Wedding Tips start here...

Fritha_2

Destined to be Skint, congrats that woman!

Few things: why not try local restaurants/bars, ours promised that we could set up/decorate the night before, I'm planning on holding them to that and stamping me feet and generally being bridezilla if they change their minds! Whoever leaves last gets to clear up! (I'm going to 'volunteer' someone to generally chuck stuff in a black bag!) but I'll take bits with me when we go.

Cake: You've quoted £30 for this. This si how much my (well, our but you know what I mean) cake is costing me becuase I'm giving my friend money for the ingredients and she's going to make it for me. Is this how you're planning to do it otherwise it'll be a bit more expensive.

Dress: You've quoted £150, I had my first fitting yesterday (we do not talk about that) my frock was £200 and the dressmaker said she couldn't have made one for that. Is that definately the right figure?

Food: Oh crikey I'm not being positive am I, I'm really sorry I promise to start once I've menioned this: For 100 people £600 might be a bit low depending on who's doing it. I was surprised when places where charging at least £10 a head, mostly a lot more!

Right positive: You seem to have covered pretty much everything!

Photography, I'm such a cheap skate I reckon £200 seems a lot to give a friend! Could you be cheeky and ask them what their costs will be, cover that and then they do the rest as a wedding present?

Flowers: I highly recommend Sarah's Flowers on ebay, they're beautiful and take a job away from (unless you'd enjoy it!)

Right I'll stop now, but essentially I think you're being really organised! Good luck :-)

jiblets1

Don't forget registrar/church fees. If that's the £200 you've got written down, it seems too little...

Guinea_2

Our Church fees are £380!

8pnoodles

Skint, we did the village hall thing for our wedding. We roped in some family members to help, and basically were allowed to hire the hall for the wedding day.

On top of this we were allowed access to the hall after 6pm ish to decorate it as they knew it was a wedding, and we were allowed until 12 noon the next day to clear up as it wasn't being used.

Beg friends and family and you could get it done.

We also hired AMAZING caterers who were fab and cheap despite their website looking like they'd cost a fortune! We had a BBQ of tuna steaks and chicken and salads and they did these out of this world desserts.

Website here: http://creativeeventcatering.co.uk/index.html

They even did a mobile bar for us, and allowed us to provide our own wine for the tables etc. Tony Sheppard is such a lovely bloke if you contact them. And all his staff bent over backwards for us. They even hired us table linen and set the tables for us and cleared these away.

Tescos and various other places do FREE glass hire if that helps, and we bought 1.5L glass jugs from Tesco at around £1.50 each for each table for water.

We used Waitrose buffet service for the evening buffet and shopped around for a dead cheap DJ and he was superb.

Be very very careful doing too much yourself. I did (been married twice, I don't learn do I?) and each time it became very very stressful towards the end, and I was hyper organised!

When and whereabouts are you getting married? I would easily travel most places for way less than £200, and then at least you'd have a semi-pro photographer too. I haven't had anyone take me up on my offer yet, so I am keen to find someone I can work with!

I will PM you our photography website, so you have an idea of what we do...

vickitoria100

i have another question for your unending wisdom! my h2b and me are wondering whether to go for a band or a DJ in the evening. i've been contacting a number of bands in the area and they charge between 800 and 2,500 for 3 45 minute sets! :eek: i'm obviously int he wrong profession. comparatively, a DJ only costs £100-200 which is a big saving considering you need to arrange for something to be played in between sets with a band aswell!

what do you guys think? does the atmosphere created by a band outweigh the cost? are DJs cheesy? will everyone be too p*ssed to care?!

we're having little rsvp postcards enclosed with our invites and we're going to have a bit at the bottom where the guests can tick if they are veggie and say if they want to stay at the hotel on the night. if we do go for a DJ we thought it'd be a nice idea if we left a space for each guest to chose a song to be played during the night so that the music is more personal.

what do you think? if you think DJ where can i go for recommendations?

thanks my lovlies x x

Destined_to_be_skint

Hello you lovely girls! Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

To answer some queries:

Vickitoria - Bridesmaids were going to be my niece as she is desperate to be my bridesmaid and I love her to bits so I really want her to be one. This has meant that H2B (first time I've used that expression!!) wants his two nieces as well. But they live abroad, so may not come anyway. And I absolutely have to have my best friend as she is wonderful and I need someone who is totally calm with me on the day when my dad's girlfriend kicks off!!

