how depressing...

jessicad_2

thank you for your advice everyone, I have some ideas for keeping costs down already i.e high street dress, family member hopefully to do a cake, doing flowers ourselves, a potential venue is on our doorstep so no need for cars, a friend to do photography, and a honeymoon later when we can afford it etc etc

So I think we can save on a lots of the costs, and hopefully try to keep under the 5k, especially if we can negotiate with the venue.

Thank you Klane for your advice, and the pointer about looking on forums, this sounds like a good idea.

I'm also really conscious about how expensive a wedding can be for guests as well, especially as outfits, travel, accommodation, gifts, expenditure on the day etc can all add up quickly and become a huge expense. So I want to make sure nobody else is under pressure either.

Bismarck

~Many years ago I went to a wedding where you brought your own food and there was no booze and thought it was dreadful.

Now I realise what a selfish, ungrateful snob I was. You do what suits you..it's you that counts at the end of the day.

SingleSue

We had full pomp and ceremony at our wedding...but it was still done to a budget.

My dream dress would have cost £1100 but me being a bit of a budget queen said no way am I paying that and got an even better one for £187 (mum had offered to make one but even she said she couldn't even buy the material for that price) and the bridal shop even threw in the shoes, hoop petticoat and headress. My veil was another £48 but again it was gorgeous and followed the train of the dress so it came out 10 foot behind me on the floor.

Horse and carriage was £150
Car for bridesmaids was £160
2nd car for grandparents...free! (My aunts partner had a vintage car)

The reception my parents paid for, they gave me a budget of £1000 to work to and I thought I did rather well by getting a quote for £584 - this was for a sit down meal for 70 people plus an evening reception (including food) for 150, plus rooms for the bridesmaids to change in and an overnight bridal suite room for us with a champagne breakfast.

Photography my future parents in law paid for and after they had virtually signed up with one company who quoted the exhorbitant amount of £400, I rang around and got it for £75 - this included the full set of proofs plus an album containing 100 photos.

Future parents in law also (and against my wishes) arranged for the wedding to be filmed via a friend who was in the business. They never did tell me the cost but the quality was so eekk that they got their money back anyway.

We had a total of 8 ushers, all in top hat and tails plus of course the groom and bestman - each usher paid for the hire of their suits.

I had 4 bridesmaids, again all bar one either paid the full or half of their dresses...which were bought in a sale anyway (flower girls dress cost £10!)

Flowers - we got married during lent so no flowers allowed in the church
(good tip that is) so it was only buttonholes and mine and the bridesmaids flowers (I had a bouquet and each bridesmaid had a posy) - total flower cost was £40

The cake was paid by my future parents in law and again I had to step in after MIL said they were having one done which was costing £600 (yep I almost fell through the floor), instead I put her on track to a local cake shop who did the cake to my design (and I am cack at design but it turned out really nice) for £65.

Our honeymoon though was a huge disappointment - we had originally booked for Tunisia (it wasn't that popular then so was cheap - £180 for both of us) but OH chickened out of having his jabs done so we lost the money there and we ended up going to Belgium as drivers mates in lorries (seperate lorries!) and staying 2 nights in a special deal hotel....paid for by one of the companies my hubby did business with. Then back from there, we got straight onto a coach and up to Manchester to spend 4 days with my chief bridesmaid and her family.

Our rings were from Argos and cost £36 in total but we did not pay for them - it was a gift from a friend of the family.

I think the best thing we did was to give ourselves exactly a year to organise and pay for it, everything was paid for before the day on an ongoing basis and no loans were needed to be taken out.

We could have gone mad (at that time we could afford to) , in fact without looking around and budgeting, the wedding should have cost around the 20k mark but I can be a little tight at times with pennies and couldn't see the reason in paying out huge sums of money to one company when I could get it ooddles cheaper elsewhere.

Pobby

All this old rubbish about weddings costing £17k.Bah!We lived together for 8 years.We were married in a registry office,a few close friends and parents.Off to a country pub for food and a drink.Had a phone call that day that the body spray shop had finished all the work on an old 1970 MGB that we had been restoring so slipped away in the afternoon and picked it up.

Then off to an hotel in Weymouth for a 3 day honey moon testing out the MGB.It was a loverly day.Oh and by the way,this year is our 25th silver wedding anniversary!

sleepless_saver

jessicad wrote: »

Being married is an important step for us, we have plans for how our future will pan out together, for instance we intend to emigrate in 7 years time. So I do feel we understand what marriage entails and its not just about the day and having a party.

