Great 'What I wish I’d known before my wedding' Hunt

katecheshire

When one of my brothers got married, the venue insisted that he had to cater for all his evening guests. In the end he agreed but asked that the did not put out huge amounts of food. Of course they did and much of it was wasted as we had only finished our meal a couple of hours before. What people did eat and enjoy were fruit platters and cheese/deli platters.

My other brother and his wife had the most wonderful deli platters, at the Midland in Morecambe, with cold meats, nice breads and things to pick at, including local shrimps. Followed by a cake stand on each table with miniature cakes and pastries. Cake pops instead of a big cake were another great idea.

At my own wedding in 1974, my dress was £8 from Dorothy Perkins! So glad I did not pay a lot as it got a cigarette burn! Ring £9 and we did all the catering ourselves (and I did both my sisters' weddings) Cake was a present and the registrar waived his fee. Inn the evening we left the 'grown ups' to carry on socialising and went to a Chinese restaurant.

ScubaKate

We got married in Jan 2010. Neither of us like cake so we hired a cupcake stand & my mum-in-law beautifully arranged 120 jam doughnuts on it instead! It looked AMAZING and I love telling people that we got our wedding cake from Greggs ha ha

hoppysparrow

For those of you who are having a rustic style wedding (like me) there's an offer on KGB deals currently for a 2m self-adhesive roll-up blackboard for £10 (£13.99 with P&P). Not sure how good these are, but thought it would be an idea to stick onto a nice plank of wood for a cheap rustic table plan.

I'm unable to post the URL but if you search on Google for KGB 2m chalkboard sticker that should directly take you to it. You'll probably need to register with KGB though...

Loobyloo17

We got married last year and had a tight budget as we had brought the wedding forward 12 months and had only 5 months to organise!

We had no favors. Our cake was cupcakes that were served to everyone mid afternoon with the coffee and tea (afternoon tea). We had a top tier for the 'cutting of the cake' which we used the following weekend for my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary. Invites from Ebay. Made the menus and place settings - used herbs and lavender sprigs tied with twine and a luggage tag for the name - lots of people took them home and I have seen a few in peoples homes! Bridesmaid dresses from BHS when they had a blue x sale on plus discount vouchers and Quidco! I wore my own silver shoes as couldn't see the point in buying expensive ivory shoes I would never wear again. Young bridesmaids shoes are still being worn! Seating plan was a fabric print of a postcard with luggage tags. Table flowers were huge pots of lavender that were used during the ceremony and in the evening too. These are now in our garden! My parents live in France so brought over wine and we paid the corkage - wine MUCH nicer and cheaper than their cheapest bottles! We used sparkling wine for the toasts. Food was a served BBQ with side dishes during the day and we provided our own cheese tower in the evening - much cheaper than going direct to companies! Cheese bought from local market and France. Bread from supermarket round the corner who delivered it free. We got married on a Sunday which was a bank holiday weekend too. Mens ties and hankies were bought from ebay for less than £20. The venue wanted to charge £60 to clear up confetti so we said it was not allowed in the building when we sent the invites but was in the park where we were having the photos.

Anything we did we tried to get something we would keep and use (pots of lavender, linen suit for the groom) or sell on (bridesmaid dresses) or use what we already had (shoes for me)

Look at Wedding magazines online don't buy them. Get ideas and research cheaper options. Enter all the comps - you never know!

Ask friends and family if they no anyone that can do xyz - they will all help if you ask! We got free jenga to keep the grown ups entertained, free makeup artist and a second photographer for free.....

We had no wedding list as we have been together a number of years and already set up home so asked if people felt they needed to 'give' something then cash would be great. We used this towards our official wedding photos and is a lasting gift!

bevawelly

We saved a fortune on our wedding but not having lots of traditional things! We didn't have a wedding dress, flowers, a car, a photographer, a make-up artist, any table decorations, a bar or food bill, in fact we didn't even have a reception or any guests!

There was no stress, no arguments, no upset Auntie Doris, no worries, no headaches and no aggravation.

We had the most beautiful day, just myself, my husband, our celebrant and two witnesses. And how did we do this? We got married on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.

We spent a fraction of the cost of a UK wedding on the trip, and then had a small family celebration when we got home. I can honestly say I wouldn't have changed a thing and don't feel we missed out on anything at all except a whole load of hassle!

tonymudd

We didn't do the invitations (due to wanting to get them out quickly), but we did do the Order of Service cards and Name cards for place settings.
We went to PaperChase (the one on Tottenham Court Road, but I don't know if it's still there) chose the card in A2 sizes and cut it up ourselves into A5 size, fed these cards through the print one at a time. The printer just about coped with 150g/m2 card.
The printer was an ink-jet which used different cartridges for black or colour, but we got a black refill filled with a pale blue ink, told it to print black, using a script-type font. A number of people thought we'd hand-written the name places.

elle225

just do what you want

Brian_Steele

The important thing to remember is whether you have a big or small budget, whether things go right or wrong or whether you had a truly awesome wedding day or not, it's just what it says on the tin - a "day".

When all's said and done, your wedding - however wonderful you want it to be - is just a glorified party to celebrate your marriage and it's the marriage that counts. I look back over 18 years of marriage and remember mostly the things that weren't quite right on my wedding day, but to be honest, I don't care because I have 18 years of memories to outweigh 8 hours.

Before the wedding, the minister told us that he had no photos from his own wedding day, but that he didn't mind as he just had to look at his wife to celebrate the occasion. I think he had a very good point.

scousewife

From a very practical point of view I wish I had known to request a 2nd copy of my marriage certificate at the time I got it. The reason being that if you are to change your surname to your husbands you then have to inform a lot of people many of whom request an original copy of a marriage certificate. If you have the 2 then you can keep 1 safe & use 1 to send of to these who request it - saves the worry of it going astray.

On the day I wish I had remembered that it was only a day which would go pretty quickly so I wish I had stepped back more & enjoyed what was actually happening & enjoyed the moment rather than worrying about the little things. At the time I was mortified that best man stood on my dress with his muddy shoes & that it began to rain but I look back now & think it wasn't so bad at all & was just part of a lovely day. So don't stress over the small things & enjoy the whole day!

flashgit

Registration services are charging £400 plus for their staff to attend approved premises to carry out the marriage ceremony. In many cases, this is a rip-off with the ceremony itself taking no more than 10 minutes. More and more council weddings are now carried out on what they call a standardised ceremony script. Staff are told not to depart from it so if you want anything special put into your ceremony registrars are not allowed to do so (even though they advertise you can personalise your ceremony!).

Consider having a small statutory ceremony at a register office. They are obliged to perform them for £45 plus the cost of the marriage certificate (£4.00) but many registration services don't advertise them and direct people to their more costly approved premises, which may former register offices have now been converted into. Once you are legally married you can then either go on to have your own ceremony the same day or next day, wherever you like (even oudoors) or when you like (perhaps in the evening). An independent celebrant will charge much less to perform what appears to be a full and proper wedding ceremony and they will fully tailor it to meet your requirements.

If you want more than one marriage certificate, always ask for them on the day when they cost £4.00. If you return at a later date they could be anywhere between £7.00 and £20.00 each.