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

sccarig

We had our Civil Partnership ceremony in 2010 & timed it to coincide with the 25th anniversary of when we met to make it a bit more special as it’s ‘our’ date.

We wanted a quiet and relatively informal ceremony & then a party later to catch up with friends and family who we rarely see.

To keep things reasonable we:

Both bought suits in the sales – we needed them anyway & they weren’t expensive.

Made our own invitations - posh greetings cards with a home-printed insert with all the details.

Cars – didn’t bother hiring as we could walk from the Register Office to the lunchtime venue & a guest who doesn’t drink ferried us back and forth to town and to the evening do.

Photos – a couple of friends are into photography & between them managed to do us proud.

Reception - had a very nice meal in a local hotel. To their credit they didn’t hike the price the moment they knew it was a celebration, we just paid their usual lunchtime rates. (We circulated the menu beforehand & then pre-ordered and gave them a table-plan - it all went like clockwork). OK, it was in the main dining room but we virtually had it to ourselves.

No cake, favours, speeches (other than a few words of welcome) etc. - it isn’t our thing.

Made buttonholes myself – much easier than I imagined but 12 was enough!

Evening party - we hired a local community hall & were recommended a caterer. We did end up with far too much food but that was because the snow was so bad a lot of people had to cancel at the very last minute. (The hall also had a public bar so we invited the staff and locals in to help us eat it!)

Honeymoon – we generally go away around that date anyway so did our normal thing & rented a cottage. We did chose a slightly more de-luxe one than usual but as we were flexible about location managed to get a good last minute deal.

The whole thing was just what we wanted & we had a lovely time without spending very much at all.

xkatie

Hi guys!

My mum sent me the link to this thread over and the info you've all given is amazing, thought I'd join in!

We're getting married in November 2015. Sounds like ages away but I graduate next year so will have my new job (which we hope to have a house by start of 2015; already got money stashed for deposit) so then still have several months to finalise things.

That being said, I've kind of gone overboard...

I figured that due to having 2 and a bit years to plan etc, seeing as we can afford to start getting bits in now-why not?! This will just save time at last minute (my way of justifying things haha).

So far we've spent around £400. This includes:

Flowers
£70 on artificial flowers (bride bouquet, 4 bridesmaids bouquets, 4 button holes & flowers for my mum). This was online and in the sale.

Favours
Approx £9 on 120 favour boxes (little pop up bride & groom!).
Inside there will be
an organza bag (150 for £3)
'Stones' (5000 purple and 5000 silver for £5, put a handful in each bag)
A balloon (150 'just married' purple and silver for approx £5)
Bubbles (little wand shaped bubbles, 120 for £8)
Thank you card (250 free on vistaprint, only paid £5 for a message on the back and p&p)
Then closer to the time buy some little sweets (dead cheap).

Invitations
Making these myself (can't remember exact costings).
150 blank cards & envelopes (£10 ish)
3 rolls of self adhesive ribbon in different colours (purple, lilac and flowery) £5
Decorations (purple butterflies, gem flowers, heart confetti, tissue paper, silver card etc)
Really pleased with how these have turned out, especially considering the price for 10 already made invites!

Thank you's
Already got little bits for bridesmaids, best man, father/mother/brother of the bride. These include bags (personalised, approx £4 each), bears, little personalised trinkets (£4 instead of £20 on amazon, heart shaped silver trinket boxes that are engraved, soo cute!), other personalised bits & bobs (soo many cheap but good quality websites out there! Or to save a bit more do your own personalisation).

Bought matching cufflinks and socks for groom, best man, father & brother of the bride (£7 for a set, £30 altogether)

Cake toppers (sad I know!!)
Personalised acrylic heart with our names, choice of logo and the date (£9)
Bride (£4)
Groom (£4)
For the cake we are going to go to Costco and get the icing in our colours, and then either make/get 2 cakes from tesco and spray them silver to put them on top of the cake for decoration/messages. For the cakes & spray we estimate it will be around £35.

Also, bought the wedding book (for guests to sign-£10); bought a 'Mr & Mrs' sign (£10) that people can write on so we can have it on our mantelpiece to save having the wedding book out all of the time.

Biiiig cheap photo frame from ikea which will have photos of us and the seating plan-£6.

