# My last-minute low-budget October 2013 wedding!



## tinkerbelle93

*So earlier this year it had been a whole 12 months since my OH's proposal to me and, since we'd finally got sorted and settled into our new house, we decided it was time to start thinking about the wedding. 

Originally I decided I wanted a typical big white wedding with extended family, all our friends etc. as most people in my family get married that way and I'd never known any different. We set the date for next summer, looked round some venues and found one we wanted and reserved a date on it.

It all seemed very simple but things started becoming more and more complicated, arguments began within the family about who was to be invited and who wasn't to be invited (family feuds, parents and in-laws insisting people one of us has never met to be invited), who was going to be a bridesmaid (I ended up with needing to have 8 bridesmaids to stop anyone being upset or offended) and our guest list just seemed to get longer and longer and longer and the budget just seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

We'd planned a mid-week wedding on a budget using hired suits, second-hand dresses, a student photographer etc. etc. yet it was still going to come to thousands and thousands. I do a university course from home so we live on one income so the price was becoming very demanding from us. We started to have a think about it and decided that actually the big white wedding wasn't the right things for us for the various reasons:- 

- Number 1 was finances, we are only young and only bought our first home less than a year ago. Despite the fact we have some savings left the cost of the wedding was going to mean another year of saving each month and going without things just for one day. It would also mean possibly taking out a loan which is something we really don't want to do. 

- The big wedding would mean we probably couldn't afford a decent honeymoon. I think I would regret that more. 

- We felt as though we just couldn't please anyone with the guests, unless we had like 120 people at the ceremony. I hate the thought of being the centre of attention among that many people and me and my OH also hated the fact that half of the people we would have invited we really weren't closely connected to, or hadn't even met them at all! Plus certain family members we'd felt forced to include have tendencies to get lairy when drinking and cause fights or trouble. 

- I hate stress and already have my hands full with a house, toddler and degree, let alone with a huge wedding to plan.

So anyway last week we had a little chat together and also had chats with our parents and came to the conclusion that all we really want is to be married...so we thought we may as well just do it and have an intimate, low-key event instead. We both have our hearts set on this October so it's going to be a bit rushed but it's not as though there is a huge amount of planning to do. 

I'm going to my local church tomorrow with my mum to see if they have an October date (any day will do though preferably a Friday if they have one free!) so me and my OH can have a ceremony there with 32 people.. our parents, grandparents, siblings, my sister-in-law and nieces and 4 of our closest friends (and our little boy obviously!). Then after the ceremony we'll just go for a nice meal out together somewhere.. there are a couple of pubs and restaurants I have contacted who have rooms for private dining so we'll most likely go to one of those. Then afterwards me and OH will go off somewhere of our choice for a whole weekend while my parents kindly look after Oliver! We're so excited and can't choose yet. My parents offered to have him for a week but he's too little to be left that long I think. 

Anyway what I need to do so far... 

- Visit church and book ceremony (tomorrow!) 
- Choose venue and book for after ceremony dining (will do after church appointment tomorrow) 
- Choose wedding dress (probably second-hand), wedding hair style, make-up and accessories. 
- Choose colour theme. 
- Choose a suit to hire for groom and choose a suit for Oliver our son and page boy. 
- Choose and buy dresses for our 2 flower girls (my 6-year-old niece and OH's 6-year-old sister) and shoes. 
- Choose flowers.. basically just a bouquet for me and buttonhole for groom.. perhaps something for the flower girls but not sure. 
- Choose rings (me and OH going to look this weekend) 

I think those are the main things so far! Very excited! 

More planning to come!  *


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## Mummy May

Ooh congrats, sounds like its going to be lovely. I'm having a small wedding ceremony too, less than 50 will be there and the thought of speaking in front of all those people is terrifying haha. There are lots of fab finds on eBay and preloved. I bought my BM dress on eBay brand new for £30! Also you can get some fab artificial flowers on there too. Xx


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## tinkerbelle93

So went to the church today and the reverend is on holiday until tomorrow, so I've been given his home number and email address and am about to compose an email to him. Fingers crossed we will be allowed to have a church ceremony at late notice! 

I have also been looking into colour schemes and I'm thinking something purple-y. I love pinks but I don't know whether they're too summery for an Autumn wedding. 

