Wedding Tips start here...

hilstep2000

I had silk flowers for mine. We bought them in the local pound shop, and did all the carnations, my bouquet, top of the cake, and bridesmaids flowers for £30. Much cheaper than real ones, and you have a keepsake for afterwards. I also got cheap hair combs, and used florists wire to bind more little silk flowers for the headdresses.
GOOD LUCK!

vickylee

Congratulations!

How about some balloons for the tables instead? You can buy a helium canister for £25-30 and appropriately coloured balloons. Or if there are no children present, coloured tea lights/candles?

As for hair, how long is it? When I got married my bridesmaids (who all had long hair) had it pulled into a pony tail, then got one of those thingies that put ringlets in (with tons of hairspray etc) and just ringlet-ed the whole lot. Or you could pull it into a loose bun, then pull out some wisps and put them into ringlets like tendrils. Looks very pretty. (Again tons of hairspray needed, and a mate to assist doesn't go amiss)

I also made my tiara, and the bridemaids tiaras. If you've got a decent craft shop/bead shop nearby you may be able to buy the bits and pieces. I think it cost me around £20 to make mine, the adult bridesmaid, and two slightly smaller for the two younger bridesmaids.

If you want to have a look, PM me and I'll see if I can sort out some pictures!

Yoga_Girl

Congratulations!

For the bridesmaid dresses its worth looking elsewhere other than wedding shops. If the bridesmaids are young children try places like www.redoute.co.uk or www.vertbaudet.co.uk

If bridesmaids are older just go round all the usual clothes shops and check out evening wear, party wear, posher summer frocks etc etc. My bridesmaids wore lovely just-below-knee length silvery grey/lilac dresses that were from one of the department stores (John Lewis or Debenhams I think).

My tiara I got from a fashion jewellry store (aimed for the pre-teens I think!).

My sister made "favours" for the guests, she made lovely little bags out of sheer fabric, tied with ribbon, and inside we put fortune cookies - I think she ordered these on-line.

How about some kind of candle display for the tables? You can get cheap large candles ie from pound shops then either stand them on a bowl of pebbles (can of silver or gold spray will make the pebbles look special) or a small plate covered with anything - dried flowers, green foliage from the garden etc. Get loads of books out of the library for some inspiration!

Have a quick look in some of the wedding magazines for ideas, a lot of the stuff can be reproduced at home.

And don't forget to relax and enjoy yourself!

Iona_Penny

Yes adding my congratulations too. Further to table decorations.. went to a wedding with little night lights round edge of a round mirror with coloured metallic confettii scattered on. When lit they looked lovely esp. as it will go dark early at a Nov. wedding and you keep other lighting low.

Less is more and for flowers why not have two or three lillies and some green tied with loads of fine curly ribbon (get them to remove the pollen covered stamens though)

CostCutter

:j Congratulations!

Hi There, I had a great time organising and making a lot of things for our wedding, saved alot of money doing most of the stuff myself.
You can pick up some fantastic last minute bargins on ebay for things like, favours, bridesmaid dresses & shoes, brides shoes, tiara's, table confetti, balloons. Some things do have quite high postage costs but if you have a little bit of time to search you really can pick up some great bargins.

For Favours I bought some bargin little boxes that came with flowers & ribbon and then bought a couple of boxes of cheap (but still nice!) belgium chocs and put a few in each. I put jelly beans in the childrens boxes. When I was making them up I tied a small name card to the boxes so I could use them as name places too. To go along with the kilts you could use tartan ribbon.

For the button holes for the men I used Thistles (from the back field!) mixed with some fake berries & greenery (bought from Hobbycraft) tied together with green garden tape, for the groom I added a small red rose.
For table decorations as already suggested you could use candles (which you can also paint table numbers on them using candle paint) buy some cheap plastic bowls/plantpots/old dishes and surround with holly & berries and probably other evergreen stuff that you could I'm guessing get for free in November if you went for walk & took a pair of cutters with you!
You could also sprinkle tables with table confetti.

Flowers for you & bridesmaids you could some nice fresh flowers (we have a garden centre near us that sells cheap cut flowers) they don't have to be expensive just packets of flowers that you like, arrange them in a vase in a circular posey then tie some nice ribbon round them and then trim the stalks down.

