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

jojopo000

Hi

When we got married we did it for about £1500.

We got married at a reg office (I never wanted a church do) on a Friday, had 50 guests. We then had all the guests back to our house for a buffet we prepared ourselves (with some help from the family) and laid on free booze (paid £100 towards booze for the house), our friend had a lovely BMW we used as the wedding car, my dress was a brand new Pronuptuia dress brought from EBAY and we got the bridesmaids dress from Debenhams in the sale. The Best man and witness paid for the hire of their own suits from Dickies and we hired my husbands from there too. Got all the nick nacks from the sales and Ebay, flowers, we spent £80 on as I didint want a massive bouquet and we had button holes for family. We then hired a hotel for the evening reception and had a buffet there, costing about £400. Was a great day and everyone said the same and the best pics were the ones from the guests.
Hope this helps, if you need anymore help just PM me and I will try to help.

Good luck

Jojopo



A liitle thanks goes a long way

lilgreenmomo

Thanks so much for the ideas, there are plenty to mull over. We haven't set a date properly yet, just a couple of possibles... Either the Easter weekend, Bank Holiday so a Friday do would not cause too many problems for our guests & it is very early next year (21st March) so out of season but we will need to confirm that we can get the same weekday discounts with it being a bank holiday. Or May, either the first or last bank holiday or lastly September where we may actually be guarenteed some sun curtesy of an indian summer.

lilgreenmomo

EDIT: mapcr, that dress is lovely. I plan to drag my best mate around town on Saturday looking for wedding dresses but if I don't find anything I may well be interested...

siren13577

Congratulations,

If you get married in the week it's cheaper, try your local catering/cake dec college for your cake, the college I attended for this has a price list and people can order cakes, allow around two months for this though, if you decide to do this. When my sister got married we made our own button holes, they are very simple, try a florist market for the flowers and florist tape/reservoirs are very cheap, you could also try the florist dept of your college as well. If you give people enough notice there's no worry about them not getting the time off if it's in the week.

I'm planning a wedding too and am getting married in a civil ceremony( I think the latest you can get married is 4.30 or 5) so we'll go straight to a buffet meal and then the entertainment. Church halls are a good budget saver.

Good luck and if I can think of anything else I'll post it.

siren xx

lawrenson

Hi,

I got married last year. It was at Lumley Castle, near Durham. Apart from the meal cost, and civil ceremony cost, all we did was hire a hotel suite there.

Having a late afternoon wedding turned out to be great. The ceremony started at 16:00, then photos, and we sat down to eat about 18:00.

By the time the meal, then the speeches & cake cutting were done, it was gone 9pm!

By that time everyone was quite merry, so a CD player back in our suite was more than enough for dancing etc.

There were no cars etc as I was in the hotel already. it all appeared very fancy and expensive, but in fact was relatively cheap.

I would recommend a hotel wedding for anyone!

Cheers,
karen

lilgreenmomo

Hello all,

I just thought that I would update this thread a little.

My budgeting on the payback for the mortgage went a little ary (sp) so we didn't actually get any money back from our remortgage, in fact we ended up owing the Abbey money for a £99 exit fee but that's another story. Technically we did 'make' on the deal because we didn't pay the last mortgage payment to the Abbey & the first month with the new lender is a reduced figure but it just means that hubby to be's bank balance is now looking a little less red! Anyway I digress...

So it looked like my (our) plans were scuppered & I was destined to become a terminally engaged person, but the OH decided that we should just go ahead with it & really stretch the shoestring to its limits.

So here it is...

Date Friday 25.04.08

The 'license' £30 ea.
The marriage venue - Truro registry office £65. Or £165 if we go for the personal ceremony.
The reception venue - Day, room hire in a very nice pub in Perranporth £0. (It's out of season so they won't be busy.)
The reception venue - Eve £TBC.
The entertainment, a local band who we love & the evening venue would be happy to hire - £TBC, probably £0.
The grub - Day £12 per head approx for a starter & main course of Fish & Chips. (prices will be as per menu not 'special' wedding prices that some venues like to charge.)
The cake (doubles as dessert) chocolate cup cakes, home made possibly by my auntie so £0 or £TBC.
The grub - Eve £TBC Cornish pasties all round.
The cars, 1 MGF 2MX5's £0. (Not including petrol & ribbon.)
THE DRESS (YAY) Brand new from Bride Be Lovely in Manchester, purchased today in the sale, reduced from £650 to £199. The same price as the one I had been to try on in M & S which sadly didn't look as nice on me as I was hoping.*

Well that is it for now but so far we are looking like we could be on budget for 2K, of which my parents have given £700, which goes a really long way & is very much appreciated.

*NB, For anyone interested in the M&S bridal range, they are no longer selling it in store. All items must be ordered online but they can be returned to any store with in 90 days if you are not satisfied.

Sal x

lilgreenmomo

Ha, silly me, forgot that we have to have somewhere to stay... I'll get back to you.

choccybikkie_2

Hi
You say you want a blessing or get married in cornwall,well when dh and i married we hired a huge farmhouse with 12 bedrooms and its own bar with dancefloor etc in honiton.( I know this isn't cornwall just giving an example of marrying away from home) We did this because our families are all over the country and this enabled all my family to come and stay for the whole week! (which was ideal as we had 2 children at the time and a honeymoon wouldn't have been easy)
Anyways, the house cost £990 for the week, (sat to sat) we paid for this ourselves and my whole family got a free holiday for the week!we just all chipped in for food etc for the week.
We got married on the wednesday in honiton registry office- therefore i had loads of help from parents and sisters etc to decorate house prepare food in the days beforehand and for the reception we returned to the farmhouse where we partied with all our other wedding guests for the rest of the night. And when all the other guests had left next morning after bedding down wherever, dh and i and the rest of my family had the rest of the week to enjoy together.
my dress dh suit and dd and ds outfits all from high street stores, Big trip to tesco for reception food and booze and holiday for the week for us and whole family on appx £1600 !!! Wouldn't have done it any other way.

Elliesmum

lilgreenmomo wrote: »

Photography - My brother / brother in law / cousin / dad are all dab hands with a camera / Photo editing software & my brother has already offered. Good idea - however some people would argue this is the one expense you should pay for as this is the *memories* of your day and you only get I chance - just a point.

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. We also hired the suits - but check out your local outfitters - the free suit idea means you are most likely paying for it in the hire of the other suits. We found it cheaper to go to an independant.

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? Good - you've got your dress sorted ok.

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. Do you have anyone who is a dab hand on a sewing machine? You can still make far cheaper than any sales.

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. Yes another good idea, we used our very lovely mini for our wedding car and put ribbons on anyone's car who was coming that was nice or new etc.


DJ - My cousin was a club DJ in his student days I am sure that he would be happy to help. Sounds good (sorry no pun intended - lol) I'm sure he'll love to do it - also just take along a few of your favourite cd's to play as well.

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.) My sister-in-law had a pile of profiteroles as her wedding cake (styled on the french style of wedding cake) but I like the fairy cake idea.

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. Looks like you've got this one sorted.

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. Na - just buy a bunch of lilies (the sticky ones not the bloomy ones). Your bridesmaids carry three tied up with a ribbon (co-ordinated of course - lol) and you carry 7 or 9 or you may beable to afford to get a bouquet if you save in other areas. Table decs - nice candle and confetti scattered about or metalic heliumn filled balloons (mate did this - very effective). I did the lily thing and save a fortune on something that gets thrown.

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 - will your venue let you take your own in? If so start buying it now, few bottles a week, it will soon add up. Better still can you do a booze cruise?

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. - Can you find a local independant jewellery maker or are you any where near Birmingham? Hockley - is where all the jewellers hand out. You will pay wholesale prices for a hand made item. My engagement, our wedding and my eternity ring all come from there.

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. We asked for money and didn't have a wedding list. Everyone was really understanding and in fact were releived they didn't have to think of something to buy for us!

All contributions (metaphorical of course) gratefully received.

Thanks xxx

Hope that helps - we really did do our wedding on a budget and in fact we have been married for 7 years today - we even do cards on a budget. I paid 29p for his card - he paid 49p for mine and he get's the 4 year old to do a card for the pair of us - it's so cute.

HTH's

EM xx

skips_mum

Hi,
We are getting married next September and our budget is an absolute max of £2000. Everyone we know is getting roped in to do something to keep the cost down. We are paying for a pro photographer tho - I don't have any nice pics of me, and when I get old I'll probably wish I had some good ones of me in my pretty dress!
We are also paying extra for a Saturday wedding, but everything else is budget. Were having a village hall and a bring-some-food-buffet. (Actually my mother in law to be is disgusted by this, and has offered to do the buffet herself).
The hall is booked for the evening, but I could only get an 11am wedding so any ideas on what to do with guests in the meantime would be gratefully receieved!