Here are the flower girl dresses I like: 
https://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i463/tinkerbelle93/bridesmaid_zps33e777f8.jpg


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## tinkerbelle93

Mummy May said:


> Ooh congrats, sounds like its going to be lovely. I'm having a small wedding ceremony too, less than 50 will be there and the thought of speaking in front of all those people is terrifying haha. There are lots of fab finds on eBay and preloved. I bought my BM dress on eBay brand new for £30! Also you can get some fab artificial flowers on there too. Xx

Thank-you :) I'm still really scared about talking in front of that many people haha, maybe I'll have a champagne breakfast to calm the nerves! Yes I've been looking Ebay and Pre-loved also with a wedding dress in mind, keep seeing tons of those cheap Chinese dresses on Ebay and they look amazing but I don't know anyone who's bought one and if they're any good (or ethical lol). I had a look at the artificial flowers and they look really good also. xx


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## LittleLady04

Stalking! Love the flowergirl dress, I was gonna get the same until we had to change our colour scheme. Look forward to reading more of your plans, I'm at the beginning of planning too :)


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## weebubba

Re the dresses on eBay. I bought a gorgeous wedding dress from Shanghai for 100 quid it's beautiful but took 3.5 weeks to arrive!

Good luck with your plans I hope you get the day you want.


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## Mummy May

The china dresses do take a while to arrive so may be worth doing it now if you want one. I would suggest trying some on first though because the dress I thought I wanted didn't make me feel special enough when I had it on. Eep its so exciting! I have made my own invites and they're lovely and were cheap but you can also get gorgeous free printables!! Xx


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## xJessie91x

Stalking


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## tinkerbelle93

So the priest finally got into contact with me after I left a phone message and an email, and me and my OH have to go to a meeting at his house next week. What is discussed at these meetings? 

I'm very pleased though because I was unsure whether we'd be allowed a wedding because it's such short-notice, my partner is not christened and neither us attend church but they are absoloutely fine with all that! So now I need to decide which date I want for definite and start cracking on with dress-choosing etc. xx


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## Mummy May

Ooh good luck! I can't help with the meeting because I'm not having mine until October but my vicar said its lots of paperwork lol! Xx


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## tinkerbelle93

We had a meeting with the vicar and are getting married on Friday October 11th at 1pm yay! I was really surprised at the meeting, I was really expecting to have lots of questions on faith and why we want to get married in a church but nothing! 

Eeek I now have less than 2 months to organise everything. I rang up the cosy club restaurant round the corner from the church and their private upstairs room is free that date so going to ring tomorrow and book it so we can have a late lunch buffet afterwards. Also going to ring my MIL and SIL tomorrow to get my niece and my little SIL's dress and shoe sizes and order bridesmaid bits and bobs from BHS. I also need to get a dress! I think it's too late to go to a boutique so just going to look at Monsoon, BHS, Debenhams.. places like that where I can get my dress quite soon! 

I also need to sort out the suits for the groom and page-boy! Luckily my auntie is a florist and has offered to do my flowers :) I also need to decide where me and OH will go to that weekend for our honeymoon!! Oh and my hen-party!!! Sooo much to do in such little time!! xx


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## Mummy May

Eep it's so exciting! Don't worry, you can do it. When my mother got married to her now ex husband (he was an abusive you know what!) she booked it with 6 weeks to go, and me being a 17 year old with no transport planned everything in that time. Good luck! Xx


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## Soph n Chris

Yayy! For booking a date! We have only had six months to plan ours. My best friend has been Amazon, A Weddih Less Ordinary and of course, good old EBay


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## xemmax

Congratulations on booking your date! It all sounds so romantic.. happy planning :)


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## tinkerbelle93

Thanks everyone! :) 

Just having a bit of hassle buying things though like page boy suit and bits for the flower girls, it seems as though now is such a bad time to buy wedding things.. store websites usually have huge collections of stuff around summer but now there is only limited things with limited stock and it's never the colour or size I want in stock! 

On the bright side my mum has ordered me 2 wedding dresses off BHS that were in the sale and they'll be here next week for me to try on yay! xx


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## Mummy May

Monsoon have their AW collection online now and its gorgeous (flower girls). Meant to say, what did the vicar ask? Xx


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## Mrs_Wright

eBay has loads of lovely stuff.. 
I got my bridesmaid dresses and J's suit from there :) and loads of little bits, invites etc all at low costs :) 
I planned my wedding in 5 months and that was stressful so I can't imagine the time limit youv given yourself! Braver than me lol.. 
Congratulations Hun, if you need any tips or anything from another low budget last ish minute bride ask away :) xx


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## Tasha

Yay for wedding dresses. 