Goodness I'd better stop!....I told you I enjoyed doing maybe I should change jobs!
Whatever you end up doing I hope you have a fantastic day, if you need any help please feel free to PM me.

:rotfl:

LearningToSave.

first of all huge congratulations :beer: :j :beer:
when me and my husband got married last year it was also on a budget.

we also had silk flowers which i much preferred,were a lot cheaper and we all got a keepsake of the day too....i have mine,bridesmaids theirs and both mums and few other people have the ones that were on head table.

the one big thing we did that saved the most money was to get married at 3pm therefore not having a meal......everyone had had their lunch beforehand and we went straight from wedding to evening venue with buffett........this saved us about £3000,we both have quite big families!!
because it was straight to the evening venue they put a table at the top of the room for us for speeches but it was a lot less informal too,and a lot more relaxed and happy atmosphere during them

favours....we decided they were unnessecary so didnt have them.

how old are your bridesmaids? mine were my at the time 18 month old dd and two older ones in their 20's......i was lucky that my mil is a fab dressmaker so she made both mine and the older bridesmaids dresses.but my 18 month old dd wore a dress i bought in tesco! it only cost £17 but was gorgeous and very similar to dresses that i had seen in bridal shops for over £70!! they do a lovely selection of 'party' dresses near to christmas time that are in my opinion more suited to bridesmaids dresses for little ones.asda have also started doing bridal stuff.

car we were lucky that someone dh knew had a rolls royce and he drove us there and to reception for free....but before we knew about that we were just going to get a friend with a nicer car...bmw etc to do it.....would that be a possibility?

does the venue you are having allow you to bring your own drink and charge corkage? although the corkage seems a lot at around £2-£3 a bottle on average its a lot cheaper than buying......we did this for the toast,fil went to france and brought loads of champagne back.....certainly a lot cheaper than the £4 a head per one toast drink the venue wanted to charge.

piper and music i would start looking in your local paper etc and more importantly asking everyone you know if they know of someone......its how we got our disco for the night for a fraction of the cost.

god im babbling on!! feel free to pm me if you want any other info/pictures etc.

good luck with the planning for your big day.

pookie

thnks mrs thrift- and did you ever get my e-mail thanking you for your photos? they were great, and you looked amazing. the table decorations were very effective. i think i'll stick with a smaller number of bridesmaids.

Lipsticklady

hello,

there are 50'' latex balloons in ASDA in Cream/Lilac. Buy/hire helium and some fishing line(not too thin).Sting balloons together and make arches!!! Add ribbon and it is very affective. You can also decorate bottom of archs in garlands. Make use of lights....lines of lines.....very effective as are candles!

Tesco do some lovely wedding things. There are cream favour boxes. Buy some minuture flowers or feathers from ebay and accessorize the boxes...nobody will know any different! Save soem of the minuture flowers/feathers and add them to your bridesmaids hair.

Try a local college....we have one local to us. They often have hairdressing/floristry courses. You could be a model and have your hair put up.The floristry class often sell off the bouquets cheap near me a £5!!!

Try a local colllege/university. Some music students would love the opportunity to earn a little more cash or showcase their talents! Look for local childrens bands or music teachers....they may be able to suggest someone. Often childrens bands are voluntary ran...try them and see!!

Hope these tips help!

Mrs_Thrift

Thanks pookie I did get your email - did I not reply? Sorry, I thought I had, oops! Did you get the invitation files to open in the end?

I'm sure you'll find it cheaper (and maybe less stressful?!) having fewer bridesmaids.

Callisto

Congrats, we're planning ours for 2007 (haven't booked anything yet, I'm waiting to start my new job so we can work out our wedding savings budget first).

An idea I had for my bridesmaids was to get them silk flower wrist corsages and my mother in law to be can make bags for them to hold too. I'm still undecided whether I want real or silk flowers, but have plenty of time to think about it!

Also have minimal flowers on the tables to save money (have stem vases with just one or two flowers in each).

Tiaras can be hand made. If you have a Hobbycraft near you, they sell the tiara bands and wire and you can get beads from the internet. Works out around £15 - £20 I think, rather than the £50 plus I've seen for ready made ones.