August 2014 Brides and Grooms

evespikey

Congratulations to everyone. We're getting married in August. Our venue is stunning and totals about half our budget, but it was perfect for us. Due to our venue being expensive, we tried to cut costs as much as possible on the following:

Cars:- not having them. Ceremony, reception + hotel is all in once place.
Flowers:- currently being grown in the allotment/garden. As a backup we'll use supermarket flowers bought the day before.
Food:- we are having an afternoon wedding, so only cater once. We are also using home made lemonade as a reception drink rather than alcohol, which we'll serve later at the wedding breakfast.
Decorations:- borrowed bunting from family, and DIYed the rest.
Music:- we are fortunate to have musicians in the family to play at the ceremony.
Cake:- a friend who is a chef has offered to make it for us as her gift
Photo booth:- we have a tripod, camera & remote, and a v techy groom.
Wedding website:- I'm a web designer/graphic designer so I did that myself.
My dress:- after trying on styles/designers in a bridal shop to find the style/fit, I bought locally second hand from ebay and it's perfect.
Bridesmaid dresses:- bought in the Debenhams sale

I'm struggling with the photographer, videographer and ceilidh band though. Everything is so expensive! ><

Fran.Guester

I can't recommend enough our DJ from http://www.davepierceentertainment.co.uk/.
They were really good for our wedding reception. Met with us beforehand to discuss the day and our music choices and what we DID NOT want playing, assured us of the excellent service they provide and they also had loads of good feedback from past customers. They were even cheaper than the venue's own recommended DJ too which really impressed me as I'm always on the lookout for a bargain. It was £220 for 7:00pm to 12:30.

CompBunny

Update for us. The following things are now sorted:
- Church - we are supplying our own vicar!!!
- Reception - sit down BBQ in hotel opposite church. £100 Deposit paid
- Disco - free, wedding gift from family friend
- Dress, shoes, comb.
- Photographer - £150 deposit paid.
- Wedding night lingerie
- Hair and makeup finally booked. £60 per head for airbrush makeup plus hair!
- Night before and honeymoon night accommodation booked. £180 for 2 nights.
- Cars - Hubby to be sorting this, free through work. Only a 2 min drive to church and no drive from church to reception!
- Bridesmaid dress
- Grooms shoes
- Sweet buffet sweets and containers
- Jam jars with ribbon and lace
- Invitation supplier found
- Florist - date booked in.
- Wedding website nearly finished

Feel like I'm missing something I should be doing at this point... hubby to be and his best man want to wait until closer to the time to buy suits. I need to arrange dress fittings. We need to finalise invitation designs and get them printed. Everything else seems to be kind of sorting itself which seems too good to be true..

samehat

Hi everyone,

You are all getting so organised - that's brilliant!

Welcome Evespikey - what type of ceilidh band are you looking for? I'm also having a ceili but just for 30-60 minutes before the other band. I've been very lucky that my aunt is a brilliant musician and she has offered to play if I can convince some people she likes playing with to join her - they have agreed and I am paying them.

I would recommend trying to find people that don't advertise their services on the internet - for example find a good musician that plays ceili music regularly (if it's Irish ceili music, try Irish bars or gaa clubs - they should be able to help you find some musicians) and talk to them about getting a group together for the occasion, or they should be able to point you in the direction of musicians that might be interested.

My aunt's friend who plays for a living told me the price they charge for doing full weddings and although I forget the exact figure, it was less than half what we are paying for our band! Ask around and hopefully you will find!

Evil_Olive

Er, hello, can't think how I missed this thread till now - it must've always happened to be off the end of the first page of threads when I checked in...

Got engaged in October 2013 and we're getting married on Saturday 30th August 2014
We didn't start planning it til the end of January though so I am probably behind you lot by quite a bit :eek:

We are having a traditional Pagan Handfasting ceremony (outdoors if the weather lets us), followed by a cream tea/champagne and then on to the evening party.
Wedding budget is £2000 - for EVERYTHING! Honeymoon has separate budget. So far we are doing okay on this.
I seem to have a weird mental block - I'm fine with the researching and making a decision, but when it comes to actually pressing the 'confirm order and pay' button I feel all scared! Think it must be because the sums involved are so much higher than I have ever spent on anything before.
As a result, We've done nearly all the research and made final decisions on most things but not actually booked/confirmed or ordered much yet

So far we have:
CEREMONY VENUE: booked and deposit paid (Village Hall with attached meadow £150)
PRIEST: booked (Wiccan - expenses only) currently conferring with him via email to design the wedding ceremony/handfasting
EVENING VENUE: booked (Pub function room - FREE!)
GUESTLIST: Finalised A & B lists - got to get addresses etc for some of them.
INVITATIONS: Save the Dates written & ready to send - need to design & make invitations
OTHER STATIONARY: nothing done yet - got to write, design & print stuff like order of service, info sheets to go in with invites etc
PAPERWORK/LEGALITIES: nothing done yet - got to give notice and book a basic civil ceremony for a few days after the wedding to tie up the legal ends. approx. £130 all in including 3 copies of certificate..
DRESS: Making my own - design finalised, pattern drafted and fabrics researched but no actual buying/cutting/stitching has yet taken place :-/
BM DRESSES: researched & decision made - just ordered fabric samples - got to measure BMs and order dresses. got to research pretty sandals for their feet and mine.
JEWELLERY/TIARA: Bandied ideas about for mine and BMs tiara/jewellery but need to finalise designs, buy supplies & get crafting
MEN'S CLOTHING: need to research matching shirts in wedding colours for the principle men
AFTER CEREMONY REFRESHMENTS: Crockery/glasses/cutlery hire researched - got to finalise numbers & book them
Welcome drink & champagne toast researched & decided on - need to actually order them
need to research where to get supplies for, and how to organise, the cream tea
need to rope in friends & relatives or mum says she might pay for a couple of people to organise/serve it if we can find such a thing for hire by the hour and it's not too dear.
VENUE DECOR: researched - need to make final decisions, buy supplies & get crafting! Need to confirm/finalise offers of help for putting up & taking down.
PHOTOGRAPHS/VIDEO: Accepted offer of photographer friend to do photographs and video - need to confirm/finalise
WEDDING CAR: been offered use of a friends 1930s Hotrod - need to accept and confirm
FLOWERS: growing in my garden (Asters, Tickweed, lavender and ivy) - or Supermarket bunches as back-up - they're annuals so need to sow seeds around mid April. Will be arranging them ourselves for bouquets, buttonholes * table decor - got to rope in helpers
HAIR/MAKE-UP: doing our own make-up, stepsister is a hair dresser - accepted her offer to do our hair - got to confirm.
RINGS: mine will be easy - a plain, slim, white gold band at around £100. OH didn't want an engagement ring so I want to spend equivalent (not in budget)on something posh for his - he's been looking at mokume gane rings but no decisions or purchases made yet
BAND: OH is a musician - about 20 of his friends have offered to come & play for free. Big Blues, Jazz, Soul and Rock'n'Roll Jam! Got to finalise & confirm with each of them so they don't double up on amps & equipment etc.
DJ: nothing done yet - Gonna plug mp3 player into bands PA - got to make a playlist
EVENING FOOD: decision made that this will be a buffet half ordered in (Costco etc) half made by friends & family - got to co-ordinate & confirm with everyone. Mum has empty chest freezer in shed - have accepted use of it for make-ahead-and-freezables
Got to make sure venue landlord orders in enough bottles of fizz for one glass per person (toast)
CAKE: decision made to order plain layers and stack ourselves/decorate with ivy - nothing researched/ordered yet
WEDDING NIGHT HOTEL: nothing researched or booked yet
HONEYMOON: nothing researched or booked yet

Phew!

Only just seen the 'Anyone having a 2014 wedding?' thread as well - will go over & say hello there too
x

Sazzarella

Sazzarella wrote: »

Update
Still to do:
Guest Photo Frame thing from Loxleys where guests sign the mount of a photo frame.

Update: Done! Everything is done :eek::D

Evil_Olive wrote: »

Er, hello, can't think how I missed this thread till now - it must've always happened to be off the end of the first page of threads when I checked in...

Got engaged in October 2013 and we're getting married on 30th August 2014
We didn't start planning it til the end of January though so I am probably behind you lot by quite a bit :eek:

Only just seen the 'Anyone having a 2014 wedding?' thread as well - will go over & say hello there too
x

I think less time planning could be better. Less time for people putting their noses in and less time for you to buy/arrange something then see something 'better' and want to change it haha! I nearly changed my venue half way through :eek: Alas its all done for me now and I've got a boring 5 month wait.

