im getting married

Mrs_atrixblue.-MFR-.

hi all im getting married in august and was woundering if anyone and any ideas on how i can do it on a budget :j

THE-WIFE_3

What do you want to do, Mrs A? invites, table decs, menus?????

If it's your actual wedding try posting in the wedding forum at the top, the ladies there are really helpful and can give you heaps of ideas.

*Ro*

Congratulations!
Just a few things that we did when my husband and I got married in case they help (we had moved into to a house the same year and money was tight):

Reception - Because we had moved people were curious to see the house so we had a lunchtime buffet there with cold and some hot food prepared/heated by SIL & Nephews who also handed out drinks, glasses came from waitrose (all three worked in catering so were very capable!). Buffet was simple (sandwiches, sausage rolls etc waitrose entertaining hot snacks & little cakes, pavlova etc) and also other SIL made some quiches as a contribution. Cake was two layers, M&S ready made fruit cakes & M&S pillars then decorated with sugar paste flowers, ribbon etc by a friend who does cake decorating. Favours were made with two contrasting colours of sheer and gold patterned sheer fabric containing chocolates or sugared almonds tied with ribbon by me. Invites were done by me by hand, an image of two swans placed on inside of a card with a window cut out of the front of the card with a card making thingey, the instructions were typed by hubby etc, think we bought blank cards etc from paperchase and rsvp cards elsewhere. My ex-bosses were members of a flower club and were keen to do the flowers for the reception so they produced some flowers to stand outside the house and to decorate the house.

Wedding was in my childhood church, BIL knew someone with a old Rolls Royce so he drove it!, bridesmaid dresses were purchased from a shop which sold dresses for balls etc My skirt, basque, bolero came from Monsoon sale along with accessories bag, wrap etc my reception dress was also monsoon sale. Hubbys suit was from BHS.
My engagement and wedding ring were both antique/secondhand (at the time enabled me to have platinum at gold prices!). Hubby got an expensive wedding ring but a deal was done as it was the display one.
Bridal flowers etc were done by the local garden centre so not mse!!

HTH

Good Luck

Ro x

continualdiamond

I got married last August and did a lot of the stuff myself.

Ebay:

* Designed invites (company went with had a template pop up for you with the design and you played around with wording). I then bought gems, teal card and butterfly cutter from a craft shop and decorated them.

* Wanted to keep my flowers so had fake ones, ordered mine and my sisters. Mine was a bit too small, but with no hassle sent it back and it was re made bigger. I just had my sister in terms of wedding party and husband to be had 1 best man.

* Purchased teal gerbras off ebay for table centre pieces. I had 1 stem in a 50p ikea vase with teal, pearl and clear beads at the bottom. I purchased the beads from a bead shop, it was about £15 for all of them and that did 6 vases.

* Pearl effect butterflies that were listed under cake decorations. I went on each gerbra wrapped around, came in a pack of 7 so passed on the last 1 to my friend who used it on our wedding cake.

Wedding car:

* Just had 1. Husband to be took my mum to the venue and the wedding car was FREE, it was a gift from my husbands uncle who had just started doing weddings with his old car.

Wedding cake:

* FREE, my friend makes cakes and she offered straight away to do mine. We had cupcakes and our own cake at the top. It cost me £25 for a cake stand off ebay that I decided to keep and its been used twice already since. I went shopping with her and got cake cases and ribbon for the top cake, I bought that myself. But my friend bought all the icing, glitter and ingredients to make the cake etc.

My outfit:

* Dress from Monsoon - £180
* Sparkling silver shoes from Next - £30 (worn twice already to my friends 40th and work xmas do)
* Veil - My something borrowed from a friend
* Head piece - Crystal headband from accessorize - £8

Venue:

* Pub - got married at the pub and had the reception as well. Country pub, exposed beams and just lovely and cosy. 25 guests, buffet menu. Room hire was £300 from 11am - 11pm.

All up, the whole day came to £2,700. Thats everything from thank you cards to wedding rings etc etc.

Here are some photos to give you ideas of what I have said:

Table centre pieces:


Wedding cake - our own to take home (I'm Australian, husband British):


Whole cake:


My flowers:


Wedding car:

CurlyTop

Hi

I organised my brothers wedding for him that was in August 2011. I did the following:

Bridal dress
Was bought in the BHS sale. You can get some good bargains. We got one reduced from £250 to £75. I noticed muck on the bottom of it and got it knocked down to £60 - don't be afraid to ask as the shops just want to clear the stock. They did try to say it was reduced already but knowing the trades descriptions act, it was not marked as so. A quick word with the boss of the department and hey ho, it covered the cost of getting it dry cleaned. Or it would have done, had the bride not got so caught up in the event and said she would slim in to it. Only to find she didn't and consequently ended up having to buy another one. We did resell it via ebay.

Bridesmaids dresses
3 of these needed. From BHS but NOT the bridal section. In the childs section they had an occasion wear section. There was an offer on of buy one get one half price so that worked out at £42. The eldest child is a tall 10 year old and so we did go to the bridal section for that one. Think it was about £60

Groom suit
My brother went with my brother to get his groom suit from Next. Paid £140 for it. Then sis in law happened to be in a Next clearance shop and mentioned there was loadsa suits on offer. Took brother with me and got a suit for £60 very similar to the first one, which was taken back.

Flowers
A friend's mum offered to do them as she was into floristry. Ask around, you never know, someone usual knows someone who does. You could always ask at your local church, if that's where you are getting married as the ladies there are into flower arranging and I'm sure will be cheaper than a florist.

Bridesmaids flowers
These we got as fake ones from Dunelm Mill - very authentic looking. If the bride hadn't already ordered hers, we were gonna get them from here but she felt bad letting her friends mum down. Just three little posies each. I got florists tape from ebay and the lot cost about £7.

Cake
I made a single tier sponge with 7 dozen cupcakes of three different flavours. Got the stand from ebay. Once again, ask around, you would be surprised just how many people are into cakes and decorating. If its a close family member, it could be their wedding present to you.

Photographs
Wedding was in a register office, my brother wanted to keep the cost low and so my nephew took the shots. Only 16 he was and what a great job he did. We pooled photos from other folk and then got a nice album for them to go in - WHS usually have good sales in which you can get bargain albums if you don't mind waiting.

Invites
For the day, these were M&S ones picked up in the local market for a snippet of the price. £1 per pack of 8 if I remember rightly.
Evening invites were done at a local company and were about £50 for 70 with envelopes but I think someone on here will know where you can get them cheaper. Vista print maybe

Cars
The bride got a taxi and my brother got a lift. As they didn't have cars and there were about 24 family members, they paid for taxis back to the venue for everyone.

Food
Went to a local social club who had a fab reputation for being good stuff and reasonably priced. The staff couldn't have done enough for us.

Rings
Bought from local jewellers, not sure if they are nationwide. Warren James. They had a sale on.

They got married as one of the last appointments in the day so they didn't have a sit down jobbie. As a family we all piled back to a local social club and spent about 1.5-2 hours together as a family group in relaxed surroundings with a few drinks to the happy couple and then from 7pm the madness started when the rest of the guest arrived.

Not sure if this helps but its a starting point. Best of luck to you and your intended