wedding budget just got a whole lot smaller

bride2be2012

So our wedding is a little under 4 months away (26th May) and I am now going to be made redundant sometime before the end of March - not ideal really! So now we have less money to play with for our wedding budget. (My redundancy payment will be around a months wages and will be going to reduce my credit card balance, not the wedding fund!)
Any suggestions on how we can reduce the following, and what I should budget for the things with ??? below?!

We are meeting with our venue on Sunday, and hoping they will be sympathetic and have some suggestions too. We do have wedding insurance, and so can postpone without too much cost, but I really don't want to do that if it all possible.

Things that are paid for in full:
My dress and shoes
Wedding car for my mum and bridesmaids
Piper
Invitations
DJ

Deposits Paid:
Venue (Guessing at £1500 outstanding, some to be paid for by parents)
Photographer (£200 outstanding)
Wedding car for me (£275 outstanding)
Flowers (£100 outstanding)
Hairdresser (£100 outstanding)

Things we have still to pay for in full:
Registry Fees: £200
Cake - ??? (Mum's friend is doing, not sure how much she will charge)
Alterations ??? (Me and 2 bridesmaids)
OH Kilt Hire - £50
Rings - We were going to use Tesco vouchers in Goldsmiths, but may just buy cheap bands from Argos just now

I can't think of anything else just now, my head hurts from filling out job applications!

trying_2_b_good

Bless you, that REALLY sucks! I guess the first thing that I would do is find out exactly how much you owe the venue, and how much your parents are going to pay towards that. Speak to them and apologise for being candid/putting pressure on, but you really need to know how much you have to pay out. The same with the cake.

You might also want to mark down the dates that all these things need paying by, so you can budget what needs to come out of each monthly wage - you may find that nothing needs paying in Feb, but lots in March, so you need to know how much you need and when.

My dress alterations were only £30 - but that really depends on what needs doing and who's doing it. Perhaps get an idea from the shop???

You sound pretty organsiede, so it's just about extending this! Sorry I can't help with costs, but I'm guessing that the things you've already paid for can't be changed - but you could always ask for less flowers/a cheaper photo package and see what they say?

trying_2_b_good

Also - you mention your credit cards - have you switched to one with 0% on balance transfers and new spends? If you can get one of those cards then you could pay a little bit of above on your credit card giving you longer to pay it off. BUT only if you know that you can pay off before the 0% deal ends! HTH

RainbowDrops

A few suggestions below.
One idea is to talk to family & friends about it, and maybe suggest that instead of getting you a gift if they'd help out with some of the stuff you need.

Wedding car for my mum and bridesmaids
Wedding car for me (£275 outstanding)
Can either of these be cancelled for a partial refund? For example, swapping the cars for taxis will be much cheaper, and lets face it, most people wont see the cars arriving / leaving. You could even see if someone else could drive.
I know you might lose some deposit, but the saving made might still leave you up on cash.

Piper
Again, can this ba cancelled for a partial refund? Can you replace this with a recoding? I wanted a harp for my ceremony, but it was v.expensive, so we went for a CD instead.

Venue (Guessing at £1500 outstanding, some to be paid for by parents)
Photographer (£200 outstanding)
Worth mentioning your situation to them, but they might not respond

Hairdresser (£100 outstanding)
Can someone do this to you?

Cake - ??? (Mum's friend is doing, not sure how much she will charge)
Ask your Mum to find out how much, maybe they might be generous enough to give it asn a gift?


Alterations ??? (Me and 2 bridesmaids) Could you ask your BMs to help pay for theirs?
OH Kilt Hire - £50
Seems reasonable, not much you could shave off that.

bride2be2012

Thanks. I'm just in panic mode at the moment!

My folks will give us a better idea of what they are able to give us, once we have seen our venue on Sunday, my mum has hinted it will be a 'substantial' contribution. (they did offer to send us on honeymoon, but that was before all this carry on with my work!)

