Wedding on a 2K budget - Can it be done?

lilgreenmomo

I know that I probably could have popped this into the Sticky thread about wedding ideas but I thought perhaps it deserved a thread of its own.

Having recently been to the wedding of the last of the friends to get engaged after me my OH has finally bit the bullet & agreed that we probably should get married! <<< He was clearly holding out for other offers but non were forthcoming.

We will probably have a sum of between 1K & 1.5K from the remortgage of our house, this is not equity release it merely the difference between what our new deal has been worked on & what we actualy owe. (our 2 year deal is up in August) & when we first got engaged my dad told Mr Lilgreenmomo that he would pay for the reception as yet this figure is undisclosed (I am not supposed to know about this offer.)

We hope to either, do the legal ceremony at our local register office & have a blessing / reception in Cornwall or do the whole thing there.

We are hoping for a maximum of 75 guests.

We're hope to save money in the following areas.

Photography - My brother / brother in law / cousin / dad are all dab hands with a camera / Photo editing software & my brother has already offered.

Suit hire - Burton's Hire. Anyone any experience of them. (I am trying to talk the OH into having a light coloured suit to go with a 'beach' theme. If anyone has wedding shots of them in this kind of suit I would appreciate seeing them. Plus Burton's have a Groom goes free deal.

Dress - I am not the sort to spend huge amounts on something I will wear once. My dress will be second hand or from the far East. Does anyone have experience of buying from the ebay sellers from china / Hong Kong. What was the service like? What about import tax?

Bridesmaids. - I don't think that I will have adult bridesmaids. I think that I shall ask my young cousins. I shall look out for their dresses in the sales near the time as they are bound to grow heaps between now & then.

Cars - Several friends have nice cars & both we & my father have two seater roadsters that would do the job. Plus a friends after has two classic cars. However I would not expect him to drive them all the way to Cornwall so this would only be an option if we got married locally.


DJ - My cousin was a club DJ in his student days I am sure that he would be happy to help.

Cake - My auntie makes celebration cakes for a living I am sure that she would donate one as a pressie. (I don't like fruitcake anyway so I was thinking chocolate iced fairycakes.)

Band - This is a funny one. We both love live music & would love a band & have an idea of who we would like. They are aquaintances but would have to be asked. Also I am a member of a local singing group so if we get married locally they may be able to be involved.

Flowers. - My best friend has done floresty I will ask her. Either that or I will have fake flowers or my local college does an evening course.

I am currently struggling with...

Venue - I'd love a place without restrictions.

Food - We'd love a BBQ suits us right down to the ground.

Booze

RINGS! - I found a lovely site in the US that sells ecologically sound hand made rings in a variety of metals but I was worried about import tax on them.

Honeymoon. - We don't need anything for the house so we were thinking of asking for a donation from guests who wish to give a gift.

All contributions (metaphorical of course) gratefully received.

Thanks xxx

lilgreenmomo

EDIT: Shoulda said, anyone who can point me in the direction of a 'Pride & Prejudice' style empire line dress (NOT off the shoulder) gets a gold star.

hartcjhart

you dont say if the 75 guests are at the meal or not,

Burton suit hire very good

venue with no restriction ???

I got married and we spent less than 1.5k(church do)

lilgreenmomo

Ah sorry, we only intend to have one 'meal' We plan to marry later in the day so no sit down wedding breakfast & then evening do buffet as is traditional.

Venue with no restrictions, I was possibly hoping for an empty space so we can add in our own bar, catering decorations etc. But a venue that doesn't charge a fortune for room hire or corkage would be fine.

lilgreenmomo

Double Edit: Invites. I forgot, I am a dab hand with a PC so will design them myself & may be able to twist a friends arm to allow me to use his thermal imaging printer. Either that or we have a great colour laserjet at work. Who says that they have to be covered in bits of glitter & tissuepaper anyway. If people are anything like me the invite will be shoved in a drawer for 9 months until they realise that it had directions & start times on it when they have to fish it out again.

Vez

Try these for dresses.


http://www.thehcc.co.uk/main.htm

http://www.calltoarms.com/sally/18list.htm#Womenswear
Sally is good. As medieval re-enactors we have had items from her

http://www.suziclarke.co.uk/18c.php

http://www.corsetsandcrinolines.com/links.php?grp=2

Depending on where you are and when you get married I would recommend going to these.

http://www.livinghistoryfayres.com/

http://www.reenactorsmarket.co.uk/

Here you can talk to the people who make the dresses and see what they have made.

I have seen the Napoleanic / regency dress you mean and they make me jealous, medieval dresses just arent flattering !

newlywed

For the venue, look at village halls. We hired a village hall about 10 miles away and they had no restrictions as long as we didn't sell alcohol.

The hire cost was very reasonable - not tied in to caterers or anything like that. £40 extra paid for the hire of the crockery/cutlery etc. Only had to provide glasses (opted for plastic as there were kids and no-one had to wash up the glasses).

We got alcohol from a day trip to france in Feb time (cheaper ferry crossing if it's not summer). Got soft drinks and teabags etc from Asda.

As all invited were friends and (lots of ) family, we asked those who lived locally to contribute to the buffet meal by bringing specific things, eg one person to bring french bread, one to bring pasta salad, cakes, sandwiches etc. No-one minded and we ended up with tons of food!

seashore321

We gave every couple a disposable camera to take pictures with and we had some fantastic ones as they were more spontaneous. People with digitals can save them to disc and you can choose your own.

For flowers we used the British heart foundation roses for buttonholes (they cost £1) or if you are buying a lot a donation for near that amount is o.k. and people can keep them. (they do two different colours red and pink) or there are cancer research daffodils.

We also gave people bottle of bubbles to blow instead of confetti.

My dress came from the Laura Ashley wedding dress sale and was reduced from £800 to £50.00. My bouquet was silk flowers from a craft centre.

We actually went to a fantastic restaurant and they gave us the whole room as it was a weekday and did us a special four course meal for only £20.00 per head (usually wouldhave been about £60) but because we would fill the restauranton a quiet day they didn't mind. They also did us a deal on the drinks. We didn't have to leave until 8 at night and we had the place from 12.00.

Worth asking around!!

Have a fantastic time!!!


:j :j :j

mapcr77

I just got married 2 months ago, for the whole wedding we paid less than £600.

I got my shoes and lingerie from ebay, my dress from M&S for £125, http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/product/B000OR0TY6/sr=1-3/qid=1182862908/ref=sr_1_3/203-5898796-8559116?ie=UTF8&node=53624031&m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&keywords=&mnSBrand=core&size=9&rh=&page=

(and am considering to sell it if you're interested, lol!), dh hired from Moss, with student discount, so about £50.

Ceremony was on a weekday at the registry, and reception was a buffet at a small hotel in the peak district only about 15 people, but including drinks and our room for the night it came to less than £300.

And our rings were a present from my aunties.

Good luck and congratulations!

crazy_little_girl

I'm getting married but next month and also have a small budget, like yourself we have asked friends and family to help where we can. However for our rings, as its something personal, were going to buy cheap ones for now and then for our 1st year anniverssary treat ourselves to more expensive ones. Hope this was useful.
Good luck for the day

crazy_little_girl :dance:

LizD_2

Moss Bros are very good and reasonable:

http://www.mossbros.co.uk/hire/classic/classicCuts3.htm

http://www.mossbros.co.uk/hire/wedding/weddinghire3.htm

Consider a social club or pub with function room. Does anyone have a large garden you could put a marquee up in?

Have you thought about having your dress made?

http://www.habithat.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/7312

http://www.habithat.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/7450

http://www.habithat.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/8715

http://www.sewingpatterns.com/index-vogue.html

http://www.marfy.it/eng/activenews.asp?idcat=&idart=3458&azione=list&layout=&CID=A151L156L220070626154601XVPAVQXDUTN02874152