2014 Budget weddings

056dillonl1381

I am a bride on budget ish.. I have 7000 excluding honeymoon and I seem to be well in budget.

I have managed to get the prices down for most essential items apart from two, Suit Hire and a live band to play in the evening. I know a band isn't essential but to us it is but we don't have 800+ for a band. Also we want to hire 6 adult suits and ones child suit but just cant seem to get a good price.

Can any one help?

HisDoris

I have pretty much finished for my wedding (1st March 2014) and it has cost us just shy of £4,000.

I will list how we have managed to save money below and maybe some of it will help you;

Brides Dress - I bought this in a sale rail, it was still brand new and still gorgeous but cost me a fraction of the price of some of the dresses in the same shop! I paid £295 for mine but as soon as I got it home, i looked online and realised I could have got it for £230 - but I wanted it that day as you do! So I can live with that, you can definately get some pretty cheap (yet still beautiful!) dresses online especially though!

Bridesmaid dresses (i'm having 3 bridesmaids) - Came to under £100 for the 3!! I bought them from e-bay. Yes I bought my dresses from China and guess what? they are beautiful! Although they do need a little alteration and the thread had came away at one of the seams, there was nothing I couldn't fix easily and quickly and honestly they are gorgeous! I would definitely recommend having a browse!

Mens Suits (we are having 5 of them in suits!) - Under £400 for the lot (to keep!!) - We looked into renting the morning suits, they where around £80 a suit to rent for one day!! We decided against this and went to slaters and bought 5 suits, £59 each for the jacket and trousers, I then went to a wedding shop and bought ex hire waistcoats for £5 a piece, ebay for cravats which where £2 each. We will be hiring shoes so that they are all the same, this is going to cost £7.50 a pair and we will buy the shirts from the same wedding store, they have 'used' shirts (they are in great condition and you wouldn't know they where used!) and they are £1 each!! And its all ours after the wedding!!

I made my invites, I bought all of the things from our local art and craft store and made over 100 beautiful invitations for under £40, everyone commented on how lovely they looked and how much of a great job we'd done! Although I will warn you, it took us about 6hours altogether on making them! But it was nice time together!!

We have made our own table centrepieces, massive balls of roses on sticks inside of a plant pot (a bit like the sweet trees you see) ... We are having 6 large tables at our evening reception - it cost us around £30 to make each centrepiece (I ordered all my flowers from ebay, and again I wasnt dissapointed!!) so they are costing us £180 (we probably could have went smaller to save some money but I always wanted BIG centrepieces!

I bought my shoes from bhs in the sale, they where £12.50 and are lovely! I bought my veil for £3 on eBay (I'm still waiting for this to arrive so cant comment really!)

My night-time reception is giving us free room hire because we are catering for over 100 guests - I must add we're not getting married until 2pm so felt like one buffett would be suffice! (The food is probably the most expensive thing!)

I got my photographer from Groupon, paid £210 for 5 hours coverage! Keep a look out on the likes of groupon because I always see deals for them!

A lady I work with sorted out a deal for my cars with someone our company uses, I have a range rover for the men, a bmw 7 series for me and a mercedes for the girls all for £150! People are generally willing to help so if you think someone MIGHT be able to get you a good deal, just ask!

I'll be getting my cake from M&S and decorating it myself - It will be 3 tiers and will cost under £100.

I am making cupcakes myself to add to the buffet.

My favours are chocolate rose lollies, wrapped in cellophane bags with a piece of ribbon and a little bit of card on saying 'thank you for sharing our special day' - I made everything myself, it cost us less than £30 for 100 favours! I got the mould and cellophane bags from eBay.

I've went on a lot here, and I think I could go on forever helping you find ways to save money but really do have a good look around eBay because nothing I have bought has disappointed (YET!! touch wood!!). As long as you look around I think you could easily get your wedding under £3,000.

P.S we are getting married in the local town hall which costs £700 more than it would in our registry office so if we were to get married in the registry office it would have cost under £3300! So its definitely do able - Good Luck!!