I will ask OH to speak to his folks too, but that's a touchy subject (they told us they would give us £500 when we set a date, now they are saying they will only give us £500 is we put it towards a videographer :mad:)

I have a spreadsheet already with when things need to be paid, the only thing next month is my wedding car hire. Then most other things don't need to be paid until May.

Can't reduce my photography package any more, it is the basic package anyway and it's a friend doing it, he's already knocked off £150 for us. Will speak to our florist and see if we can reduce anything there. Going to see the girl about alterations on Friday, so will find out then what that's going to cost. And have to phone about the cake this week too, so will get an estimate for something small (cheap!) but elegant lol!

bride2be2012

RainbowDrops wrote: »

A few suggestions below.
One idea is to talk to family & friends about it, and maybe suggest that instead of getting you a gift if they'd help out with some of the stuff you need.

Wedding car for my mum and bridesmaids
Wedding car for me (£275 outstanding)
Can either of these be cancelled for a partial refund? For example, swapping the cars for taxis will be much cheaper, and lets face it, most people wont see the cars arriving / leaving. You could even see if someone else could drive.
I know you might lose some deposit, but the saving made might still leave you up on cash.
I would imagine the car for my mum and bridesmaids could be cancelled, I'd need to find out about mine.

Piper
Again, can this ba cancelled for a partial refund? Can you replace this with a recoding? I wanted a harp for my ceremony, but it was v.expensive, so we went for a CD instead.
Not really, it's my dad's friend and it's been paid for by my dad - I don't even know how much it cost TBH, it was my dad's treat.

Venue (Guessing at £1500 outstanding, some to be paid for by parents)
Photographer (£200 outstanding)
Worth mentioning your situation to them, but they might not respond
Speaking to venue on Sunday, photographer already done us a deal so I can't see him coming down any more

Hairdresser (£100 outstanding)
Can someone do this to you?
Possibly, it's my sisters friend doing it at the moment, this is to cover her taking a day off work. I thought it was quite reasonable as it is for 6 of us (Me, 2 BM, my mum, 2 flower girls)

Cake - ??? (Mum's friend is doing, not sure how much she will charge)
Ask your Mum to find out how much, maybe they might be generous enough to give it asn a gift?will be phoning her later this week so will find out


Alterations ??? (Me and 2 bridesmaids) Could you ask your BMs to help pay for theirs?Yes, I'm planning on doing this when I see them Friday
OH Kilt Hire - £50
Seems reasonable, not much you could shave off that.

Thanks, I've put my replies in red.

bride2be2012

trying_2_b_good wrote: »

Also - you mention your credit cards - have you switched to one with 0% on balance transfers and new spends? If you can get one of those cards then you could pay a little bit of above on your credit card giving you longer to pay it off. BUT only if you know that you can pay off before the 0% deal ends! HTH

Hiya, yes my cards are all on 0% at the moment.

fawny

Hi,

Some good suggestions from the others. Just wanted to say sorry to hear about your job, hope you find another one soon & with more money:D

Hollie84

the car can u not just have one? im paying £245 for a beauford this will first take mum and BM's to the church then come back for me,we have it for 3hrs and my venue is 45mins away from the church but it will work out fine

is the price for your venue a package? if it is they more than likely wont budge,we asked our venue if they could but because it was a package price there was no chance,the extras we have added on top can be though

really sorry to hear whats going to happen and i hope u work something out

trying_2_b_good

In that case, there's no rush to use your redundancy to pay them off??

Sorry - should have quoted your comment about your 0% cards

bride2be2012

Re cars: I'll need to see what we can do about them. My prob is my sister is in a wheelchair and needs a car that she can be wheeled into in her chair. So she won't be able to go in the car I have booked for me, and I don't know if I will be able to cancel that car without loosing any more money on it.

Our venue isn't a package as such. All that is stated is you have to have a minimum of 60 adults eating (they know we don't have that many, and so have already negotiated a deal where they will charge us for room hire instead), and you spend at least £27.50 a head on the meal. They don't force you to take a drinks package, or evening buffet.