Starting to panic!Wedding v soon.

moneysavingwannabe

Hi,

I really like the roses but I am not planning on having lots of traditional photos where the focus is the flowers, so am open to suggestions!

My bridesmaids are all adults so not sure whether they should have bouquets or whether an alternative would be ok?

I've only been to 2 florists, they were very similar in price only 5p difference here and there. I suppose I could try some more, wanted a fairly local one but it would be worth a few phone calls! It's hard when you have very little knowledge of the price of flowers or what you actually want!! :rotfl:

I would be happy with a similar size bouquet to my bridesmaids I will query that. Thanks again!

Krystaltips

This is the main flower of my bouquet, it's very cheap too... and I'll have small blue silk flowers mixed and some white roses.

Wrist corsages are fine for older bridesmaids, or even something like small dolly bags would look good too.

Can't find the tiara on ebay, bought it too long ago now but I'll take a pic this week and post it on here for you.

moneysavingwannabe

Hi,:hello:

That looks beautiful, I will have another talk with the florist.

Thankyou for all your help!!! It is appreciated. :T :j :T :j :T


I am feeling slightly better about the whole thing now, everyone is so helpful.

:grouphug: (((((Group hug))))

paddingtondoo

moneysavingwannabe wrote: »

Hi,

Thankyou for your reply I will consider the flowers, we have to make a decision by next Saturday.

Flowers have been quoted as;

Hand tied bouquets

Me canna lillies and roses £80
Bridesmaids roses £40 each x3
Buttonholes roses £2.95
Corsages mums' £6.95
Thankyou flowers £25 x2

Can't remember anything else (quote is upstairs and feeling very lazy after taking nephew out for the day!)

Wondered if I could query my bouquet and have a smaller one??

Blimey - am so glad I have a handy friend who is doing the flowers for me if that's what I would have to pay.

£50 for thank you flowers is extortionate - we have bought the mum's photo frames and will have prints done of us and their respective grandkids in to put in them.

can you do the buttonholes yourself or even just have them for the groom and best man?

Do the mum's really need corsages?

£200 for 4 bouquets is I'm sure what any florist would say that you should pay as they use top quality flowers but they do only have to last the day. Have you thought about having a go yourself and getting flowers from the local market?

My cousin did her daughters and they looked lovely. They were calla lilies.
My friend and I are having a trial this week. Can you use something cheaper to bulk it out? I'm having heather and lots of green stuff in mine as well as white roses.

A single flower can look really effective especially if they are a statement flower like the calla lillies.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WEDDING-FLOWERS-CALLA-LILY-HANDTIED-BOUQUET_W0QQitemZ380001858663QQihZ025QQcategoryZ98734QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
These are obviously artificial but you can see what I mean

xredwebx

Hi,

I'm getting married at the end of July too (26th!), not done anything as we only decided last week! However I have the bridesmaids dress and my corset top, just got to find anything else!

For favors I'm thinking I'll get some rock (we're getting married in newquay), tied with turquoise ribbon.

Good luck with the planning!
I'm suit shopping this weekend, cant wait!

xxx

RoxieW

moneysavingwannabe wrote: »