I organised my wedding in six weeks, it was great.


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## tinkerbelle93

Mummy May said:


> Monsoon have their AW collection online now and its gorgeous (flower girls). Meant to say, what did the vicar ask? Xx

Ah thanks will check their flower girl things out :) And page boy things, finding it hard to get a nice page-boy outfit for my son. I've pretty much decided purple and silver as the theme colours though now! 

The vicar didn't ask a lot about our faith or why marriage was important or anything like that.. it was just 'so you're getting married. You 100% certain about it?' and that was it on that front! Then we had to say the date we wanted and he put it in on the calendar and he wrote down our names, ages, occupations and our father's names and occupations on a form that we had to sign. Then he just gave us a load of leaflets and stuff and we have another meeting in 2 weeks about something as well, so maybe that will be more in-depth and long?? xx


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## tinkerbelle93

Mrs_Wright said:


> eBay has loads of lovely stuff..
> I got my bridesmaid dresses and J's suit from there :) and loads of little bits, invites etc all at low costs :)
> I planned my wedding in 5 months and that was stressful so I can't imagine the time limit youv given yourself! Braver than me lol..
> Congratulations Hun, if you need any tips or anything from another low budget last ish minute bride ask away :) xx

Thank-you! Luckily it's going to be very small, if it was a big wedding I would not be able to do it. I see from your sig that you're 19, nice to see other young brides.. I'm 20 and my fiance is 21 and the vicar was very surprised to see such a young couple! xx


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## Tasha

It is nice that the vicar was relaxed about it all. 

I was a young bride too, nineteen and hubby was twenty-one.

Purple and silver sounds lovely, what shade of purple, deep or bright?


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## Mrs_Wright

I love seeing other young brides too! I'm 19 (20 in Oct) and hubby is 24 :) we have been together nearly 5 years, our vicar wasn't to shocked really as he christened our Son back in November last year, altho I think he was shocked at the short time frame lol..
How's your planning going? Xx


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## tinkerbelle93

Tasha said:


> It is nice that the vicar was relaxed about it all.
> 
> I was a young bride too, nineteen and hubby was twenty-one.
> 
> Purple and silver sounds lovely, what shade of purple, deep or bright?

Ah awesome, it's nice to know. I do have a couple of friends around my age who are married but most of them aren't even thinking about it yet, let alone becoming engaged! 

I'm thinking a deep purple, going to see what's around now! My BHS dresses also arrived at my mums today but I've got to wait until this evening to try them on!! xx


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## Tasha

tinkerbelle93 said:


> Ah awesome, it's nice to know. I do have a couple of friends around my age who are married but most of them aren't even thinking about it yet, let alone becoming engaged!
> 
> I'm thinking a deep purple, going to see what's around now! My BHS dresses also arrived at my mums today but I've got to wait until this evening to try them on!! xx

My friends are just beginning to get engaged, married and have babies now. I am 28 now and it feels odd to think how long ago we did all that. 

Deep purple and silver sounds gorgeous. I bet you cant wait to try them on :happydance:


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## tinkerbelle93

Tried on my dresses and found one I loved- £150 from BHS, reduced from £300 :) So now I just have to decide shoes, accessories and what to do with my hair! 

Really happy that bit is over now, outfits wise just need to sort out my 2 flower girls, the groom and the page boy. xx


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## Mummy May

Ooh bargain! I love a good bargain! Xx


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## Tasha

Fantastic, glad you love it.


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## tinkerbelle93

Thank-you :) 

The flower girl dresses I wanted to buy have gone now though :( Quite gutted but ah well, having difficulty finding any others that are in my price range, that I like and that are suitable for an autumn wedding. A lot of the reduced ones are so summery. xx


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## tinkerbelle93

I'm also taking my dress to my mums to keep it safe there as I'll be at hers the morning of my wedding. It's really sad whenever my OH is out and Oliver's asleep and I'm bored it's just too tempting not to put the dress on again and just look in the mirror for ages :blush: ! Haha it's a good thing it's going to my mums. xx


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## Mummy May

Haha what you like! Monsoon have some gorgeous dresses but they're around £50 each which is a bit steep if you've got more than1 to buy xx


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## Tasha

I know they aren't exactly what you were looking for but have you seen these? £37 each. https://www.clothingattesco.com/dre...,4,shop,evening-occasion-wear,kids-bridesmaid 

