I'M ENGAGED! September 2014 Wedding Under £2000!

jess07907

Hi All!

So the better half proposed to me yesterday, woohoo!
We're thinking of having a Sep 2014 wedding (daughter will be 2 by then!) & are looking to keep it as cheap as poss, ideally under £2000 for approx 50-60 people.
Any ideas?

kacie

Congratulations, I guess you would need to decide on what parts of the wedding are important to you, in order to budget for it. Also how much of it are you able to make yourself or ask as gifts or favours from other people.

heartbreak_star

There's a website called the Broke Bride and several alternative bridal sites that tell you how to make things.

Also keep an eye out for Wowchers/Groupons for things like venues? Ask at your local college or university about photography.

HBS x

muffins76

Congratulations! I'm engaged & getting married in the summer of 2015. We have a slightly bigger budget but I definitely want to save wherever we can so we have more left over for the honeymoon & first home.

Pinterest is amazing for inspiration, there's lots of craft things on there too. I've just finished making a white frame with wires through the middle to hang photos in - we wanted to have pictures of my late grandparents etc. so they are remembered on the day.

Also check the site Weddingbee, it's got lots of DIY craft ideas!

burtons_angel

ah congratulations :-) it is do-able with that budget u just have to be realistic about what u want. The best advice i can give u is get started right away so u can shop around, u will be amazed at the bargains u find!

Make a list of friends/family u know that can do things like invites, photos, videos, cake, has a nice car for transport, do hair & make up for u and get asking. People will love being part of your special day. Alternatively u can get traditional wedding cakes from tesco and jazz up yourself with flowers or cake decorations Invites and favours u can do yourself too. create a music playlist for the reception and play it from a laptop, just need half decent speakers. you could arrange with family & friends to do your own food buffet style, (will require organisation lol) buy your own drinks get your own balloon decorations, organza, little wooden hearts etc from ebay. vases filled with aqua gel balls make for amazing centre pieces and cost 99p per pack!

We had a classic wedding car for £275 but all the other quotes we had were nearer to £400! was quoted over £200 for cake, had the same one made for £65 from a lady on gumtree, had a free photographer from gumtree also as he hadnt done many weddings, amazing pictures! our dj was free as was hubbys friend. I designed all our wedding stationary as im a graphic designer and a friend who works in print had them all printed out for us. we had an indian food buffett from a local restaurant who did us amazing deal as they were not specialist wedding caterers.I did personalised (name intials) wine glass charms as favours which cost about £3 from ebay to make for 60 guests!

burtons_angel

oh and village halls are great for receptions, pretty cheap and a lot of pretty little villages have pretty halls with beautful arched, high beam ceilings, lots of space !

faithless

Good luck! The more people you know that have a skill you can use - eg cake-making, flower arranging, doing your hair and make-up - or are happy to give you their time - eg making/putting up decorations, making favours etc - the better.
Have a look back through this board - I vaguely remember at least 2 threads where the budget was about £2,500 and they were detailing what they were doing.

Some ideas from 'real life weddings' I've read here or elsewhere - one had the reception in her house and garden and did all the catering herself, some people have a pretty local pub, maybe with a beergarden, who let them decorate and gave them the space for free, dependant on a minimum spend at the bar - they paid for fish and chip supper for all the guests delivered from local chippy (everyone loved that if I recall, better than some of the cold, tasteless food I've sometimes been served at 'posh' weddings!

continualdiamond

We did our wedding for £2,500 and by that I mean everything that had any remote connection to the wedding, so not just outfits, cake, venue etc, it included gifts for our parents and thank you cards etc etc.

To give you an idea, here are some prices:

My dress - £80 in the monsoon sale, loved it at full price of £200, bonus when ordered it two days later that it was in the sale. Bought two different sizes so didn't have to get it re sized, wore the smaller size and sold the 2nd dress for £80.

Venue - £300 from 11am - 11pm

Ceremony: £395

Notice to marry: £35 per person

Food - £300 (buffet for 25 people & tubs of ice cream to go with our wedding cupcakes for afters)

Cake - Free to be made. But I bought a stand and all the decorations for it. Came in at £50 as had two tiers of cupcakes and a 6 inch cake on top with personalised toppers.

Wedding car - Free, was a gift from my husbands uncle, we had a lovely 1952 cream citroen with red leather seats, it was stunning.

Photographer - £30. She wanted low key wedding experience and was recommended to be from a professional, she did the whole day and gave us a disc with 200 photos on it and then edited 80 of them for us.

Centre pieces: 50p x6 vases from ikea, with single fake gerbra and silver, cream and teal beads in the bottom of each vase.

I made our invites, ordered them off ebay and then bought card and gems and added butterflies and patterns onto them. I also ordered the thank you cards off ebay and again used the butterflies and gems on them.

Have fun...I loved every minute of making things personal and finding bargains and did it all in 6 months.