Saving for a Wedding

lizifee

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if you can share any tips for saving money in the lead up to my wedding and where I can save in planning.

The venue is booked and I'm making my own favours and baking my own cake - but is there anything obvious that I'm missing. A friend is doing our flowers and table pieces - but where else can we save money?

Is it cheaper to rent suits as oppose to buying - he has a pile of groomsmen!

I won't scrimp on the dress or the rings, but everything else I'm open to options! There must be something else I can do - any suggestions much appreciated.

Can't wait to hear your ideas!

Thanks -

19lottie82

If you're providing the wine for your tables. Keep an eye out for online deals. I got 12 bottles of red and 12 bottles of white + 6 bottles of champagne from Tesco wine (an MSE newsletter deal) for about £180.

19lottie82

Also, no need to "scrimp" on rings, but they are a LOT cheaper if you buy online, and I mean a LOT. exact same rings, you're just not paying for a shops prime location, staff wages and stupidly high mark ups!

Sassenach_Quine

19lottie82 wrote: »

If you're providing the wine for your tables. Keep an eye out for online deals. I got 12 bottles of red and 12 bottles of white + 6 bottles of champagne from Tesco wine (an MSE newsletter deal) for about £180.

If you're providing your own wine, make sure you check the small print really carefully from your venue. We didn't spot it until it was far too late, but our venue offered 'House' wine (so pretty cheap) at £17 a bottle - or we could provide our own, but they charged £12 a bottle corkage!


If you want more ideas, I highly recommend the Weddings & Anniversaries board here on MSE. Loads of lovely folks with good ideas.


Oh, and congratulations!

sulphate

We rented the groomsmen' suits for our wedding, which was definitely cheaper than buying them. I think we paid for them and the best men just had to go in and get measured, then pick them up later. They had to give their own card details in case they ruined the suit/didn't return it.

InsideInsurance

Renting -v- buying will depend on the level of suit you want. If you are going for lounge suits then Primark start at £50, most people will have their own white shirts of a standard enough look, couple of ties and pocket squares and your done.

If you want Morning Suits then you are almost certainly going to be renting but again double check if you need to be hiring the shirts, shoes, top hats etc or if you either dont want these or people have their own. Ideally cut the number of groomsmen but if the invites have already gone out then thats not going to be appropriate.

Out biggest wedding cost saver was reducing the number of people we invited. We didnt see the point in paying notable sums of money out for people that we only ever see at other peoples weddings and can otherwise go years between hearing from them beyond a non-descript Xmas card or such

fehig

Hi! I am saving for my wedding too!

I have scoured the internet for money saving tips and have found some great stuff. I have knocked £2300 off my wedding wish list now! yay!

I found this article really helpful and it seems to be the first of a 10 part series. I bought my wedding rings after reading this and saved a fair but there. But there was stuff on venue booking etc too. Worth bookmarking for the next 9 installments on photography, cakes etc.



Sorry as I'm new I can't post a link as I'm new but it's on the Hubpages website and called 100 ways to save money planning your wedding.

Also agree, primark suits would do the job fine. But Burton would be better. Especially with regular discount codes if you sign up. Think it's 30 % off right now.

Felicity

hardpressed

With so many people having digital cameras, do you need to pay for professional photos? With digital you can check that you like the pictures, not like the old days of having them developed only to find they were all out of focus.

quidsy

Places like costco do deals on very decent wine. A friend did a calais trip for her wedding wine and beer.

trailingspouse

We had all the guys in their own lounge suits and a white shirt, and I bought them each a cream tie. It looked fine (my OH wanted to wear his own suit, so it seemed pointless to hire for everyone else).

Also - I saved a fortune on my frock. I'd budgeted about £2000, but as I wanted a colour rather than white/cream, it cost a fraction of the price. Seriously - a fab full-length satin dress with a small train for £195!!! I still felt like a million dollars.

NoGoodNamesLeft

I know you don't want to skimp on your dress, but if you know what you want, check ebay and dress-selling websites before paying full price. Some sites even let you search by design number.

I found my dream Maggie Sottero dress on ebay for £150. The cheapest I saw it new was £1,800 - no way would I have paid that even if I could have afforded it!