Wedding August 2008

Carrera74

I'm having a mid week wedding Avidcameraman - any chance of bartering with you?

Running_Horse

We rented a boat who laid on a nice buffet and disco, £1,000 all in.

Wouldn't rely on disposable cameras, as elderly relatives struggled to get the flash to work and quality was poor. We had 3 family members taking pictures at random, and there were plenty of really good ones.

newmum1

I think you should be asking whether you can afford it, first and foremost, if the answer is no try and make small changes will will bring your costs down. You could try contacting a local college/ uni and using a student to take photos it would be half the price although I would recommend only using final year students if u were to do this.

mrsclecoco_2

hi i'm also nwe on here
I got married sep 06. My dress and bridesmaids plus tiaras were all off ebay. My dress was brand new and cost £26.50!! including postage. We got married at 4.30 on a friday and had one big reception. We hired a hall £100 for the day and did all the food ourselves. We decorated with balloons etc, again off ebay and hired a dj. The dj was the most expensive thing!!! Luckily we have a couple of friends who are keen on photography so they ook the photos and made us an album as a present. I didn't bother with a hair dresser or makeup lady, my best friend did it all. We asked for holiday vouchers for gifts. In the end total cost was around £1250 for everything and the holiday vouchers got us 10 days in Mauritius. I wouldn't have done it any other way. My friend was marriedlast July and spent £25000!!!

pukkamum

I had two friendsas my 'official' photographers, i figured between them i should get some good shots and i did they were fabulous, none of the cheesy posing i see in so many other peoples albums, they just clicked away. One had a traditonal 35mm camera which gave beautiful serious shots and the other had a digital one which gave loads of natural shots. I ended up witha huge amount of photographs to take my pick from and many of my friends who have had proffessional photographers are jealous of the huge album i have got.

pukkamum

p.s in all my wedding cost around £1500 and everyone says to this day it was one of the best weddings they have been to as there was no pomp and boring speeches just a really good time!!! Also the pastie and peas we had for the reception went down a storm!!!

Running_Horse

pukkamum wrote: »

p.s in all my wedding cost around £1500 and everyone says to this day it was one of the best weddings they have been to as there was no pomp and boring speeches just a really good time!!! Also the pastie and peas we had for the reception went down a storm!!!

That's exactly what people said about our boat reception (helpful if you have a private hire boat waiting outside the venue, as with the Archbishop's Palace in Maidstone), intimate venue, and very relaxed, with no stuffiness. The worst weddings I have attended have been the expensive ones.

Primrose

I recently went to a wedding where a large number of guests were invited just to the service and a champagne & canapes reception outside the church afterward (or adjacent Church Hall if wet!). Then only family & very close friends were invited to the sit down meal afterwards. It enabled a larger number of guests to be invited but you need the church's permission to do this. But on a warm summer day it worked well.

antilles

Conratulations! We got married a few months back. We were going to have a wedding breakfast (around 70 guests) and a buffet (150 guests), cost spiralled out of control, in the end we scrapped everything and 'eloped' to Gretna Green. Had a seperate evening do a few days later. Splashed out a bit more money on the buffet as we saved so much on the wedding breakfast. Overall we cut the wedding cost by around two thirds and had a lot less stress!

Re your wedding breakfast - don't go overboard on the number of courses you serve - by the main course many of your guests will be so merry that they won't even notice whether the food is good or bad - better to skip out canapes and 'snacky' courses (which are overpriced) and just go for a smaller number of courses. Too many courses means your buffet will go to waste as well as your daytime guests are well stuffed by the evening.

Disposable cameras - we had 1 on each table at our evening do. About 75% of photos went in the bin - too dark, photos of the ceiling, people's ankles, you name it! However, we got some really good ones in there. So they are probably worth the cost, even if they just amuse the guests. We also asked people to bring their digital cameras and send us any good photos - got some excellent ones this way. We used a pro photographer for the wedding day - try and pick someone who knows the wedding venue (they should have a portfolio), as they will know how to get the best shots. Good luck!

iluvfreebies

Hi - sorry cant add to much to help with what uve asked ( just wanted to say enjoy ure day and all the best for the future xx hope ure day is magical