I've found a hall I can have for two consecutive days, and another I can have for three days but it's only available at Christmas. The thing is I have to convince people to help me clear up on the night and H2B has refused point blank. I don't think he realises about the budget restrictions and he's already said he's fed up with talking about the wedding (we've only had two 5 minutes conversations about it!!!!) At every venue I've spoken to I've asked to be able to set up/clear away beforehand but they all say I have to book for three days in a row, and at most places this is impossible. I don't really want to be pinning balloons up at 10 p.m. the night before the wedding!

Flower prices - I've looked into buying from a wholesaler, so I might be able to get it a bit cheaper but this was to cover church flowers too. I'm not having traditional bouquets - just corsages on the wrists and perhaps on the bridesmaids dresses too. I personally prefer fresh flowers to silk ones, so I am prepared to pay more for the privilege.

Fritha -

Been contacting local restaurants to see if they can help.

The cake price was for a friend making it.

I am a fashion designer so I was planning on making the pattern up myself and doing the mock up in calico for the fitting, and then when it's all done passing it onto the dressmaker. She did my friend's frock from scratch for £200, so I thought I might be able to get her down on the price but yes, I probably need to up this budget a bit! I'm not planning on a traditional big white dress and train though, so it will look more like a party dress and hopefully cheaper!!

Yep, my food costs are totally off the wall - having contacted some local caterers I am beginning to realise that I need to rethink this budget entirely!!! Might be able to do something for about £12 a head - which doubles this cost! No worries about being negative - I need some honest feedback from people who have "been there, done that"!

My photographer friend lives at the other end of the country, so I was thinking I'll have to pay his train fare and accommodation costs. He's also a bit anti-weddings (didn't even attend his sisters!!) so I am going to have to make it worth his while to persuade him - unless 8pnoodles will step in!

Jiblets and Guinea - well obviously the fees need to be doubled too! We haven't been to see the vicar yet, so I have no idea - I plucked that figure off a wedding website. I thought the church were trying to encourage people to get married?!?!

8pnoodles - that caterer looks interesting and as we were planning on getting hitched in Uxbridge (45 minutes down the M40 from Oxford), I will contact this company.

Know what you mean about doing too much myself - the whole of the planning has fallen to me (just like everything else - sighs!) and as I am creative, I have very particular ideas about things and how I want them done! So, my perfectionism is probably going to make things even more difficult for myself. I also have a tendency to take on far more than I have time for - for example I work fulltime as well as running my own business! I really want to do the flowers but I may have to get a florist to do the more difficult arrangements and content myself with the corsages and simple table flowers.

We won't be doing this until sometime next year - maybe May/June/July and near Uxbridge (north west London), so if you are interested, 8pnoodles, I would love your website link.

Vickitoria100 - I would ask around your friends for recommendations - have any of the weddings you've been to had a good DJ. I think DJs are more flexible than bands - can play all sorts of music and switch quickly if no one is dancing. But live bands create a fantastic atmosphere. If I had the budget there is one I would book that is £1000. Anyway, at the end of the day where there's music, there's dancing, so I doubt your guests would mind! Most bands provide a CD system palying in between sets.

Fritha_2

Vickitoria,

Hmmm, really might restart the band after looking at those figures!

A band would be very cool, much more atmosphere, but they can only play one kind of music and in my opinion you have to pay attention to a band whereas you can 'ignore' a DJ more?

I also suspect that you would prefer a DJ as you seem to be very much swaying towards that in your post! And as it's MSE and a DJ is cheaper go with that!

I'm afraid I can't recommend a DJ but I know a good band.... (only; one of the guitarists has fallen out with the other one, the drummer can't even clap in time which makes the singer giggle uncontrollably and the bassist doesn't exist, sound good don't we!)

Good luck with your search, try asking friends for recommendations, they might have friends of friends, failing that go to the Yellow pages, find the ones in your price range and persuade them to let you see them in action at a function?

Fritha_2

Destined_to_be_skint wrote:

Fritha -

Been contacting local restaurants to see if they can help.

The cake price was for a friend making it.

