I'm getting married -cannot believe the costs!

retireby35

We are getting married and have started looking into planning our wedding - however we cannot believe the costs that we have been quoted! 

We are very excited for our big day and we cannot wait to marry each other, but don't want to be paying £10k plus for the big day.

I've gone to try on wedding dresses where they cost £1400 to £1800 each, been quoted £450 for a 3 tier cake, photographers £1500-£2000, etc etc

I plan on
- Making my own cake
- Trying charity shops /Wed2be for cheaper dresses
- Making and printing my own invites
- Having a hog roast/similar instead of a sit down meal


Is there anything you have done/seen done that can save us £££? People have said to me to get fake flowers for table decorations/ etc and then reselling on after to save money. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

la531983

Go abroad and do it. Seriously. 

Robin9

retireby35 said:

We are getting married and have started looking into planning our wedding - however we cannot believe the costs that we have been quoted! 

We are very excited for our big day and we cannot wait to marry each other, but don't want to be paying £10k plus for the big day.

I've gone to try on wedding dresses where they cost £1400 to £1800 each, been quoted £450 for a 3 tier cake, photographers £1500-£2000, etc etc

I plan on
- Making my own cake
- Trying charity shops /Wed2be for cheaper dresses
- Making and printing my own invites
- Having a hog roast/similar instead of a sit down meal


Is there anything you have done/seen done that can save us £££? People have said to me to get fake flowers for table decorations/ etc and then reselling on after to save money. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I'm with you - DIY as best you can. We hired our local village hall and the ladies of the committee did the spread. And why drag your friends and family around the world.

But please don't forget the marriage bit and those 5 mins or so when you exchange vows

39 years and still going strong. PS we only had an afternoon do - we were on our way by 5 o'clock. Didn't see the point in paying for the evening for what is only a party

turnitround

Lots of options but I suppose it all depends on if you want a wedding with those nearest and dearest to you or you want to invite everyone you know.

My daughter married last September and had been looking at venues and getting ridiculous quotes. Between them they had over 200 people they could have invited but had a complete change of plan and decided to DIY it all.

It was a beautiful, personal wedding and she said they would do exactly the same again. 

She bought her dress in a sale, it was not a traditional wedding dress but it was a long ivory silk dress which she wore with her aunts veil. Her mum in law made the cake and her flowers were a mix of garden flowers and a few from the shop mixed together which a friend made into a bouquet for her and a smaller one for the bridesmaid. She had a flower girl who carried a basket of flowers rather then a posy. 
The bridesmaids dress was in the sale at
 Monsoon and the flower girls dress was £4 from a charity shop I work in. She had 50 guests and got married at the local registry office and had no official photographer but instead asked all her guests to take random photos and send them to her. The results were surprising and she has had one put on canvas and others in an album.

3 of the ladies I work with volunteered to do the food and we collected lots of vintage cups/plates etc from the charity shop then re donated them. She was lucky in that her husbands sister has a very large garden and offered use of it for a marquee. She managed to beg/borrow trestle tables and enough garden tables and chairs to seat everyone. 

She got a mixed lot of jars from one of the local gifting sites and had plain white cloths on the tables with decorated jars of flowers on them. In the evening all threes were lit with fairy lights and candles. She had no DJ, just music playing in the background. 

A wedding is what you make it. Her memories of the day are wonderful. Coincidently she had a friend who married 2 months before her and spent nearly £30,000 on her flash wedding. She has spent the last year fighting to get some money back from the venue for a variety of issues.

But you only do it once hopefully so have whatever is your choice and above all enjoy the day.

tealady

Friend had paper flowers crafted by another friend.
You could also grow your own (real ones obviously!)
Second the hog roast idea, would encourage people to mingle. Or have big pots of chilli, or anything that can be made in bulk.
You could always look at having a formal studio sitting to take "official" photos, they needn't be taken on the day. That way you get the chance to dress up twice!
Or just have a small intimate wedding with a party for all afterwards?
Second the idea of a "second hand" dress, there are charity shops dedicated just to selling wedding dresses.
Consider picking a weekday for the wedding, venues can be a bit cheaper.
But it all comes down to what YOU (Ii.e the happy couple) want and can afford.