Hi,

Wedding £1,781 Budget Paid Still to pay

Church costs £250.00

Banns £60.00 £60.00

Flowers £301.00

Photography £1,000.00 £100.00

Transport £0.00 £0.00

Invitations etc £50.00£50.00 £0.00

Gifts for bridesmaids £30.00

Gifts for best man etc £30.00

Gifts for mums see flowers

Gifts for dads £30.00

Ribbons/bows £30.00

Reception £3277.87

Reception meal £2,000.00

Drinks £300.00

Favours £52.87 £52.87


Bags 4 favours £5.00

Balloons £20.00

Wedding Cake £100.00



Evening buffet £800.00

Disco £0.00



Honeymoon £1800

Travel £250.00

Travel insurance £50.00

Hotels £1,000.00

Spending money £500.00



Wedding rings £455

Engagement paid paid

Bride ring £215.00 £215.00

Groom ring £240.00 £240.00



Fashion & accessories

£1,047.49

Wedding dress £300.00 £300.00

Underwear £33.00 £33.00

Shoes £40.49 £40.49


Veil/tiara £20.00

Accessories £20.00

Hair £70.00

Make up £50.00

Bridesmaids dresses £300.00 £100.00

Shoes £15.00 £15.00

Accessories £30.00

Hair/make up £0.00



Page boy outfit £22.00 £22.00

Suits £147.00



Hen/stag £235



Hen do 1-spa £35.00

Hen do 2 - home £30.00

Stag do £70.00 £10.00

Spends£100.00



£8,596.36 £1,238.36

Left to pay£7,358.00

Hi there - I got married last April and had to trim our spiralling budget getting it down form £20,000 to £13,000 (which included a luxury £5,000 honeymoon as this was important to us).

A few tips - favours - I just bought a big bag of the foil wrapped hearts (you can get them easily online) and had one placed on each napkin. I was worried they might look a bit cheap but they actually looked really classy - far better then at a wedding we went to which had elaborate favours and by the end of the night there were wrappers/boxes/ribbon scattered everywhere.

Flowers - I had a small rose bouquet - well I asked for small but it was still decent sized! If you ask for posy sized its much cheaper. You will only be holding onto your bouquet for a very short time. I bought a cheap vase to display mine at the reception to get a bit more 'milage'.
My bridesmaids had wrist corsages which looked great. If they'd had bouquets they would have just ended up lying about the place after they've finished with the photos.

Reception/food - your reception costs are quite high. Does this include flowers/table decorations etc? I paid £4000 in total to my venue ( a 4star hotel) which included daytime 3 course meal, champagne, wine and a very nice evening buffet.

Buffet - can you cut this down by catering for less people. In honesty, alot of our evening buffet was wasted as a 3 course meal in the daytime tends to fill people up.

Gifts - while its nice of you to want to offer gifts, we didnt at our wedding. Well, we did but only to those who'd helped and we didnt do it actualy at the wedding. We took the best man our for dinner and I bought each bridesmaid a necklace but in honesty I wish I hadn't bothered as they were OH's sisters and one in particular was worse than useless and ungrateful. I did buy my 2 best friends bracelets as they'd helped me alot with organisation but we didnt buy anything for parents as tbh we'd had no help financial or otherwise from them so what are we thanking them for? I think people do get a bit caught up in 'we have to do this or that'.

Apart from that I think your budget is quite good - as said, its the reception costs that seem quite high but I'm assuming there's nothing you can do about that now.

I think there things always end up costing more than we expect and we just have to accept that we have to pay for what we want.

ikkleosu

WHat about reducing the cost of your hair and make-up? Do you maybe have a friend who could do those for you? Have a few practice nights (good excuse for a girly night) to make sure she gets it right. That would save you over £100 pound right there.

Also, I really would consider artifical flowers. As I keep saying I got my bouquet, 2 bridesmaids bouquet and 1 buttonhole off ebay for £17. It wasn't quite what I wanted, so my Mum got a couple of sprays of artificial flowers and some ribbon. And now they look really lovely. And the total cost was about £22.

Do you have any friends whoa re keen gardeners and have lovely flowers? Maybe you could have some flowers fresh from their garden, tied together with a ribbon?

I agree about the evening buffet. If you are having a sit down meal, then most people won't want a huge amount in the evening. Why not do something a little different, like get huge pots of soup and bread for everyone - or alternatively, loads and loads of sweet treats. Or just small nibbles like crisps, peanuts, shortbread etc. I'm planning to have mini muffins, chocolate crispies, etc etc, as most people will have had a main meal and it's fun to just have everyone indulge in kiddie puddings.

MoneySavingStudent_2

Krystaltips wrote: »

Some of MSS comments weren't that helpfull lol.

