Wedding Tips start here...

alanalea

Another great find from Ebay!

I was going to buy some confetti from my local shops but looking at the prices (nearly £2.00 for a small box of rose petal confetti!) i decided to try and make my own.

I found a seller who sells 2.5 pints of tiny rose petals (either pink or red) for 95p with £1.70 P&P and another seller who sells 10 tiny white (well she has about 10 different colours) 3" by 4" organza favour bags for £1.60 plus 40p P&P.

Hey presto, 10 beautiful bags of pink rose petal confetti for £4.65... Thats about 46p per bag!
A grand saving of £16.35 that can go towards a few more bottle of wine

FairyElephant_2

Darling B/F proposed to me last week, and we got the ring on Sat, so now he is Darling Fiancee....and I have a wedding to plan!

I am soooo excited....he said that he would never do it again (ex-wife did the dirty on him), it didn't mean anything etc etc, but now he has changed his mind!

People in work think I am mad as we are hoping to get married at the beginning of March - I thin 'well, why hang about' but they all seem to think it takes years to plan.....welll, I did want a 'dream wedding' on the beach on holiday, but family were not too keen. Normally I would say 'sorry - my day', but as his kids are really keen to be involved I have backed down (future family harmony may have been at stake otherwise!!!!)

Progress so far:

I have a registry office appt for us this Friday, to sort out the 'legal bits' and hopefully be able to book the date. Going for Friday as it should be easier to get.

I have 'pencilled in' a date at the venue I want for the party (small wedding, followed by massive great party so all our friends & colleagues & associates can join us to have fun!) - again helps going for a Friday as Sat's are soooo busy.

Spoken to the band I want to play, but they can't tell me if they can do it for a week (how much do people think I should be paying? - I normally book jazzbands for events, but this one is costing quite a bit more, and I haven't actually mentioned the W-word to them yet, just said 'family party'). I really, really want them though, so it all may hinge around them.....

We already decided where for the honeymoon, as it was going to be our big 'once in a lifetime' sort of holiday anyway, but yet to book it, although I checked and it is still available when we want it at the moment.

I've got ideas about making invites, know what sort of dress I want (evening, not really wedding) and seen a couple I like, and even have thought about dress for Step Daughter' and matching waistcoats for Fiancee & his 2 boys.

Have I missed anything important so far? Am I mad to think I can plan & execute wedding in 19 weeks (oh - almost forgot, I need to lose 2 stone in weight....aaarrggh!).

Can see me spending a LOT of time reading this thread!

FE

Reverend_Darkman

Well I'm on a money saving wedding - wonderful girlfriend proposed on my birthday in Sept and we're getting married on Nov 25th This Year!!

I am broke though there are always ways of getting cash together....

Prices so far.....

Wedding dress made to measure from California via ebay £167 (measure twice!!)
Four toddler bridesmaids dresses £60
Four white purses for bridesmaids £8 (old stock in Clare's Accessories)
Bride's bouqet and 4 buttonholes £35 ebay
Rental of two mens and two boys suits £200 Burton's (only way I could find at short notice)
Brides tiara £12 via ebay

Now for the big savings..... Novemebr seems to be a very quiet time for Hotels, between summer and before christmas. We found a wonderfull local hotel who has given us....

Penthouse quality apartment for two nights £150 free use of sauna, pool, etc etc with sea views and LOTS of glass to look out of
Any guests wanting to stay get a room for £55 (usually £80 and up....
Buffet which includes hot/cold meats at 11.95 per head
And best of all chef likes CASH so has said pay for 30 feed 40!

That's the spending so far but I have seen a killer pair of winkle pickers in an onlie goth shop which look really ace (not that I'm a goth, more of an aging rockabilly!)

I'll update as and when and when it's all over maybe it would be an idea to setup a topic for the Value for Money Wedding.

alison6692

Wow - sounds bloody good idea.

I am trying to be a money saver - however our wedding is going to cost £10k. The feeding and watering of guests at our venue is 5k. Thats the luxury bit now I am trying to cut costs.

I have sorted a budget planner and it works out at just under £5k - This does not include honeymoon.

I could do with saving money in

- entertainment - does anyone know a good wedding DJ?

- Dress - once I have found the one I want then how to get it cheaper?

- Flowers - they seem such a lot for what they are

alisonx

pippa_h

Can anyone recommend somewhere to hold a wedding reception in London? Somewhere that isn't a hotel and doesn't cost the earth?

The prices I've been looking at seem extortionate, especially once you've added in the cost of food. Although we want to have a beautiful wedding, leaving ourselves broke seems a bit daft.

Any tips would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

scotgirl

Hi Alison

Regarding the dress - I have heard a lot about ordering from the States and in particular a website called https://www.netbride.com. I have heard about this service through the chat forums on https://www.confetti.com and it seems to be very popular.

I have not used them but my understanding is that you find the dress you want in the UK (needs to be a UK/USA designer - eg. Alfred Angelo/mori Lee) and note the make and number etc. Then go to an independant dress maker and be measured up. You then place an order with net bride and they deliver your dress to the UK. You can save up to 1/2 of the UK retail price but you have to be aware that you will be charged delivery and import taxes.

I have emailed them a couple of time through their website to get quotes and they seem very competitive.

It is worth a look!

pippa_h

alison6692 wrote:

- Dress - once I have found the one I want then how to get it cheaper?

Make sure you get properly measured, then try the likes of http://www.rkbridal.com/ or http://www.bestbridalprices.com
They may be in the US, but the exchange rate is good and you can make HUGE savings, even with shipping costs.

ginger_nuts

little boy to his father " dad why do brides always wear white "
father " dont you no all kitchen appliances are white "

little boy "dad why is the bride wearing white "
dad " it because she is happy "
little boy " why is the groom always in black "

strange how a bride can spend thousands on a dress and the groom gets a hired suit !

son tells his mother he is getting married
mother says " son dont get married be a bachellor ...like your father "!!!!

speff_2

ginger_nuts wrote:

little boy to his father " dad why do brides always wear white "
father " dont you no all kitchen appliances are white "

little boy "dad why is the bride wearing white "
dad " it because she is happy "
little boy " why is the groom always in black "

strange how a bride can spend thousands on a dress and the groom gets a hired suit !

son tells his mother he is getting married
mother says " son dont get married be a bachellor ...like your father "!!!!

ClassiC! Cheers for the giggle!

lynneinjapan

Update on my MemoryBook from Snapfish.co.uk:

lynneinjapan wrote:

Still trying to iron out some difficulties though, as my montages are appearing truncated when I put them on the page, and the Snapfish Help people are taking an awful long time to tell me what aspect ratio (width vs height) I should be using. Their pricing is ambiguous too - I'm sure I shouldn't be charged more than the basic £19.99 for my book, as the minimum number of pages is 20 and there's no extra charge for double-sided printing, but they're trying to charge me £33.40 because the site says my book has 38 pages, so I'm questioning that too. It has 37 SIDES but only 20 SHEETS, hence the confusion - their info page seems to use "pages" for both. I reckon it's still not bad value though, especially with the discount for duplicate copies.

Well, it took them over a month but they finally told me the aspect ratio I needed to know (1.25 : 1 for the single horizontal picture on the page). It still looks truncated on screen but they do offer a satisfaction guarantee an I have plenty of written evidence of my efforts to get it right!

They're still insisting that a 20-page book has 40 pages if it's printed on both sides, though, so you get charged for 40 pages even though they claim that there's no additional charge for double-sided printing. I've placed the order and will post another update when I get the goods.