Or there are just white dresses that look right for autumn as they have sleeves which are £27 https://www.clothingattesco.com/dre...,4,shop,evening-occasion-wear,kids-bridesmaid

This could make any white fit more in with your theme https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-girl-bridal-sash/p263775?colour=Purple

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Purple-Bel...083&sr=8-11&keywords=girls+bridesmaid+dresses

This one is a little closer to the one you liked on your first page https://www.hellobridal.co.uk/prett...oration-organza-flower-girl-dress-p-2036.html

I love this one and to me it looks more Autumn/winter https://www.hellobridal.co.uk/beaut...ecoration-tulle-flower-girl-dress-p-2869.html


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## tinkerbelle93

Oh wow thank-you! Ahh the sash is a really good idea, I didn't think to do that. I might just get some plain white ones and buy a couple of sashes then to match my colour theme, can't really go wrong! xx


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## Tasha

I thought exactly the same, great idea isn't it?


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## Cowgirl07

Good luck! I almost wish we had an small wedding, not that it was huge by any means. Less then 150 people is small here. But the hassle and arguments were hard. And I love the flower girl dresses with the pedals on the bottom


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## tinkerbelle93

Getting a bit more organised now.. Church is booked, restaurant room is booked, have meeting with our local parish this saturday (as banns have to be read out there too), dress has been bought and I have booked my hairdresser for the morning of my wedding, as well as a week before for a trim and colour. I also just ordered some flower girl dresses from M&S. I'd looked at them before and they're gorgeous but the colours really summery for October.. one has a dusky pink sash, the other has the bottom half coloured in a light greeny colour.. but I just browsed on there again and the dresses are down to £12 and £17 so I've ordered them to see what they're like. 

Also my wedding dress went down to £88 so we re-ordered it and sent my one back! May as well to save that money! 

So what I need to do now is: 

- Choose rings (probably go to town this weekend and do this) 
- Order my little mans page-boy outfit and shoes. 
- Find a suit to hire for my husband-to-be and buy shoes (probably do this when we get rings) 
- Buy other bits and pieces (shoes, accessories etc.) to go with dress. 
- Get cardi's/shrugs for flower girl dresses, shoes and accessories. 
- Sort out a photographer.. thinking of using a family member or looking around for a student one or something. 
- Sort out how I'm getting to the church.. really don't want to spend money on hiring a car but I can't think of anyone with a nice car to take me and my dad :/ 
- Decide on a hair-style and make-up. 
- Decide on a day for Hen party. 
- Book honey-moon. 

That's it I think. Ahh less than 7 weeks. xx


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## Cowgirl07

We had our best man lend us his car, it was a pretty new mercury. Black and very nice. Do any of your friends have nice cars you could borrow? 
Good luck I am glad its going well!


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## bumblebeexo

Have a look on eBay - that flower girl dress on the first page is the dress my LO wore to my wedding last week! I found it on eBay, brand new, for £10 including p+p!
I was a young bride too, 19 (nearly 20 though!) :D


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## bumblebeexo

Also, we used my Uncle's car, it's nothing fancy but it's silver and with some purple ribbon and balloons on it then it looked great! For the bridesmaids we used my Mum's friend's car, which was also silver.


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## tinkerbelle93

Thanks ladies :) 

Ugghh I have had some people on my OH's side kicking off about not being invited, it's a SMALL wedding with CLOSE family only for goodness how can you be offended!! Grrr. We've chosen to ignore it but it puts a downer on things. 

On a more positive note my little man has his page-boy suit, £20 from Rocco clothing, and he looks sooo sweet. My heart melted! I also got my flower girls to try on the M&S dresses which were £12 and they fit nicely. They have dusky pink sashes on them that are easily removed so may buy some purple ones instead, not sure. 

Still need to sort out the car thing though. I can't have my dad drive me because we're getting married on a Friday and it's market day in my parents town where we're getting married and quite busy (wishing we booked for a Thursday now, nevermind) and it'd be a nightmare to get a space. Can't think of anyone with a nice car though, may just hire a semi-decent car and get a relative to drive it maybe? Ahh need to think it through. 

