Wedding Tips start here...

northernflasher

Mrschapman2be. A garden BBQ sounds wonderful. As for the honeymoon..lucky you for the generous in-laws. If you dont like flying have you thought about cruising. Lots sail from southampton, we did Ocean Village last year and loved it.

Meenu

Hi
yes i will send the details to you tom eve
thanks

Miss_Naughty

Hi Everyone,

My OH and I are getting married 19th Feb 2010. It seems like ages away but then I relised everything we've got to plan.
We're paying for the whole wedding ourselves so our budget is very tight.
I thought I would share some of my moneysaving tips with you all:

First of all we're getting married on a Friday. We decided this because our ceremony venue will be quieter (read further down) plus it means that our guests are travelling from all over the place so they can make a weekend of it if they want.

Dress - I got my dress from Berketex Bride. They run wedding dress sales every few weeks at various stores throughout the country (Have a look on there website). My dress should have been £1000 but I got it for £349!! There's a women in my home town who is going to do the alterations for me.

Cake - We're having a family friend who is a retired baker make it for us.

Invitations - We found this site http://www.weddinginvitations.org.uk/ they do invitations for £2 each and the designs are gorgeous plus they will change the colour etc for you and send you a free sample!!

Cars - H2B works for a major car delearship and they have a very nice excutive car. His boss has agreed to let us use it for the day. H2B's uncle is going to be our driver!

Ceremony - Our ceremony is at Edinburgh Castle. It sounds expensive however we paid just over £50 for it because I'm in the military so we get forces discount. The chapel only holds 26 which is perfect for us because we only want a very close intimate ceremony.
The local Padre from my military base has agreed to marry us in the chapel.

Music - I'm going to have a piper pipe me in and out of the chapel. My brother has a mate who is an ex Army piper and he's going to do it for us for half price!! We're having an Ipod playing whilst we're signing the register.

Bridesmaid - Because our wedding is so small and at the risk of upsetting various people I have decided not to have a bridesmaid. The OH is having a best man who is hiring a morning suit for the day. My mum is going to stay with me right up until I leave for the chapel with my dad and then I'm going to hand her my flowers when we're at the altar.

Reception - We're having a nice family meal at a Howies Restaurant. Howies don't charge for room hire and the meal is only £25 per person! We're having the meal in there private dining room. They said they would also decorate the room for us!!
We're also going to have a do when we get back from Honeymoon (back where we live because we dont live in Edinburgh) and we're having this at a local hotel who have a function room.

Wine - The restaurant charge £3 for corkage. We're thinking about buying our own wine in bulk and just paying corkage. None of us like champagne so we were thinking about sparkling wine. I've seen some for half price on Tesco wines but Im not too sure how long last's for unopened? Does anyone know? If we buy it now will it still be ok for Feb??

Favours - We're going to get T-Shirts printed with a photo of us on it and the wedding date. We just thought it was a bit more personal.

Honeymoon - We're doing a last minute deal for this. We couldnt decide where we want to go so we're going to go to the travel agents 2 days before the wedding and get a late deal. We think it's more exciting since everything else to do with the wedding is so planned!!!

Flowers - I still havent decided on this one yet. I'm really not a flower person but I think it would be nice to have some. I was thinking about Carnations because I do like them plus they're an all season flower I think?

Photography and Video - We've found a photographer who has only been doing wedding photography for a year or so but he's fantastic!!! We saw his portfolio the other day and it's excellent! We dont want structured photos and the style of his wedding photography isn't that at all. It's all very natural. Plus he does an essentials wedding package for 3 hours for £295!!! And since we're not having a proper night do we decided 3 hours is all we need.
As for a video I have a camcorder that the H2B bought me for Xmas last year. So his uncle has said that he'll use it to do the video for the day. That way we'll get a really natual video. Plus we're going to set the camera up at the reception for guests to leave us video messages!!

We'll I think I've covered most things for now. If anyone has any ideas about the wine and flowers can you please let me know.

Thanks x x

brownbabygirl

Miss Naughty, I think invitations at £2 each are very expensive. You can get VERY good ones on ebay that will only come up to £1 each including postage.

Miss_Naughty

brownbabygirl wrote: »

Miss Naughty, I think invitations at £2 each are very expensive. You can get VERY good ones on ebay that will only come up to £1 each including postage.

I have had a look at the Ebay one's but nothing really took my fancy. 2BH I fell in love with the one's on Wedding-Invitations.org. Plus they do no minimum order which is great for us because we'll only need about 10.

brownbabygirl

Miss_Naughty wrote: »

I have had a look at the Ebay one's but nothing really took my fancy. 2BH I fell in love with the one's on Wedding-Invitations.org. Plus they do no minimum order which is great for us because we'll only need about 10.

alright that is OK then. i need about 150!:eek:

Meenu

really really sorry for late response
the wedding card people my aunt used a month ago are called vermapackers.co
she said they were professional in her experience

brownbabygirl

meenu thanks for that. that website is ok but i found it hard to work out if prices were for EACH card or for a pack (Quantity not mentioned).

mrschapman2be

Question - What is everyones take on the wedding dresses on Ebay from China? Im not sure they're worth the risk, but I love some of the styles. Im not a fan of loads of crystals etc. which seem to be really popular at the mo, and the ones from China are lovely.

However Im unsure whether they will look anything like their pictures when they arrive?! Has anyone had any experience with one of these Chinese Sellers? Id love to know your feedback.

Thanks in advance

:j

Herbiecat

Hi mrschapman2be.

Theres a thread on here titled Landy, have a look at that coz theres loads on stuff. Its long tho so give yourself some time lol