The Great ‘how to host a big party on the cheap' Hunt

MoneySavingStudent_2

Lol thanx malteaser! (Im guessing 1988 is your birth year?, If so your a yr older then me!)

I have a small saving proberbly of about a couple of hundred. But not able to pay for the wedding with only about £200 am i? lol

My main source is my student overdraft from HSBC. i get £1000 0% overdraft to use which comes with a cheque and debit card. What i do (due to planning it early) i can use my overdraft (ensuring i dont go over it) and then replace it when i get the money in.
*This worked well because i got 5% cashback on the deposit with my amex card and because i paid the amex bill off straight away with the overdraft i dont get charged. I paid it off with the overdraft which doesnt charge. (If that makes sense!)*

I recently managed to earn the odd bit and bob from selling the odd thing on ebay that i didnt want. AND my OH has just started working and we have now paid the deposit. So now my overdraft is back to £0 and ready to use to pay for something else then the cycle starts again! lol
:T

My OH has just started working and is doing well to bring some money in. I use my savings and my untie died recently soo i had another bit to put in the pot!
When we announced our engagement the odd person gave us £20 to put in and when your dress is £41.10 its been paid for lol!
*I'd just like to add, we're paying for the wedding ourselves because im not having my dad pay for anything or id be forever in his debt :mad: Same with the inlaws!*

Its just a case of keeping track of everything and giving yourself plenty of time! Im also going to buy some 'end of roll' fabric hopefully red velvet and make small heart (like mini cushions) to put on the table and in favour bags! End of roll costs less then £1 and ive already got the thread!

jellybean78

Finding ways to save money when organising my wedding has been so much fun!
Initially we had quite a high spend. We hired a very large self catering property in Devon, which sleeps 78! It's licenced for weddings, and we managed to book it from Friday to Monday. Instead of wedding presents, we asked guests to pay for their bed and board, at their discretion. It was much more important that they came to stay, hence not putting a stipulation on the price. We hope to get 2/3rds of the cost back after we've counted up the cash! Sounds a bit greedy when I say it like that, but the feedback is people are making a holiday of it, and are saying how unusual it is (in a good way!).
We've been to France and bought all the wine and spirits, and have taken advantage of beer deals as and when they come up. No corkage at the venue, but we're asking for a pound a drink from our guests, a lot more reasonable than many hotel prices!
Food - hogroast, home made potato salad, coleslaw and green salad from a local farm. Cost = £6 per head! Also buying pasties from a local supplier at a reduced bulk rate.
I've been collecting jars (pasta sauce, jam, pickle, not fussy!) and bought some night lights to scatter around the garden.
Good idea about fairy lights from people's xmas box - will beg, borrow and steal those from the family!
My dress is second hand from www.gumtree.com. All sorts of things on here, I also advertised for a band in the area we're getting married, and have found a fantastic one for only £500. I really wanted a live band, and that's a bargain price.
Only 6 weeks til the big day, can't wait!

maria08k

Not sure if someone has already posted this but you can buy plastic glasses from poundland (pint,wine,tumblers). I think you get about 20 in a pack.

allaboutme

For people talking about hiring students for photography there's a really good site which is designed to help customers find students who can carry out a task they want for lower than professional prices. I used it to find some musicians for my 21st birthday party and they were really really good and a lot cheaper than hiring a whole band!! I've got some friends who've had quite a bit of work doing photography for weddings from it.

www.studentgems.com

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malteaser1988

MoneySavingStudent wrote: »

Lol thanx malteaser! (Im guessing 1988 is your birth year?, If so your a yr older then me!)

yes its my birthyear, what uni you at? id love to seee pictures when you have had your wedding, it sounds fab! My mum is getting married to my step dad in august, a small affair as its both of theirs second wedding, so i joined this thread for them! its amazing though all the ideas so i will be remembering them for my own wedding in the future!

malteaser

2giraffes

We also got our wedding flowers from the wholesalers, think we spent about £200 in all, which was less than my bouquet would have been! My MIL is good at flowers, and also the landlady at my dad's local was into flower arranging so her and her friend did all the table decorations (in terracotta pots, painted to match bridesmaids dresses!!). Check local colleges/village halls to see if there are any flower arranging classes who could help you out.

Also, got my wedding dress in the sale - partly because I was living in Africa and only came home 6 weeks before I got married so didn't have a lot of options! But it was fab and only cost £30 to have it altered!

Like someone else said, ask friends with nice cars to help out with wedding cars!

MoneySavingStudent_2

Im at huddersfield university. Im doing well with my planning, ive just had a dig in the fabric bag upstairs and ive found some red velvet! The exact colour too! yay!

KatrinaW_2

Youth Hostels Wedding Venues

I know it sounds strange, but whilst looking on the YHA website, I noticed that 3 of their venues where licenced to hold weddings - at first glance 2 of them look stunning.

Not sure of the price, as you have to request the details, however I am sure it will be much cheaper than privately run stately homes.

http://www.yha.org.uk/find-accommodation/types-of-accommodation/weddings.aspx

Hopefully this might help someone

Katrina :j

m_cooper

heyyy if anyonesstruggling to find a venue for their wedding i,d recommend https://www.ultimatevenue.com, i found a great venue in Ireland from their and they have venues all over the UK, im currently looking for a party venue and have been browsing there pages, its really easy to use.

Mum_of_5_2

I don't have any photos on my computer at the mo, but basically the pink material was like chiffon, very fine and floaty, bought off a market. I used about a meter per table and a table sat 8 people. I just bunched it up in the middle under the candleabras, then IKEA chunky clear glass candle holders around the outside with pink scented tealights in from IKEA, Pink candles which i had to order from the internet as i couldnt find pink anywhere. LIke i say i used pink colour and a scroll font for the writing and paper from the papermill - search them on the net. For the diary pieces i took a piece of large pink card and just folded it over so it sat on it's own, stuck a photo of us on and typed out a diary piece. The bookmarks were black card cut into a bookmark shape, i took photos of spring flowers in our local botanical gardens and cut a small square photo to go on the top of the bookmark. Then on cream card we wrote out the name meanings and stuck them on. Like i said people loved them and they worked as placecards. For our table plan i bought a piece of black mountboard, cut out 8 pink circles of card and printed it off on the computer with the names.

hope this helps. It took us a while before the wedding to do it all but people loved it.

OH and i forgot, for our invitations i bought a glue pen and then bought this pink foil from a craft shop, you write what you want in glue and then stick the foil over the top and peel it off and it makes your glue writing a shiny colour, but the best thing was that i did black card invites with an insert of pink card - which matched all the stuff on the tables etc. i typed out the insert on my computer personalised for each person, (just type the name, press print, delete the name, retype the next person) On the front of the invite i used photos of sparklers moving at night. I was really into photography and it seemed unusual. Basically you get a manual or digital camera - has to be one with functions where you can alter the shutter speed. go out at night and set the camera to the longest setting you can i.e. 1 second, get someone to press it as you light the sparkler and move the sparkler around making shapes in the air, we wrote our initials. Because the shutter is open for so long you get a sparkly line of how you moved the sparkler (a bit like those photos of car lights on a motorway at slow speed). It was really good and very different.

hope this helps