jam jars.

ellay864

Don't do anything you don't want to do - it's your day and your budget. But I know how you feel, I'd originally planned on minimal but then started thinking that maybe a bit of something would be nice. I've gradullay bought little bits and pieces all pretty cheap and buying them over time meant I wasn't shelling out a wad of cash.
I decided to buy favours that would also serve as table decorations so spent there when originally I hadn't planned any but as they serve dual purpose I'm happy. They're chocolates in lidded boxes with a ribbon on - silver boxes with purple ribbon and vice versa. I'm getting some small silk flowers from Ebay for the tables, and they'll go in vases that are less than £2 each from Ikea. I've also got some candles in little vases from Ikea, in purple, again less than £2 each, putting them on some mirror tiles (about £2 each from a wholesale shop) and sprinkling a few crystals on them.
I've got 3 decent sized iced cakes from Waitrose (total £58) and spent the sum of £3 on ribbons to go round them. I've bought a cake stand from Ebay and will sell it straight after.
It's amazing what you do with trinkets and little bits here and there. Have fun, go for what you like and don't feel pressured by other people

marywooyeah

I'd echo not feeling pressurised - our wedding "only" cost 5k but it was perfect, I wouldn't change a thing. I've been to some weddings that cost a bomb and quite frankly some of the stuff was a bit snobby and I wondered how much money they (or their parents!) had wasted. We paid for ours ourselves, not a penny given towards it, so like you were very MSE.
Favours were personalised lovehearts - £20 for 75 from ebay - I've had favours from other weddings and have only kept one of them, they often get chucked away so wouldn't spend loads.
we had a 3 tier white cake with purple stars made from a local lady, which was rainbow striped inside and 30 cupcakes = £70 for the lot!
veil and comb off ebay for £10 - bridal shops charge £60 upwards but the one I got looked lovely and got many compliments.
invites off ebay (again lol! £24 for 50, personalised and had an unusual design which attracted compliments, also matched our colour scheme.
we didnt have centrepieces - whats the point? I went to a wedding last week and we had to move them so we could talk to people on the tables! they can look a bit tacky IMO like with fake diamonds scattered about, I think they just get in the way so we didnt have them. The candles posted above look nice though, you could have candles which would create an ambience and not get in the way of people talking.
We also had a live band (A Blues Brothers Tribute band) who were absolutely brilliant! they had loads of people up dancing, paid 2 45 min sets then came back and did and extra 15mins for free because people were cheering for them. They only cost £400 - by far the lowest quote we were given and they knocked £100 off as they were local to us.

bottom line: find what you want then shop around for the lowest price, haggle, decide what is essential. It doesnt matter if someone else had an ice sculpture/choc fountain/rainbow of gold - what do you want? don't make your day based on someone else's wedding. Of course you want it to look nice etc, but think practically too.

good luck!

Claireabell

Our wedding is going to be informal. Registary office is 4pm, We dont want a sit down meal. We are having a buffet at 5:30/6pm and then hotpot and chilli at 9pm.
I am having vases with wooden flowers on the tables. I dont want favours- instead I am putting mini dairy milks on the tables as purple is my colour.

Flowers, jewellery, tiarras, cake topper- all from ebay
Vases- tesco sale

Reception venue already has fairy light in the room, so it will look twinkly at night

It will be the wedding we want, in our way - even though I am having to battle my folks on some things!!

emz118

I agree with above, but also wanted to add to think about people you know who have specific skills.

For example, my MIL to be is making us a chocolate cake, and my Nanny is making a traditional wedding cake, then we are using these as part of our evening buffet, along with cheese and biscuits, which cuts the cost to £2.75 a head, and any leftover cheese will be wrapped up and put in the fridge for us to collect the day after from the hall, so no wastage!

My wonderful Grandad is making 80 wooden egg cups for us, and won't accept any payment (he will get a bottle of whiskey though!) and my stepdad is picking up some kinder eggs from the cash and carry and we are using these combined as favours, with a name tag attached. (Easter Monday wedding) So my favours will come to a total of less than £1 each including the whiskey for Grandad, and best of all they are really personal.

Silk flowers... mine are from Dunelm Mill and were a bargain! They have some lovely foam roses in at the moment.

And table centrepieces... we are having a bowl from next £5, a candle from morrisons (massive pillar ones) £3 and mini eggs in the place of gravel or sand, so they come in at less than £10 and I can sell the bowls on afterwards, and keep the candles for the house (We love candles!) Plus, in the evening, the candles will be moved and the bowls of mini-eggs will form another part of the buffet! Or if they've been eaten in the day people won't be so hungry for the buffet anyway!

Oh yes... invites I am making myself as well, and they are coming out at less than £1 each for a gatefold with die-cut butterflies, rubber stamps, vellum, eyelets and ribbons! This includes the price of the butterfly cutter and the rubber stamps and ink I needed.

You can have your wedding, your way, and you don't need to spend a fortune!

bubbles0169

emz where did you get your card craft from? Thats a great price

aarchk

I decorated jam jars for tealights with bits of lace and ribbon scrounged from friends and family - the jam jars were advertised on freecycle and I distributed to jam making relatives afterwards! The tealights were battery ones from poundland as I couldnt have real candles. My mum made bunting, using material from charity shops and old duvet covers, total cost about £40 for over 100m. I didnt bother with favours as we had a free bar, no one commented or noticed at all... I did gift bags for the kiddies with a few bits from primark, wilkinsons and ebay. The bags were actually takeaway bags from ebay! We decorated the barn with fairly lights borrowed from friends and family.

My invitations I made by hand and used the same style for the OOS, each cost 41p and people commented on how lovely they were (I was informed by a rather posh aunt that they were better than her friends daughters wedding which cost 4 times as much as we spent!). I got my placecards from ebay and a friend wrote them out. I timmed them with bit of ribbon (buttons are also really good for this!).

I was at a wedding last week which had jam jars with flowers for centrepeices. Huge great lily vases full of flowers at the wedding before that. We all preferred the jam jar flowers! I had small tank vases from dunelm mills filled with wildflowers and foliage as well as a couple of roses from the bouquets (costs about £8.00 each) arracnged by my MIL.

All the little touches make a wedding, people really notice. You dont have to go overboard with everything (ie I didnt have favours) and dont have to cost a lot but they do take time and planning and a huge amount of ebaying.