So I appreciate that it can be done cheaply, and yes you are right that I what I mean is that it is likely to take 4-5 years before we can save for a wedding and then probably another 2 years after that before we actually have the money.

If you're planning to emigrate in 7 years time, will you not need to save for that? Your timetable for paying off debts then saving for the wedding takes you up to 7 years. Sounds like you will have to decide whether getting some dosh together for emigration is more of a priority for you both than the wedding.

Like some other posters, we had a very cheap wedding - registry office, lunch for very close family, and a party in our flat that night. It was a great and memorable day and everyone enjoyed the informality (or if they didn't they were much too polite to say). Good luck with whatever you do decide.

count_rostov

Firstly, congratulations!
I echo all the above posts. We're getting married in September. My parents are very kindly stumping up for everything so we're not really on a budget but nonetheless are really enjoying doing everything ourselves. We're regular church goers and the minister is a friend so that just requires a donation (traditionally a days wages for the groom, apparently). The party will be in a youth hostel which will cost £600 and includes accomodation for 75 guests, which is basically everyone who needs to travel to the wedding. If we were being really tight we could charge them a tenner each and make a profit!
I'm making all the invitations, wearing my mother's beautiful wedding dress, my brother is piping us into the church, my father will drive us to church in his rusty old pick-up, and a friend is doing photography and another's band playing for the dance. My family are fishermen so we will eat wild salmon and langoustines which we will cook ourselves the day before, My mother's making the cake and even growing all the flowers!
The only expensive things will be champagne and we've decided to get a suit made for my boyfriend - completely unneccesary expenses.
We're buying 3 barrels of beer and one of cider for the evening which will cost £260. Again, people are so used to cash bars at weddings we could easily charge for this.
So, not counting my boyfriend's suit I think it will all cost about £1500. However, if we charged people even nominal ammounts for accomodation and beer I think we could do it for £700. And I must stress, we're not cutting any corners, it won't look like a cheap wedding and there will be lots of guests.
Anyway, congratulations, and have fun planning whatever you decide to do!

taxi73

We did ours 7 years ago for about £1.5k..we got married in a registry office with all our friends and family present...I bought my outfit from a shop that does outfits for cruises(£100)..DH had a lovely suit from M&S...my daughters(bridesmaids)..had lovely lilac dresses from Matalan...I had a boquet and DDs had a posy and a few had button holes....the photographs were done by a guest and put in an album(surprise)..the cake was ordered from a local baker(£40..2 tiers)...the we had a reception at our house with a huge buffet and Moet and chandon chamagne...bought from Tesco on if you buy 6 bottles of wine you get 20% off..we also bought all the cans,wine etc there...in the evening we all went to a working mens club(drinks are cheaper and entertainment is already laid on)....everybody said they absolutely loved it as it didn't cost them a fortune in overpriced drinks....and the atmosphere was great...

iolanthe07

The best wedding I have been to in recent years cost under £500 - basic church fees only a little more than Register Office and much less than hotel/castle etc. Reception was in church hall with food and wine provided by bride's mother who lives in Spain and brought it all in the boot of her car. The bride borrowed her dress and looked great and the flowers were what the church already had for the next day (Sunday). It needn't cost the earth.

Lorne

Come and join us on the wedding boards, great ideas on there for a debt free wanabee weddings

kizzykizzywizzy

Myself & Hubby got married after being together 7 years, I bought my dress from the paper for £100, his suit was YSL in the sale & 20% staff discount, shoes etc all from sales.
You may think this is selfish, but his Sister lives in Australia & was pressurising us into visiting her, so we decided we'd get married out there with a wedding celebrant, in a glass house in a lovely park, took our own champagne. We had a small reception in a hotel overlooking a beautiful bay, which we had the honeymoon suite in, she invited some of her friends along, who soon became ours! she paid for her friends, my neighbour happened to be out there at the time, so we invited him & his girlfriend & had a really relaxed & fun day, they had a mercedes which was my wedding car, a friend of hers was a photographer, he did the photos, father in law made a small cake to take with us.
All too soon the day was over, but we still had the rest of the month we took off of work to travel Australia, singapore, & bali.
We worked loads of overtime to pay for the flights & hotels etc & family gave us Dollars instead of presents.
It was a lovely day, we are still married nearly 13 years later! I'm just so glad we didn't go into debt for it, though it probably cost £5k for the whole trip, we never wanted a huge wedding anyway as we were getting married for life, not for one day, & selfishly it was for us, not loads of relations we never see from year to year!
I'm sure you'll be able to do it on a budget, without scrimping- Congratulations by the way:beer: