The land of the eternal stripey list returns.

lucielle

Hi Stripes, hope DDs event went well. Hugs for feeling the black dog.
L

Pippilongstocking

Aw thanks lasses

And, no I didn't wear a towel.

And, no DS didn't wear his jimmyjams

But it was tempting she's on summer break from tomorrow.

Blackdogs need to go away don't they and thanks, you know what its like sometimes its easier to just keep quiet.

Banks are OK just checked them - have trip down over the weekend.

And, then a full fortnight of helping Mr Me get his flat ready to get the ball rolling for selling it.

I will assist inbetween eating.



We've a few exciting things almost in the offing just trying to get things confirmed as we've actually set a date now, booked a forest, set a budget and trying to fathom what's possible for welliefest.

lucielle

Oooh sounds very exciting. Loving the booked a forest. On one of the threads (can't remember which one) sombody had a hand fasting and theres some lovely piccis.
L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4065593
Hope it works, you may need to scroll down

Pippilongstocking

Aw lovely thanks L bonnie pics

We are having a humanist ceremony in muddy forest and a good old fashioned diy buffet knees up after.

Frugal where we can, green as poss and on quite a budget as we'd rather have a decent holiday at xmas.

Mud rocks

elantan

That sounds like the kinda celebration I would've chosen had I had my way

P

starnac

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

Aw lovely thanks L bonnie pics

We are having a humanist ceremony in muddy forest and a good old fashioned diy buffet knees up after.

Frugal where we can, green as poss and on quite a budget as we'd rather have a decent holiday at xmas.

Mud rocks

It sounds so lovely. So....you

Pippilongstocking

Aw thanks chaps

One of the nice things about frugal budgettedness is the ability to look at apply the mantra

Do I want it, (um not sure)
Do I need it (prob not)
Can I do it cheaper elsewhere - def yes when it comes to weddings.

Mention the W word and it goes crackers.

The phrase 'we're having an informal family get together' is now being used a lot.

So lots of things are just being crossed off the list like

Invites and stationery (we're doing e-vites, blackboard for order of service)
Favours (we're asking for lots of help so the 'favours' are happening beforehand ) and my pals had 'Scottish tablet' at their wedding for the favours - so my chum is making us a whole batch to give out as a pressie, yay. Big tick.
Special cars - we have cars which work everyday - that doesn't make them not special

Disposable is out for me - so if I need it, it needs to be sourced or hired or something. Life never use to be disposable.

I'm currently researching linen - do we need it - ? what's charged (the venue want to charge £250 for linen and crockery hire) so whilst I'm sure we need plates and glasses, do we *need* linen, or can we do it ourselves and reduce the cost?

And, we're catering ourselves I've amassed our core chopping team.

And 'country/old fashioned' means borrowing all sorts of favours and things calling the end result 'rustic'.



Off to work more wittering later. Should get my work cheque today.

Some money to debts some to welliefest budget some to holiday budget.

How frugal do you think a wedding + party can be - if anyone's got an experience to share I'd gladly hear it.

Oh god, I've turned into a girl.

fedupandskint

Hi pipster!

I would do exactly the same if I was getting married - no point spending so much on one day and get let down by the food costs and quality. A DIY buffet is a great idea and just imagine that big smile on your face when you realise on the day how much it cost and how much you saved!

starnac

Just googled Scottish tablet....yum!!

Can I share our wedding story/budget with you? Bare in mind it's 8years ago now :eek: I'm so old *cough* child bride I was *cough*

This was before kids, before debts, both earning good money with quite a bit of disposable income (those were the days!) we decided we wanted our honeymoon to be a once in a lifetime dream holiday (which it was - we'd never be able to afford to do it again ) so we put most of our savings towards the honeymoon, which meant the wedding had to be done on a budget.

This is where "favours" come in!!

I didn't want confetti so as a present to us my sister bought a box load of bubbles to give to people as a replacement.

My mum knows someone who makes welsh love spoons and then another friend wrapped them in netting to match the colour scheme. Those were our favours. That was her present to us.

A friend bought us a nice "weddingy" photo album as a gift, another friend asked his dad to drive us to the wedding in his posh car, one of my aunties upgraded us to the bridal suite at the hotel we were staying as their gift to us (the room was free anyway as we had booked almost the whole hotel between my family and friends), other friends chipped in for the photographer.

We had hardly any "gifts" at the end of the day but we didn't want anything so this way we had a lovely wedding at a fraction of the cost and everyone felt a part of the day. I made my own wedding dress and my bridesmaids dresses. DH made my tiara as his gift to me and my bridesmaids had hair accessories from a little shop in town. That way they had what they wanted and they both picked something they would wear again.

The "girls" ie me, my mum, my bridesmaids, DH's mum had a night in making the invitations, think bottle or two of wine and a production line of stamping, cutting and sticking around the dining table.

Hope I haven't bored you but I was overwhelmed at the time (still am) at how everyone was happy to chip in. The most expensive part of the wedding (not including the honeymoon) was the sit down dinner we had, which although it was nice (what I actually ate of it anyway) if I did it again I'd just have a hot buffet to be honest.

The wedding probably cost just over £2k. My cousin spent £10k+ on hers and there was nothing more special to hers than ours. Ours was personal to us (down to the purple in my wedding dress and the comfy shoes worn underneath) hers was just a "look at how much money we spent".

I can't wait to hear more about your plans. I'm so excited for you x

Karmacat

Pippi, you've set a date! Thats wonderful! And I love the sound of the way you're doing it, and starnac *did* it, how brilliant is all of that!

You've definitely turned into a girl, Pipster

Making the dresses has always been one of the big ways that you can cut down on the amount things cost. What about growing any flowers to be used yourself? Might not be time now, don't know ... My brother, who got married in 2006, had bubbles instead of confetti at his wedding too.

Are you going to have music? Wondering how to get live music for low-cost ... up and coming musicians, I guess, otherwise its the time-honoured classic of mixing your own CDs.

Don't work too hard at Mr Me's - but very exciting its going up for sale, makes it all very real