Wedding Money Saving Tips?

Georgiegirl256

duchy wrote: »

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.

My dress was £70 off eBay! Gotta love a bargain!

We're thinking of going back to Vegas for our honeymoon! I just love it!

Couldn't believe how much the cost of the flights has gone up though! :eek:

kittiej

Our wedding

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...4953&highlight=

Though we did get married 3 years ago so prices will have increased a little

As far as we were concerned it's not about having a big day, it's about being married.

Good luck with your plans!

fluffnutter

quatrofromageo wrote: »

Church of England wants £1,000 to marry us!

That particular church does. It varies. There are set fees then individual churches can charge for add-ons. If you want to get married in church it will cost more than a registry office but it doesn't need to cost a grand.

InsideInsurance

fluffnutter wrote: »

That particular church does. It varies. There are set fees then individual churches can charge for add-ons.

If they think you want to get married there for the pretty photos then they tend to load the price as much as possible. If you are part of the congregation, they believe you have better intents than just photo backdrops etc then their pricing can be more reasonable

Georgiegirl256

kittiej wrote: »

Our wedding

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...4953&highlight=

Though we did get married 3 years ago so prices will have increased a little

As far as we were concerned it's not about having a big day, it's about being married.

Good luck with your plans!

OMG kitties, you're a genius! just reading your thread, and read about the flannel cakes (did you end up getting them in the end?), and was wondering if that would be an idea at ours? There is only 5 of us in total, my, the OH, my parents and his Mam. My Mam and his Mam are traditionalists and really wanted us to get a cake, but we really aren't bothered about one. So I was wondering if we maybe gave one of them to everyone? It's an idea anyhow!

LondonDreamer

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.

+1 if you need/want people to be there. Elope if you don't.

DH and I eloped. Everything (including honeymoon) was less than £2k. Most of that was rings and flights, the actual wedding part was about £300. If I was getting married now, I would elope to the registry office. Would have gone that route in the first place, but there wasn't an opening at our registry office when we wanted to get married. Vegas is always open.

If you want a more traditional wedding...

I agree with another poster that the quickest way to cut costs is to cut the guest list. Invite the people YOU want to be there, not everyone that you are told you should invite. My SIL got married in a traditional wedding a couple of years ago and felt she "had" to invite uncles, cousins (etc) that I hadn't even met before or seen since. I have been with DH for almost 10 years to show how often we see the extended family! Cutting the guest list means you can use a smaller (i.e. cheaper) venue and the per person costs (e.g. catering) will be lower. I personally wouldn't host an open bar, last wedding I went to only had beer or wine (and soft drinks, of course) and if you wanted anything stronger, there was a full bar at the venue where you could buy it.

Speaking as a guest, I don't really care about colour schemes, themes or decorations. An invitation just tells me where I need to be, doesn't need to be all that fancy. You can get very nice invites printed quite cheaply online. Don't worry about extra things like save the dates and favours, not necessary. Without wanting to sound harsh, it's just a day. I don't buy into this whole "most special day of your life" thing, I think it's marketing. Obviously I wanted to be married to DH, but it was (and still is) the marriage that was important and not the wedding.

lazer

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.

For some people a wedding party (To celebrate your marriage) is more important than owning a house - it is not necessary to own a house - renting still gives you a home (and possibly even a secure home if it's a council or housing assocaition home). (PS - we own our own home and aren't renting but I can see benefits in renting)

We spent a significant amount on our wedding because we wanted to and got the best value for what we did get and MSE helped with that.

No matter how much you are spending on anything you always need to make sure you get the value for money.

There is a serious element of reverse snobbery on these boards that an expensive wedding and reception is somehow a rubbish wedding and everyone should just go down the registry office and have a private dinner of social club buffet afterwards - If that is the type of wedding you want thats good, and I'm sure everyone will have a lovely day, but it's nto what everyone wants.

An important part of our wedding was making our vows on front of both God and our families. We wanted a celebration of marriage and considering our guests were travelling miles (well some of them - as husband's family is very spread out) and bought us expensive presents we wanted to show them how we apprecaited their attendance and made sure they had a lovely meal with trimmings, enough drink, entertainment etc,

To me a wedding is about your family and friends as well as about the couple.

OP - my advice is haggle on everything and know what elements are important to you both and what isn't so important - the important thing to us was being good to our guests and getting the best meal and venue we could afford that provided accommodation etc.
We weren't as concerned about the photographer, video, colour schemes etc.

It is important to allocate your budget to whatever elements mean most to you and the day you want,

Idiophreak

securityguy wrote: »

Why not just send out invitations? This "save the dates" thing is just modern flummery.

Meh, we sent out save the dates...I don't think it's "flummery" as such, more "sensible"...

We wanted to give people as much warning of our wedding as possible (particularly as we were having a summer wedding), but didn't know all the details that need to go into invitation 9 months in advance...so we spent £5 on some STD cards from moo.com and sent them out...Not really a big deal.

kmmr

I totally second using vistaprint. I'm not sure why the snobbery, but we got really nice invites. We did a plain'ish style on glossy card, with an insert to send back with the acceptance. They come with envelopes, and stickers, which make it all look very co-ordinated, and really super cheap.

Each invite had:
Printed glossy invite, with handwritten name
Matt return card (gloss looks nice, but hard to write on, so we didn't want guests to have to try 5 pens like we did!)
Return envelope with our address label on it.
Information sheet printed on nice paper (done at home)
In a white envelope, sealed with a round sticker with our name and the wedding date.

Looked a million bucks in my opinion! We could have very cheaply added a ribbon or something too, but didn't.

You can then use the same theme for all your wedding printing. We printed all our names cards for the tables, plus covers for the wedding book, and then finally thank you cards with the same consistent theme.

The other thing I would recommend is M&S cakes. They are so nice, come in fruit or sponge, and with a bit of basic decorating look really nice.

kmmr

For table decorations - we got personalised love hearts. £30 or so for our name on the sweets. Everyone commented on them! We also included a carefully sourced keyring for each person, matching our theme... hardly anyone mentioned those.
Each person got a little white box, with a (vistaprint) sticker of our names and the date, with a keyring and sweets in it.

sweets
boxes

I think the whole lot for 100 people was about £60.

And ours was an EXPENSIVE wedding in central london. Yet people remember those little sweets...