I was only trying to help


My dress is here and i brought it for £41.10 but a lovely moneysaver who i was talking to at the time, kindly paid for it as a gift (so it was Free) only reason it was cheap was because it had been the display model, never been worn apart from a dummy. So now im the next dummy to wear it! :rolleyes: : http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_64885_530493_-1

Bridesmaid Dresses are here and i brought one for £30 (Including the shawl) from ebay. Been worn once: http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_64971_483131_-1

Jewellery isnt really that big of a deal for us as my auntie resently died and im going to be wearing what she left behind. So its like shes part of the wedding even though shes not there

Men suite hire is about £57 but im going to be hiring about 4 so im going to haggle and speak to a friend of a friend and try get them down to £50 each.

ikkleosu

Krystaltips wrote: »

Have you tried looking online for your accesories? I bout some sample things for my bridesmaids from www.yoneed.com, it's in hong kong, really cheap jewellery but not bad stuff at all for the price. You can pay by paypal and they do have an ebay shop but its cheaper off the website...

What did you think of their quality/service? I've been looking for a nice watch to wear for my wedding (everyone keeps telling me I can't wear a watch..why? I'm a tad time obsessive, I will want to know the time on my wedding day), but mega cheap. They have some lovely ones on that site, was the service good?

moneysavingwannabe

RoxieW wrote: »

Hi there - I got married last April and had to trim our spiralling budget getting it down form £20,000 to £13,000 (which included a luxury £5,000 honeymoon as this was important to us). Gosh! How did you cut it down so much?

A few tips - favours - I just bought a big bag of the foil wrapped hearts (you can get them easily online) and had one placed on each napkin. I was worried they might look a bit cheap but they actually looked really classy - far better then at a wedding we went to which had elaborate favours and by the end of the night there were wrappers/boxes/ribbon scattered everywhere. Thanks, I have already bought some Green & Blacks choc squares but not sure how to present them -cheaply!

Flowers - I had a small rose bouquet - well I asked for small but it was still decent sized! If you ask for posy sized its much cheaper. You will only be holding onto your bouquet for a very short time. I bought a cheap vase to display mine at the reception to get a bit more 'milage'. This sounds like a good idea.
My bridesmaids had wrist corsages which looked great. If they'd had bouquets they would have just ended up lying about the place after they've finished with the photos. I need to think about this!

Reception/food - your reception costs are quite high. Does this include flowers/table decorations etc? I paid £4000 in total to my venue ( a 4star hotel) which included daytime 3 course meal, champagne, wine and a very nice evening buffet. This is just the food plus a welcome drink and a toast, we are talking to them again soon.

Buffet - can you cut this down by catering for less people. In honesty, alot of our evening buffet was wasted as a 3 course meal in the daytime tends to fill people up. I think we need to consider this as some people with children will probably go home before the buffet.

Gifts - while its nice of you to want to offer gifts, we didnt at our wedding. Well, we did but only to those who'd helped and we didnt do it actualy at the wedding. We took the best man our for dinner and I bought each bridesmaid a necklace but in honesty I wish I hadn't bothered as they were OH's sisters and one in particular was worse than useless and ungrateful. I did buy my 2 best friends bracelets as they'd helped me alot with organisation but we didnt buy anything for parents as tbh we'd had no help financial or otherwise from them so what are we thanking them for? I think people do get a bit caught up in 'we have to do this or that'. Hmm, I'd like to buy them something, my M&D have contributed and OH have to some extent. One bridesmaid has paid the full £200 for her dress and another one has paid half.
Apart from that I think your budget is quite good thanks, I need some reassurance!:o - as said, its the reception costs that seem quite high but I'm assuming there's nothing you can do about that now. I can prob cut down the evening buffet!

I think there things always end up costing more than we expect and we just have to accept that we have to pay for what we want.

Thankyou for all your input, I am starting to feel better about the whole thing I think I just panicked when I added things up. I seem to have been saving for forever for house stuff/building work and I can't see an end in sight now as the costs seem so high!

I will consider all your points thankyou. :T