Sure there's other bits that I've got too! Did SO much on amazon and eBay, it's been fab. All that's left now is:

Venue (can book in 5 months)
Town hall £380 on a Sunday, local centre for after £70 to rent for the night (they throw in table/chair/venue decorations for an extra £20 too)

Food
either Costco & do our own or haggle with the venue [been there before and know it's possible to knock price down a bit ]

Entertainment
We're undecided yet. We do know people who can DJ if need be.

Photographer
probably a friend will do it. Was going to have disposable cameras too but after reading on here I don't think we'll bother

Clothes
Bride/bridesmaids
I've seen some gorgeous dresses on amazon for around £30. Can either wear shoes that we already have or go to a cheap shoe store. Can wear own accessories and do own makeup.
Guys
Keep an eye out for sales basically! And not be afraid to haggle

Rings
We already know what rings we want, they will set us back approx £500 on today's prices

Car hire: not going to bother!

Probably sound like a right nutter for doing it all now, but we might as well get bits along the way instead of leaving til close to the time and having to pay a big lump sum in one go. This way things can be added/altered if need be, and nothing had actually been that expensive! All in all we should b able to do it just under £2000.:j

Congratulations to everyone already married or going to be wed! ENJOY IT! And do it for you, make sure it's the wedding YOU want and not something you're doing to please other people.

Xxx

Nenen

I don't know if this is still the case but, when we got married 32 years ago, it was the norm for the bridal party (bride, groom, mums, dads, best man and bridesmaids) to form a line near the entrance to the venue to greet each guest as s/he entered.

I wish I had known that if the waiting staff at the venue offered the guests a glass of wine before they were greeted by the bridal party then many of them would lean forward for a celebratory hug and tip the drink all down my beautiful wedding dress!

tryingtosave100

Thanks to gloriouslyhappy, birdie85 and georgiegirl256 for your wishes!

Just to reiterate - PLEASE don't get wrapped up in the day. It's THE REST OF YOUR LIFE that counts.

My fianc!e knows that all he has to sort out is his suit, the rings, showing up and the honeymoon. He is RUBBISH at that sort of thing, so I've sorted out the honeymoon (a holiday we were going on anyway), and he's already asked for help with the rings and the suit (bless. This is the rest of my life!!!)

Does anyone know where we can get nice plain bands with Celtic wording on the inner for less than the price of a small car?

We're getting an upgrade on our holiday because we called and they just asked us to bring our wedding certificate (thank you to the person who told us to get two copies on the day - noted!), and again, if he turns up in his jeans, I will just be happy he turns up - it's on his birthday so hopefully he can't forget - YES he really is that rubbish (stressful job - what can I say!)

Just relax, enjoy it, and for goodness sake - have YOUR day - not someone else's idea of what you should have.

Will try and post pics of my Harris Tweed bouquet!

MrsPBikerChick

tryingtosave100 wrote: »

Does anyone know where we can get nice plain bands with Celtic wording on the inner for less than the price of a small car?

Try Wedding Rings Direct - we got hubby's custom engraved titanium ring from them for a very reasonable sum. It's a pretty heavyweight jobbie laser engraved all the way round with a celtic snake eating its tail and cost the princely sum of £215. They're really helpful to deal with too and have a sample service you you make sure you get the right size.

One of the nicest things about our big day last year was how many friends and family offered to help. Our cake was amazing - way nicer than anything shop bought - and made by my mum and a family friend. I made all our stationery and I really enjoyed it - it made it unique and personal. I also sourced a lot of stuff on eBay (including our custom made cake toppers - us and incredible likenesses of our motorbikes). It's surprising how helpful sellers will be if you just ask.

One thing a lot of our guests, and even our photographer, said was how special the day had been because it was very "us" from me walking down the aisle to Metallica (a very closely guarded secret before the day), to those cake toppers to our first dance (another Metallica song - Nothing Else Matters). I reckon while its lovely to have all the traditional things its important to put your own stamp on the day - it's your day, no-one else's. Something I wish my mother in law had accepted a wee bit earlier in the planning!

Good luck to everyone on their big days! :j

clouds21

Hello everyone,

2 years in and still remember our big day very fondly! Some tips from me... I did not have the cheapest wedding but we stayed within our budget (first piece of advice -set a budget and stick to it!!) and have paid for it in full. I am pleased that we had a brilliant day which we still remember and talk about AND our friends mention frequently!
Did get insurance - about £50 if I remember correctly, happy to say we didn't need to use it.
Favours: don't bother! Use your Nectar points and get boxes of After Eights and put on the tables with the coffee after dinner. Everyone loved that and commented on it.