Pollycat

la531983 said:

Go abroad and do it. Seriously. 

That's fine if everyone you want to be there can afford to pay for flights and accommodation.
I've seen threads on here and other public forums about being invited to a wedding and being unable to afford the costs.
Money Moral Dilemma: Should we ask the bride & groom to help with the cost of attending the wedding? — MoneySavingExpert Forum
And bridezillas throwing strops because their families can't afford to attend.


These links may offer some advice:
How to get married for less than £1,000 | Planning your wedding | The Guardian
How much does a wedding cost in the UK? | money.co.uk

Lots of others if you Google.

Wraithlady

When we were married, we had little money and my parents were not in a position to help.

In short, we asked all our friends if they could contribute - the honeymoon was at my SIL's flat in Cornwall whilst she was away, the do was at a hotel who gave favourable rates because a friend's mum held Luncheon Clubs there every month, the wedding cake was baked by a friend who used to bake cakes for a living.

Obviously, you may not be as lucky as us, so a few hopefully useful tips:

Anytime 'wedding' is included in the description of a product, the price inflates like the Hindenberg on a fast turnaround. Try and find something similar which doesn't include the W-word.

The dress. I made my own (and the bridesmaids dresses), using a Simplicity Historical Costume pattern - but unless you're committed to the 'big white dress' idea, then look elsewhere than the traditional bridal emporia. Vintage sites or markets, prom dress shops or department stores, historical makers who cater to re-enactors or even cosplay costumiers. It won't necessarily be dirt cheap, but a couple of hundred pounds is a lot better than the best part of a couple of thousand. And, if you can sew, it's even better!

If the big white dress is your thing (and no-one is judging) then, as others have said, go for secondhand. I have heard horror stories of cheap dresses from China bought online so probably best to avoid those, but charity shops and even rental places are definitely worth looking into.

The cake. Oh, gods, I remember in my innocence expecting a decent cake for about £75. Basically, the ones starting at £300 were ones that I wouldn't have given a second glance at in a school bake sale. The more upmarket supermarkets (Marcus & Spencious et al) do a plain unadorned cake for about £30, Morryson do something similar-looking for under a tenner - few of those, some cake-decorating stuff off the internet and you're sorted. I would do a taste-test, but unless the latter one was dreadful compared to the first, I'd go with the cheaper option.

And the photos - if you have any friends or family who are photography enthusiasts, ask them to take the official photos. If not, we had disposable cameras on all the tables and collected them in at the end - nowadays, everyone has their phones so just ask for pictures - places online will print the ones you like quite cheaply.

Hope these help!

Brambling

Depending where you plan for your venue but i have been told that some hotels and venues will up the price if you tell them it's a wedding reception rather than a family party and as previously stated week day wedding venues tend to be a lot cheaper than Saturday.

One of my nieces had family and friends make cup cakes rather than buying a wedding cake (helps that she had aunts who could bake ) and another borrowed a field within walking distance of the registry office and they cleared it before hand of any signs of animal usage and hired yurts and borrowed tables and years and etc they had a hog roast, family again put together salads and vegetarian options she didn't bother with a cake.  They walked through the town from the registry office to the field (she was in a tea dress length dress)

Do it yourselves weddings do depend on the number of guests, who you can rope in to help the days before and how much additional stress you want on your day, I've helped with several over the years and they do work really well but you have to be organised.

The hospice charity shop in my town have a big wedding section for dresses, brides maid, mother of the bride etc so worth checking local CSs I think Oxfam have a wedding shop if you look online.  We also have a active freesite on FB and you often see people trying to rehome items used for wedding so always worth keeping an eye out for table decorations etc even if it is just nice glass jars / vases for flowers etc.  

Spendless

My son married earlier this month and though they cut costs in various areas, I do think there were some where they could have cut them out and moved the budget to something else. Their table decs were balloons, favours (a few sweets in a box) bottles with lights in and a place name with the menu on the back of what each guest had ordered and in the middle a charity brooch from a Cancer charity. Since there were immediate family members there who were Cancer survivors or others who would have been there that lost their lives to the disease, I thought that a nice touch, the favour sweets (and further ones at a sweet table, ignored by most) the bottles   and possibly the balloons I'd have got rid of. Watch guest numbers! Son had a very good deal for his reception meal because they had signed up  when just out of lockdown3 and places were imposing their own rules, so they got a  3 course sit down meal for what is usually a carvery because at the time they weren't allowing anyone to get up from the table. The brides parents paid for this but it was still expensive due to numbers (just over 100!). The timing of your ceremony having a meal later on and most guests invited to the day meant that no one was that hungry for the evening buffet and costs could have been reduced there.   

Bridesmaid dresses were bought online. Wedding invites were made by the bride. I wouldn't scrimp on the photographer, it's your visual memory of the day for you and your guests, plus a professional wedding photographer will have a contingency plan for where the photos will be taken if bad weather and also what the usual photo groups are with any adjustments to your wishes.   . 

Mrs_Ryan

I got my dress from Wed2Be (it was beautiful and required minimal alteration) and my sister’s Maid of Honour dress was from a sale in Debenhams. Husband’s suit was also from Debenhams on offer (suit, shirt and tie for £100) his shoes were from the Clarks factory shop in Somerset and he still wears them for ‘best’ 3 years later. For dresses perhaps look at somewhere like Vinted, particularly if you want something a little different. I got a dress on there for a black tie do that I knew I would only wear once so didn’t want to pay a huge amount- and I got the most amazing strapless handmade heavy satin ball gown, plus wrap and bag for £25 delivered and a pair of shoes for £3. 

We had two cakes- one was a cake made of wheels of cheese, Tesco Finest- 30 something quid. We also had an M&S traditional cake which wasn’t hugely expensive either. 

Rings- husband’s titanium diamond set ring was £17 from Warren James, and mine was £90 from the Clogau outlet. 

My sister’s husband is an artist and professional photographer so he did our photos as a wedding gift to us, including the album, USB stick etc and they were beautiful. 

We got married out of season, in February so managed to negotiate discounts on many things (apart from the flowers- day after Valentine’s Day unfortunately so not cheap!) 
We did splash out on the honeymoon but I had a couple of big wins on the bingo in the months leading up the wedding so I paid for that. 

Invites were £5 for two packs from WH Smith- and were perfect. Husband is a postman so postage was free with the stamps he is given at Christmas. 

My makeup was done by my usual beauty therapist- it looked fantastic and was very reasonable as I’m a long time client of hers. 

For favours I did a donation to Cancer Research and they gave us pin badges for everyone- and mum went to the Thorntons outlet and got everyone’s names iced onto individual chocolate hearts as place cards. 

The badges went down really well- I’m a cancer survivor myself so it was really important to me. 

We got married in a registry office and had a sit down reception with drinks  for 20 people, plus a small evening buffet for my friends and family who had travelled. 

We also got two night’s accommodation for 15 people plus breakfast on both days and one night in the bridal suite for us. Including registry office fees, it came in at under 5k. My family still talk about it now and say it was the best wedding they’ve been to- even 3 years on! 

DigForVictory

Mine was in a university chapel a long time ago but all the flowers were sorted by my Gardening Aunts who (bless them) not only raided their gardens but also talked to the college head gardener & raided his hedge trimmings etc for bonus greenery (Everyone happy!)
Me, I'm watching what's trendy, checking I have a few wedding flowers growing in the garden so we can bring some of the flowers in-house & if you have a drone flying buddy, ask them to liaise with whomever is doing the photographs. Hopefully they'll do a test together first but it could be the start of a beautiful side hustle.
Long before you even set a day you should sort a list of all your friends & relations & what skills they have admitted to or been seen & admired at other events, then trim your guest list according to their availability & talents.. Oh yes & when you find a chap who only gets his cherished vintage car on the road for 6 miles in glorious weather a year, scheme to include him in the photos even if you never actually have it on the road. (It's a lovely photo & still raises a chuckle.)