Tashatutuw

So here is an update from me!! I've taken my original post on here which was in November 2013 (we got engaged officially in September but had booked the church in April and I had already bought my dress) so here goes - updates in pink!

So far we have sorted
Venue - our Parish church
Reception - a Country Hotel which is local to us and in a nature reserve We have quite a comprehensive package with them which includes quite a lot Country Hotel went into liquidation following flooding, rebooked a marquee location which is nowhere near a hotel and ignoring all the 'put out' guests... H2B and I both love our new venue more than the old one and very excited by it!
Photographer - a friend who is starting up her own business Friend is still (as far as I know) doing this BUT we got very paranoid following a period of 5 months where I didn't hear a thing from her whilst her marriage was on the rocks, marriage back on track but it made me nervous enough that I booked a professional at £350 for the whole day including all edited images on a disc copyright free (£70 deposit paid)
Disco - local company, great timing as he has put his prices up now
Cars - vintage roller from a guy round the corner from my Grandma (came in £200 cheaper than similar cars!)
Dress - from The Big Day in Castleford, its a plus size shop and I recommend them to EVERYONE I love my Ian Stuart gown
Shoes - BARGAIN £2.87 in the sale, plain ballet pumps I want comfort and function, it will be a long day! Due to the change in venue my little ballet pumps became unsuitable - custom bling converse bought at a cheeky £35
Bmaid dresses (3 little ones and one adult) - from Cheeky Little Madams in Birmingham (online) we saw them at NEC Wedding Show and were very impressed Deposits paid (£200) and all 4 dresses have a plan - going back in about 10 weeks to do fittings for the 2 that can make it (2 live abroad)
Suits - from Greenwoods, rentals as we have 9 men all together, little boys are getting rented waistcoats and ruches to match the men but will buy trousers and shirts from M&S deposit paid (£150)
H2B shoes - off Ebay, he is an awkward size 13 shoe and hard to get (never in store!!)
Stationary - save the dates are out, invites half made but a lot of work left to go Invitations for day guests and evenings guests done but not yet posted - thats a this weekend job!
Hair - booked my hair dresser who is a lovely home hairdresser, practices £10 and on the day £15 Practice booked in for 19th June
Make up - not officially booked but I know who I am asking - daughter of an (older) friend hopefully not going to charge me a lot
Favours - bought half but going to do the Cancer Research charitable donation for a pin as well
Gifts - bmaids bought, grooms men yet to decide..
Rings - there is a local jeweller who I saw at a wedding show who makes all their stuff inhouse so I am going to go and see what they can do us in the new year Went with Smooch in the end - fell in love with a ring from them and loved that I could pay flexibly over a period of months and there was no pressure to buy from them!

Ok, so the bits I missed off the previous list are below:

Flowers - the lady who manages the reception venue also runs a floristry company, flowers from her including my bouquet, 1 big bridesmaid bouquets, 3 mini bridesmaid bouquets, 9 button holes and 4 corsages also table flowers. We bought 2 bay trees to put in the church and plan to do some home grown gypsophillia for the end of the pews.
Cake - being made by my Mother and decorated by a good friend of mine who is a professional cake maker, she has sent me pics of her practice run and looks lovely!
Hen do - Eden Hall spa followed by curry, comedy and cocktails with my close family and bridesmaid and a meal out at a really exclusive local pub with the rest of my friends..

Can anyone think of anything I have missed out?! OMG ladies I only have 18 weeks until my wedding now *gulp* lol xx

CompBunny

Feeling quite overwhelmed wedding wise.
Still to do: Feels like everything.
But in reality, if nothing else is done then so be it. As long as there is bride, groom, ceremony and guests it will all be fine when push comes to shove. The very basics are booked and the invites have been designed so the rest will just have to sort itself out for now!

Evil_Olive

Sazzarella wrote: »

Alas its all done for me now and I've got a boring 5 month wait.

I envy you your boring 5 month wait

Sazzarella

Evil_Olive wrote: »

I envy you your boring 5 month wait

Aww I'm sure you will get everything done in time I have to say I didn't really enjoy the planning, people putting their nose in, seating plan politics etc but sure the day will be lovely.