Wedding Money Saving Tips?

Georgiegirl256

securityguy wrote: »

Go down to the registry office, get married, have dinner afterwards with a few friends. Change out of two hundred quid. Easy. Everything is your own choice.

The definition of someone who shouldn't be reading MSE: the person who continues renting because they spent the deposit on a house or more, on a party.

We're getting married at Gretna Green, just me, the OH, my parents and his Mam.

Weddings are as cheap or expensive as you make them. Personally, I think way too much emphasis is given to colour schemes, seat covers, etc etc, of course for some those little details are necessary, but to me its all just extra expensive that can be avoided.

Georgiegirl256

Also, as can be seen from some of the posts above, there is a lot you can actually do/make yourself to save yourself a lot of money.

Re the foam flowers, that's what we're getting, not so much the cost (not sure how much real ones would cost?), but more to do with transporting them up to the venue the night before. They look surprisingly real!

Moomum

motorguy wrote: »

+1

We did this. Have a fantastic day.

We used a local top hotel who were doing an offer of £140 per double / twin room including breakfast and a 4 course evening meal in the their restaurant for two, and we paid for all 14 of us to stay over.

We'd a fantastic meal, a great night in the bar into the early hours, then up the following morning for a great breakfast for everyone all for less than £1000. Only other expense was flowers (which we used at the wedding and then brought them to the hotel) and the registrar.

What an amazing idea, would never have occurred to me! May look into this for me and OH, thanks!

PinkPrincess83

Write a list of everything you do want and everything you would like if you had the budget then research, research, research!!

My bargains were:
Wedding dress from a sample sale reduced from £900 to £200
Cake- 80 cupcakes and a cutting cake for £150 (I think) from a lady just starting to expand her business
Invites- made myself cost about £10 in total
Chair covers- £1 a cover including set up (again another company just setting out)
Venue- we hired a good size room for £250 from 4pm, we also used their caterers who were very reasonable and Ive had lots of compliments about the food.
Photographer- we were on a tight budget and I wasnt sure we could stretch to a photographer but I found one who did us 4 hrs and all edited photos on a disk (which I have since used to complete a Groupon deal photo book which I get lots of compliments about)
Bridesmaid dresses- £35 each from Littlewoods catalogue
Shoes/ accessories- most bought using discount codes
Wedding rings- husband got a cheap one as he wore it for a total of about 9 hours on the day and its been back in its box ever since- I feel in love with a ring in Goldsmiths so did all my shopping in Tesco and collected £70 worth which converted to £210 towards my ring

There were more but I would be here for ages!!:rotfl:

I just shopped around for everything to ensure I got the best value for money, me and my husband also ensured we stuck to our guns and planned the day we wanted (not everyone else).

One more tip- enjoy the planning!!:D

KarrieBee

Motorguy that sounds amazing. What a lovely idea.
I would second avoiding "wedding" suppliers for flowers, cars etc if you can. As soon as you say the W word the price seems to double.
Also decide early on what you do want to spend on i.e. if having lots of people there is important then you need somewhere cheap and cheerful, if you want a specific style of photographer then this may also mean cutting back in other areas.

Oh and surely this
"The definition of someone who shouldn't be reading MSE: the person who continues renting because they spent the deposit on a house or more, on a party. "
is the very person who should read MSE! Think of all the help they can get on here

InsideInsurance

Remember this is your wedding day, it is a one off, make sure it isnt spoilt by cutting too many corners. At the same time, ensure you are doing what the pair of YOU want not what your families want/ expect.

To be perfectly honest, the easiest way to make things cheaper is to reduce the number of people that you invite.

When we got married two years ago, we looked at two options, one was to do the church thing, invite all of both our families, have a large basic wedding breakfast, hire a venue for 150 people, buffet food, DJ etc. Against that we priced up reception office, having a top end meal just for our closest friends and family and free bar etc at the party. Despite every individual element and per head cost being a lot more the total cost of option two was under half that of option 1

As to general savings.... we went for a fashion photographer rather than wedding photographer. They dont normally get much weekend work so are more sensible pricing. In all honesty, their set piece photos werent the best but the rest of them were exceptional (despite me being in them) and many have commented how creative etc they all were.

By the sounds of it it may be a bit late but the actual cost of a church wedding officially isnt that much. If you start attending, regularly, getting involved in the community at least a little and get to know the priest then the extras tend to disappear a bit. I recall we were quoted around £400 with the organist agreeing to do their bit for free, an agreement to leave some of the flowers behind etc. We didnt actually go ahead with it because the church was too big for our reduced numbers

de_g.

We got our evening invites from (whisper) Vistaprint. They became semi-legendary in the circles we mix in, so much so that I still occasionally meet people for the first time who reference it!

duchy

My dress was £44 on ebay (there's a photo of it in the A tiny Vegas wedding thread). I just stuck in a cheeky bid and that was that. I wasn't even seriously looking.

We;re getting married in Vegas so far the plan is......

Outdoor wedding at sunset -there's some fab locations with gardens and waterfalls

Package for limo to ceremony and back , ceremony, bridal flowers, groom buttonhole, celebrant, photos of the ceremony-not finally decided which yet but none come over $1000 (some as low as $400) that we're looking at - suite with wraparound balcony and fab views -which we will use for champagne and nibbles after the ceremony as well as staying the night $350 - plus refreshments (we'll bring our own champagne in -and buy deli trays from the supermarket that day as suite has a decent fridge).

Hair and make up $150 (they come to your hotel room)
Tux hire $130 each - you pick it up and get fitted the day before-and they collect from your hotel day after the wedding.

Photographs - I will probably spend a couple of hundred dollars extra at the venue on after ceremony photos then I have a couple of locations in mind on the Strip after so will pay for an extra hour's limo for that -a friend is a keen photographer so she'll do those shots.

I'm not costing the flights into the wedding budget technically -as we'd have paid for a honeymoon wherever we got married anyway. Very rough budget for everything $2000 or £1300 -so less than some wedding dresses cost.

Person_one

duchy wrote: »

I'm not costing the flights into the wedding budget technically -as we'd have paid for a honeymoon wherever we got married anyway. Very rough budget for everything $2000 or £1300 -so less than some wedding dresses cost.

Are you paying for your guests? If not, its a cheap wedding for you and a very expensive one for them!

Gloomendoom

quatrofromageo wrote: »

The Good News: I got engaged last month! :j

The Bad News: We just added up the cost of a wedding :eek:

Does anyone have some general good advice about saving money?

We're currently looking at centre pieces, flowers and churches.
Church of England wants £1,000 to marry us!

I had no idea it would all be so expensive.

I got married in a C of E church. It cost nothing like £1000. Around £300, if I remember correctly.

Shop around.