Food & booze: we chose a venue that didn't dictate one caterer. We were able to choose our own caterer, who did a brilliant job on superb tasting food for a fraction of the price of a nearby posh hotel. It's maybe a bit more work and another supplier but I've found that if you have separate caterers they focus on what they do best - FOOD.
We haggled a lump sum corkage charge which saved us about £350, bought our drinks from Makro (beer), Majestic (wine) and Tesco - with points and at Christmas when the offers were one. If you have everyone attending the whole shebang, don't bother with bacon sandwiches at 10pm. We also didn't have a cake. Instead, we had a tiered "cake" made of different cheeses, decorated with cherries and figs and flowers from our table decorations and we had wedding Lego figurines and a mini Stag car as our decoration on top. Point is something personal does not have to be expensive, it's the personal touch that makes the wedding special.

Honeymoon: don't go the next day. You're too knackered, give yourself one day at least to recover and hook up with friends who have travelled from afar to join you on your big day. Arrange to meet for a walk or something else convivial to have a proper catch-up and hear the gossip from the previous day! Personally, I'm so glad we went on a road trip for a week (Loch Lomond and Alnmouth), I was really chilled out by the time I got back to work.

Transport: use the wedding car, you've booked it for several hours, so make use of it. I got the wedding car to take my parents and inlaws to the church and come back for me. To the venue I travelled with my husband in his Stag (that really important time for just the two of you). The big car took my parents and my inlaws to the venue.

Flowers in church: I shared the cost of the flowers with the girl who got married 1 hour before us. Just ask the flower secretary at the church. Kept the table decorations really simple and made sure that the table decorations were offered to the guests at the end - they were snapped up very quickly because they were gorgeous!

Bridesmaids' dresses: got dresses in the sale at Phase 8, elegant summer dresses which can be used again. Bridesmaids chose own shoes.

Last but not least, have as few family members involved in the actual organisation. Too many cooks definitely spoil the broth, especially when they have their own ideas and are known to try and push you into choosing something you don't want! I was lucky that we were able to make our own decisions for most of the arrangements without too much interference, apart from the wedding car, where was persuaded to have a posh car. I still think a white taxi would have done the trick!
Oh, small regret: I would have a video because the speeches were so funny we don't have a record of them at all!

I wish you all the happiness in your recent or forthcoming marriages and remember to stay strong together in bad times, too. :A

Pinzy

I wish I'd thought of looking in the market for ribbon and little card decorations - so much cheaper than Hobbycraft & John Lewis!

RainbowDrops

Some more advice would be keep things simple.
It's always nice to have personal touches, but you see so many "extras" that you never thought you needed
- fancy postboxes for cards (we just asked the groomsmen to collect the cards & put them in our locked room)
- complicated decorations; sometimes less is more, and each extra bit is more money; also, don't forget that you might not be able to put everything out yourself.
- Gifts for the bridal party; again, it can be easy to get carried away with this, or get stuck buying cliched "themed" gifts. If you're lost for ideas, get them a nice card thanking them for all their help, then maybe give them a group photo later, and take them out for a group meal or something, rather than getting them something that might end up in a drawer.

Just bear in mind that all of the extra bits and bobs all add up in price, and then you get left with a load of stuff left at the end to deal with.

PetuliaGristle

Loobyloo17 wrote: »

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!

First of all, INSURANCE!! get yourself insured asap, we went with Ecclesiastical as they have a 'pick and mix' where you can choose what you want - we stayed in the hotel the night before so no need to insure wedding car hire, for example.

Photographers, I agree that it's definitely worth getting the professionals. Ask the price for a CD of all your decent photos, free of any copyright. I regret asking for an album as well, as we got married last June and we still haven't sorted out the photos for the album.

Some great advice from Loobyloo, remember to make sure you get your priority items into your budget, and that the main event of the day is when you and your oh to spliced .

Subscribe to the mse thread for your wedding date, I got some great advice and ideas - and kept my feet on the ground wrt magazines and all that .

I still look back at our day and smile, aim to do the same.

earley15

Help! We are stuck...do we go with the drinks package from our wedding venue or do we supply our own saving about £150?? Is it worth the saving?

We would have a few more bottles than we get with the package and we can chose the wine, as well as ensuring we get our money's worth...

But is it worth the hassle?!?!