I am a fashion designer so I was planning on making the pattern up myself and doing the mock up in calico for the fitting, and then when it's all done passing it onto the dressmaker. She did my friend's frock from scratch for £200, so I thought I might be able to get her down on the price but yes, I probably need to up this budget a bit! I'm not planning on a traditional big white dress and train though, so it will look more like a party dress and hopefully cheaper!!

Yep, my food costs are totally off the wall - having contacted some local caterers I am beginning to realise that I need to rethink this budget entirely!!! Might be able to do something for about £12 a head - which doubles this cost! No worries about being negative - I need some honest feedback from people who have "been there, done that"!

My photographer friend lives at the other end of the country, so I was thinking I'll have to pay his train fare and accommodation costs. He's also a bit anti-weddings (didn't even attend his sisters!!) so I am going to have to make it worth his while to persuade him - unless 8pnoodles will step in!

Wow, I'm impressed, you're one organised lady, as you said tho be careful you don't take too much on or you'll end up in a little puddle in a few months! But you're doing so well I'm jealous!

Hooray for looking at restaurants, hopefully you'll be able to find one that will be able to fit in with want you need :-)

Rock on for cake price!

The fashion designer/dress thing is fabulous, I agree if she made your friend's from scratch for £200 you should be able to knock her down if you down a lot of the leg work, haggle hard, and if needs be cry, it's been working well for me so far!

Food: £12/£15 seems a good price to have as a guide to say I'll pay x amount and that's how it's goingto be and then beaming politely! If you decide to launch yourself bodily at a restaurant or hotel then the food should be included with other bits so it might be different?

Photographer: *looks pointedly at 8pnoodles*.... Also it might be worthwhile checking out the local colleges for nearly/newly graduated photography students, we've established on here that it's a gamble, but I'm doing this and frankly it's one of the few things I'm actually confident about!

Forgive my negativity paranoia, I'm planning this wedding all by myself (I've got a lot of other things going on too which I won't bore you with), Mr Fritha is helping, well, he's trying, he's just a bit rubbish! Bless him! I worried becuase at the moment if anyone says anything negative I tend to cry a lot (M&S said they weren't going to get the shirts I needed in stock and I burst into tears, I think the customer services lady was quite scared!) and when I've stopped crying I shout a lot!

8pnoodles

Fritha i have to say I luuuuurve your squishy dumbo ratling avatar, looks just like one of my boys, except he's a rex. GORGEOUS!

Skint, I PM'd you our website. I'm not sure about doing it for free that late into the year next year, but maybe if we could come to some arrangement about my travel costs, it could work. It would be less than £200 definitely, and I gotta say I LOVE weddings!

I would treat you just like any other client, and working for my husband I handle all the pre-wedding organisation and a lot of the post-wedding editing anyway, so you're essentially getting a HUGE bargain! But then you have to promise to recommend me to all your friends.

To be honest what swings it for me to do your wedding is you sound so much like me. Taking on too much stuff amidst wedding plans sounds familiar! Please be careful though ok? I was so stressed by the day, I was in tears over something MIL said to me during the reception, and an evil moody c*w through the honeymoon. Try and delegate stuff if you can to a best mate or whoever.

Will PM you my email address and hope to hear from you when you're a bit more sorted with venues and setting a date.

alison6692

dizzzyqueen wrote:

we are getting married on new years eve this year, as all the family usually pay to go to a hotel for the night to celebrate it saves money there. Also on a Monday so cheaper, but almost everyone is off work.We are going to gretna green - getting married at 4.30pm then straight for the evening meal.
Didnt want to wait more years and spend thousands.
Those that can't make it can watch us on a webcam.
Just seen the post about the parkinsons flower...my dad has throat cancer, does anyone have any ideas for favours that a cancer charity could benefit from?

Thanks
Wendy

Hiya

what about charity pins - ideas here

http://www.brides2b.info/weddingcharitypins.html

I had charity pins and lttle bags of sweets I put together myself. Lots of the pins got left behind so if i was doing it again I would just get the sweets and then tie a little tag saying something like

"We decided to donate money to "CHARITY" instead of having expesive wedding favours. This is to remember our loving Dad.

Enjoy the sweets

Love xxx"

HTH

Love alison x