Budget wedding party tips - Glossy magazine needs your help!

Former_MSE_Archna

Wedding Ideas magazine is looking for great tips on how to transform an ordinary venue (garden / barn / hall) into something fabulous. Did you decorate your venue on a small budget? Got tips to share? Get in touch: beinatopmagazine@yahoo.co.uk

mikeywills

For flowers on the tables we picked up some very cheap square vases from Ikea, and attached some wide ribbon around them in the colours of the party. Into these we put inexpensive seasonal flowers, in our case we got married in april so loads of tulips of multi colours, these centre pieces added an essense of spring to the tables, they looked very professional and light but only cost about £5 per table.

Layering the tables we found helped, so nice crisp white tablelinen, with an alternative table runner down the centre and matching table napkins. We found a great online company confetti.co.uk supplying little silver hearts and rose petals etc to just dress all the tables up a bit.

Doing as much of the items yourself helps, we made our own placecards, order of service, invitations, wedding gift lists etc. We had a civil service so took a photo of our venue and photocopied the image onto hand made paper which was repeated throughout all details as a personal touch.

We also picked up rubber stamps with text rather than handwriting our cards these took the presentation away from looking amateurish.

We hunted for a venue for our ceremony, by food first. We tested possible venue for quality of food prior to short listing. However almost everywhere we looked the prices for three courses seemed to double the minute you mentioned wedding, while the choice of menu reduced. In the end we chose a small family run hotel, who agreed to offer their full ala carte menu, which our guests picked from in advance. We gave the hotel a seating plan with who wanted what prior to the day. This way we kept the choice wide enough so everyone really enjoyed their meals, while the hotel were well prepared for what they had to offer. (We only had a small service approx 50, which our hotel said was a standard evening sitting for their ala carte menu anyway.)

Guest lists will always be a sticking point in any family wedding, so get it sorted before you start. We were paying for our wedding so prohibited the party to immediate family, close friends and colleagues only, if our parents had been allowed to choose the party would have been three times the size easily. Thankfully we had the wedding we wanted and the guests around us that made it an occasion we will never forget.

MJMum

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newlywed

We hired a village hall. We went the evening before with friends and set the place up ourselves using layered table cloths large cream ones with a small red square diagonally across.

Then we set out wine glasses with co-ordinating serviettes folded inside, tealights in holders (from ikea), co-ordinating fake rose petals scattered on the tables.

Then - love them or hate them - we used balloons as the village hall had high ceilings. We had a proper balloon arch across the top table with groups of 3 helium filled balloons on each table. By the end of that the room looked a million times better.

Then we asked friends to bring the flower displays from the wedding venue to the reception so that there were flowers in the entrance way.

writer1979

Thanks to everyone who replied - keep the tips coming!

Please email me direct aswell, as I may want to ask a few more questions about all those great ideas. Happy to keep it all anonymous if you wish.

Thanks again,

Kate

celyn90

I made arrangements of paper flowers for a friends wedding and wired them onto florists wire. They looked great and really modern as well as being a fraction of the cost of normal flowers, they could be prepared in advance and she still has her table centrepiece.

I also put a friend of mine in touch with the floristry department of her local sixth-form college a couple of years ago. The students made her arrangements, she paid less then she would from a commerical florist and provided them all with photos and leters of thanks they could use in their portfolios as part of their course work.

spiddy100

We had a large venue - entire ground floor of an old house, four rooms to decorate. There was no way we could afford flowers all over so we had a floral arrangement on each mantlepiece then filled the rest of the space with hired palms and topiary from a tree hire place. They were really reasonable and fitted the space much better.

Fairy lights always look gorgeous too - buy them in late Dec when they're reduced, then sell them on Ebay in Spring when all the other brides are looking for them and they're out of stock :laugh: