2016 bride to be

tootiemac

Hello All,

This is my first post on this part of the forums so please be gentle.
After 7.5 years of engagement my partner and I have decided it’s time to set our date.

We’ve gone for the week commencing 22nd of May 2016 and have started our venue search.

I am quite a crafty person so plan on making most things myself with stuff I already have but wanted the opinion of those in the know on my budget.

We have set a budget of £6K but really want to bring it in at £5K in normal circumstances would this be possible?

We’ve seen a venue that we really like but we’re looking at £4000 just for the reception, does this blow our budget out of the water?

What percentage of you budget went on the reception?

Thanks!
Vicki

janeywoo1978

Hi Vicki, there are lots of great ways to cut down the wedding costs…. pre-loved dresses, pre-loved decorations etc so ebay is a good place to look. Save on stationary by sending your invites online. There is great website called wedding hand that lets you create your own website for FREE!…. so friends and family can RSVP online, see online maps and you can even add a gift list….hope this helps…J x

mrsp89

Hi Tootiemac ...

Congrats on finally getting around to setting a date (we were together 8.5years before we got married so I know the feeling! lol) ...

I did my whole wedding for under £4k and we loved it!

Our venues (we had our ceremony and reception in different places) cost us around £2200 - It totally depends on what you get with your venue I suppose - alot of them do a 'whole package' type thing where you get normally about 40 day guests and 80 evening guests, you usually get your food, a small drinks package, table cloths, table runners, cake stand ect so that helps alot with budget because then you dont have too much to buy after that really! So it depends what the venue is offering for the £4k.

I made my invites by hand (although I probably ended up spending more doing it this way - i loved them as did our guests!)

We bought the mens suits rather than hiring them, we bought them from slaters - they were really nice and only cost £60 a suit - we got our waistcoats, shirts, cravats and hankies from a hire shop selling ex stock - they were all in prestine condition and cost us in total an extra £15 each - you usually pay about £80 to hire a suit so we thought it would only make sense to buy our own and then all the men get to keep their suits - and it STILL saved us money!

My dress was less than £300 but still beautiful - you just have to have a budget and shop around - there is plenty out there!

Our cake was £100 (3 tiers with flowers) ... Look at smaller shops, I found them more reasonably priced.

I made all of our centrepieces (6 big ones and 10 smaller) for about £160 - I got a lot of things from ebay!

I paid £25 for each of my bridesmaid dresses from ebay and they were gorgeous! BHS always have fab sales on though so look out for them - I got my shoes from there for £12.50!!

Write down your budget for each thing - and stick to it as best you can ... a £5k wedding is totally doable!!

Good Luck!!!

Ruby_Roo

If you want to spend £4000 on the venue, I really don't think everything else can be done for £1000. Obviously you can cut back costs by not having bridesmaids/ushers, not bothering with wedding cars, just having a small bouquet and no other flowers, doing invites online, buying a cake from M&S or just having cupcakes, buying a second hand dress, having no photographer or just a basic photography package etc - but I think you'd need to scale down massively to get under £5000 if you're spending 80% on the venue.

Fuzzy_Duck

I don't think spending 4k just on the venue is a good idea if you want to spend 5k on the wedding max. I'm assuming food is included in that, but even so, that would leave you only £1000 to cover anything else you might want.

It depends on your priorities. If you want a cheap venue, you need to think outside the box and look at places that don't exclusively do weddings. Consider getting married at the registry office/church and booking a non-licensed venue for the reception to cut costs. You can cut costs further by looking at places that don't provide catering, allowing you to choose your own caterer according to your budget.

I would recommend thinking about what is a must-have, something you'd like to have, and what you can happily scrap. It'll give you more of an idea of how much you should be spending on each.

For what it's worth I've seen some lovely venues that are around the 1k - 2k mark which I think is far more reasonable for your budget. I also have a 5k budget and I'm not looking at anywhere that costs overs £500 to hire as the majority of my budget will be going on food.

I would suggest having a look at village halls as there are some beautiful buildings out there at a fraction of the cost, and you can bring your own food in too!

tootiemac

just to give you an idea of what the £4K gets us:
Four Course Meal with a Choice Main Course for 50 Guests
Evening Buffet for 100 Guests
Ceremony room hire in our Weavers or Woodlands Suite
Two 6ft Candelabra for your Ceremony
Chef’s choice of canap!s for your guests
Complimentary Glass of Sparkling wine for the Toast
Wedding Cake – design your cake, included consultation & cake tasting from the Vow Award Winners Special Days
Candelabra Centrepieces & Mirrored Plates
Chair Covers & Chair Sash to coordinate with your wedding
Luxury Throne Chairs for Bride and Groom
Top Table Voile Swag Decoration
Our professional Wedding DJ
Full use of our LED Dance floor
Wedding Flowers for your Ceremony Table Display & Top Table, bouquet for Bride and Maid of Honour plus 2 button holes for groom and best man. Includes consultation & delivery
Overnight Stay in Luxury Honeymoon Suite
Hire of our Wedding Post Box to store your wedding cards
Personalised DVD of your Ceremony – Speeches & First Dance
Crisp White Table Linen
Silver Cake Stand & Cake Knife
Personalised Table Plan & Menus
Red Carpet
Toastmaster
Discounted Accommodation Rates for your Guests

also we wont need the cars

*manda*

Don't forget registrar fees/ legal costs etc

I'm not bothering with bridesmaids/flowers/cars/best man/speeches/photos but am still budgeting £1k for everything other than ceremony/reception venue and meal. I think invites, centre pieces and cake can be fairly cheap or home made. Not fussed on big dress- happy with high street. We are only having a small do so the peripheries like that for us aren't really needed but it depends what you're planning to use your £1k on.

*manda*

Also - does it not include any other drinks? Welcome drink or wine with meal? I only noticed drinks for toasts?

tootiemac

do you know I think I was soo surprised it included a cake and a DJ and video person that I never noticed there was only 1 drink!!!

i have £70 set aside for the registration fee and £300 for the registrar ( i have actually priced the registrar yet).
£500 for photos
£200 for the cake
£80 for flowers ( have priced these their silk)
£275 for ceremony location
£400 for dresses and accessories
£50 for the invites

As I said this bring me closer to my top level of £6K I know the rings aren’t included but these are coming from Family so not an expense to us.

Is there anything I have missed

*manda*

Is the £400 just your outfit or bridesmaids and hubby/best man/ushers etc?

Hair / make up/ underwear etc can add up too

The package you have does sound good- it does include a lot which helps cut down on the stress of organising.

Our registrar is £400-prices go up yearly and vary on locality.

Bean83

Our registrar cost over £700 for a Saturday afternoon - you can look on your local authority's website and the cost should be there so you can see now how much that will be.


I can't remember where I got this from, but I have this cost breakdown written down in my wedding planning notebook:


Venue/food 50%
Flowers 10%
Clothes 10%
Entertainment 10%
Photography 10%
Invites 3%
Gifts 3%
Miscellaneous 4%
(note that for some reason cake isn't budgeted for here)


Also, you've budgeted for cake and flowers but the venue package already includes these? So I think you might just be able to do it within your £6k budget, as it already includes cake, flowers and entertainment, taking you up to 70% of the budget using my breakdown above.