Trying to save for a wedding!!

supernatural619

Hi everyone

I come on here occasionaly but at the minute I am after some help. Me and my partner would love to get married but find it very hard to save any money as something always comes up and we end up having to use the money. We've been together for 14 years and in that time I've seen all my friends and family getting married and having the wedding they've always wanted. My grandma is nearly 91 and has just spent 3 weeks in hospital and it got me thinking so much and she's seen her 2 other grand daughters get married and always said I would be a lovely bride! I feel that by the time we get any money saved up it will be too late for her to see us getting married.

So unless I have a night in shinging armour willing to give me the money then I need to seriously find a way of saving and making some extra money. I have sold a few things on my facebook account but what I make just isn't getting me enough money. That's when I thought of everyone on here I know how much help you have done for others so thought you might all be able to help me with some ideas.

Thank you all very much for taking the time to read this

SarahCarer

Maybe search through the threads here and choose something based on your strengths?

There are various ways and the beauty of this forum is that you have plenty of reviews and can ask for help.

Meadows

Really depends on what you want for a wedding, how big and how much you want to spend!
Do you want the fairy tale wedding or to have a nice day and seal the commitment to your partner?

When is comes to the fairy tale wedding, well there are always ways to cut corners and costs but it will be expensive, on the other hand keeping it small, simple and a day to remember need not cost much.

The dress can be bought either second hand or in the sales.
The venue could be a hall or a local pub (buffet in a hall - family members can help you do the buffet for a small cost).
The food could be a buffet or a sit down meal.
Drinks (other than the toast) do not have to be paid for by the couple.
There are many things you can do not only to keep costs down but to personalise by making your own Bouquet, invitations (or buying ready made - insert name here), place settings etc.

Our daughter recently got married and opted for low key (followed by an expensive honeymoon).
They chose a local pub as the venue and a sit down three course meal for 25 which cost around £650 with fizzy wine and juice as free drinks.
The table was laid out really nice as one long table with two round tables on the ends plus a cake table, the venue provided all the table decorations and as it was near Christmas we put crackers on the table.
We used Taxis to get us to the registry office and we paid extra to have a wedding ribbon on one car.
I made chocolate wedding couple lollies for the guests and gift bags for the children and bought small bars of chocolate and then made personalised wrappers for them. A friend made the cake and a friend took photographs which were put on to disc to be printed by the couple if they decided to.

Her (last minute change) dress cost £150 down from around £800.

So all in all with the meal, extras and outfits for the couple I estimate that the day cost less than £1,000 and everyone had a great day.

There are ways to make this even cheaper, down to you to look around, get creative and negotiate meal costs etc.

supernatural619

Thank you very much for that reply. I did want the big fairytale wedding but after adding it all up it would of been about £10,000!!! And that was cutting costs like making my own invitations. I don't think I could ever save that much if I saved for the rest of my life!

But it's all been put back again as our oven has just broke so the money already saved is getting spent on a new oven, typical!

Bluefire

Are you keeping an eye on the MSE wedding forum? I got a lot of good tips from there.

We went into our wedding planning with a focus on having what we wanted, but for as cheap as we could get it. We splashed out in a couple of areas (when we had 4 guests RSVP no for the day we hired an ice cream cart for example) however mainly we DIY'd as much of the decor as possible and sold on as much as we could afterwards. OH's suit was from Matalan, my dress from Vivien of Holloway. We also managed to get our photographer for free through an offer she was running which made a HUGE difference to our budget.

This is our wedding if you fancy a peek! http://www.lovemydress.net/blog/2012/08/vivien-of-holloway-wedding-dress-polka-dots.html

tuttifruiti20

As already recommended really but I'd suggest the wedding thread.

You don't necessarily need to save up loads of money as lots of things can be paid via deposit and then paid off in instalments up to 3 weeks before the big day.

If possible consider not having paper invitations but instead create a group on Facebook, send e-mails or just text people the date, await replies for numbers and then remind everyone say one month and one week before just to be on the safe side. That's a saving there...

I would mention the ideas already said such as second hand dress and buffets but it'd be a waste of your time re-reading, instead I'd say consider asking a friend to take photographs if they have a good camera, consider using and iPod and a stereo system to make your own music playlist and have CDs as a back-up if need be.

Good luck with it all!