Intoruding myself

tinkerbellkirst

Hi,

Thought I'd better do an intro as ill be hanging round here rather a lot.

Im Kirsty 23, engaged to Paul 26, we have 2 children O who is 6 and S who is 3. We have been together for 9 years this year and engaged about 4 years now. We are planning on a 2014 wedding (pending our savings plan). We have started to look at bits and bobs and im quite confident we have our venue however are checking others regarding cheapness!

We have a budget here, we have set around 6k aside which seems realistic to our savings so far, however I would really like to spend as less as we possibly can so if we could shave 1-2k off then im game for that! Suggestions on money saving ideas welcome.

We have quite a lot of 'helpers' My Sister in law is a hairdresser, we know a few photographers, we know someone who could do a cake and invitations and flowers, all these will be at discounted rates so this is a good start.

OH's parents have said they will help out but we haven't pushed them for a figure so i'm unsure by how much this will be, so are working on our own budget minus any of their helping, however we also ideally need a honeymoon out of this cash too.

I'm all up for making and bargain hunting so will be around a lot for all the tips going and share anything I find too.

Kirsty x

CompBunny

Hiya Kirsty, welcome to the weddings board We are aiming for 2014 too!

With all your helpers and discounts you should be able to stay well within budget! I've found the google wedding planner really helpful http://www.google.co.uk/weddings/ , second link down is the planning document. You can allocate percentages of your budget to different broad categories and then break it down into further elements eg you allocate a percentage of budget to the reception and then you allocate this to different areas like catering, decorations etc.

If you can be flexible with your ideas of what a wedding "should" be you can save a lot of money to put towards your honeymoon - eg you don't HAVE to have a three course wedding breakfast, a carvery/roast dinner buffet could be half the price, or if that still didn't fit the budget then a BBQ/hog roast or even just a finger buffet if you have a later ceremony. A later ceremony means you can also get away with only feeding your guests once

Consider reception venues such as village halls where you don't have to pay corkage - you can get a bottle of bucks fizz for toasts/welcome drink for £2.99 from M&S, cheaper elsewhere. Some hotels will try and charge this or more per glass!

Have you got a venue in mind already?

Its also worth keeping an eye on groupon. In my area a few days ago they had a wedding venue which is usually really expensive offering a wedding for 50 guests in August this year for £3500 including VAT, canapes, welcome drink, three course meal, wine with meal, toast drink, evening buffet and bridal suite! We would def have done this if my brother wasn't getting married that month!

Anyway, good luck and hi
xx

tinkerbellkirst

Thanks for the reply,

Will give the google wedding planner a look at definitely.

We have a venue in mind which is a local countryside hotel, its flexible as far as food arrangements are concerned which is great as all those you have mentioned have been discussed here, think we are going to go with the sit down meal, but maybe 2 courses not 3!
There are other venues we are just going to look at too. Also as you say groupon, there was a local one here too for £1995 which included similar to yours and was a bargain, but it was the airport hotel which I wasn't keen on. Keeping my eye out though as ive seen other local hotels etc on ours that I would consider.

We can get planning together

Kirsty x

Slowhand

Love the title:- Intoruding myself. Are you into making yourself rude? Edit-Go advanced if you want to fix it.

Pinzy

List down Every Single Thing you can think of in your budget. Mine goes right down to value napkins = £1! I've found it useful to visit local craft/community fayres as well, have found a lady that makes tiaras for £20. Also found a nice bracelet at the local car boot sale for £1. Another chap at the car boot gave me a lovely tea light holder for free after I'd been gushing about how well it'd suit the wedding!
In my big wedding budget, I've got one column for estimated spend, and another for what we've actually spent. I can then see where we've saved and try to turn my brain away from "ooh that means we can spend more on x!"

The biggest thing is your time - finding bargains can take a lot of research! It's also handy to decide on what you want quite early on, then you can just keep an eye out to see if they pop up cheap (e.g. wedding/bridesmaid dresses).