Starting to feel a bit daunted now it's September though.. next month I will be married. I will have a different name to one I've had for over 20 years!! So weird but exciting. xx


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## tinkerbelle93

bumblebeexo said:


> Have a look on eBay - that flower girl dress on the first page is the dress my LO wore to my wedding last week! I found it on eBay, brand new, for £10 including p+p!
> I was a young bride too, 19 (nearly 20 though!) :D

Getting married young doesn't seem as uncommon as I thought :) 

Did anyone have the raised eyebrows and the 'aren't you a little young' comments. I mean 90% of people are really happy and saying 'about time!' to us but there's that minority who want to make our age an issue. But they're the same sort of people who raised their eyebrows about us having our son at our age and us being a little young for that.. and that worked out perfectly and we're so happy, so we don't take notice. xx


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## Snow Owl

We just bought a suit for little man for a friends christening off roccos clothing and its amazing!!


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## tinkerbelle93

Just over a week to go!! 

Some of the in-laws still aren't best pleased about it being small but we're just trying to put that to one side and not let it stop us from being excited. 

Nearly everything is organised now! The only things left to do are choose my wedding shoes (currently watching some pairs on Ebay), choose make-up and practice doing it and choose rings. Money is quite tight from paying for the day and the honeymoon so we are probably just going to buy some cheap rings from Argos or something and then can replace them in the future with expensive ones if we want to. 

We have also booked our honeymoon at a hotel in London for 3 nights whilst my parents have our little boy. It's going to be weird leaving him for a weekend but he loves my parents so much and will definitely be really happy about it. Ahh can't believe next week on Friday we will be sitting on train as newlyweds!! So excited!! xx


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## Mummy May

Bloody hell thats gone quick!! xx


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## Cowgirl07

I am glad it is coming together!


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## young-mummy

Been nosey on your post. Me and oh want y
To get married next year but on a very tight budget so looking for ideas! Bet you can't wait. I'm also "young" at 21 In 2 weeks x


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## Mummy May

You're married!congrats! How did it go? Xx


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## xJessie91x

Hope it went well! Pics please!!! Congrats hun xx


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## tinkerbelle93

Thanks guys :) It went really well, was over so fast though!! We were married at 1pm, had a lunchtime buffet (food was lovely) and then was on the train to London for our honeymoon by 7pm. I was exhausted, I have no idea how people have weddings with receptions going on until midnight! 

I'll post some pics in the pic section soon. We budgeted £1500 for the whole thing but it ended up being around £1800ish from what I have written down, since I decided I wanted a cake etc. after all so we didn't go too over-budget which I was pleased about. So happy to be a mrs!!! xx :)


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## tinkerbelle93

young-mummy said:


> Been nosey on your post. Me and oh want y
> To get married next year but on a very tight budget so looking for ideas! Bet you can't wait. I'm also "young" at 21 In 2 weeks x

Ah congrats! There are a lot of ways you can save money, it depends really whether you want a big or small wedding but you can make savings either way. We decided to just have close family (parents, grandparents, siblings (and their partners and kids) and a couple of friends, basically no aunties uncles and cousins since we have loads between us!) and had 27 adults and 6 children including ourselves there. We had a church ceremony and a lunchtime buffet in a private dining area upstairs at a restaurant opposite. The room was gorgeous with a bar and other comfy seating away from the tables and chairs and music playing. The buffet was put out and everyone was just up, having drinks and mingling it was a really nice atmosphere! it's worth ringing around to see what places do private events/dining for small groups. It's just about thinking outside the box really! 

If anyone is interested the cost breakdown was something like this: 

Church: 550 (i think it's usually 450 but we had organs playing which was an extra 100 I think)
Lunchtime buffet (including use of function room, buffet for 32 and 1 alcoholic drink per guest): 700 
My wedding dress, accessories and shoes: 100 (dress was around 80 from BHS in the sale, shoes were twenty pounds, I borrowed jewellery from my grandma and mum, my hairdresser did my hair for free as a wedding gift and used tights/underwear/makeup I already owned :) 
Page-boy suit and shoes: 30 (both from rocco clothing) 
Flower girls dresses, shoes and accessories: 100 (dresses were £12 each in the m and s sale, shoes were full-price from monsoon) 
Groom suit and waistcoat and tie: 130 (used shoes and shirt he already had) 
Flowers: Free as my auntie is a florist :) 
Cake: 100 
Photographer: Free, we just relied on our family and friends to get good ones, luckily a couple have good cameras and got some stunning shots
Rings: 70 (we got inexpensive ones that we will possibly replace in the future) 

As far as weddings go it wasn't a lot but still felt like quite a lot of money to spend, I had the best day ever though! xx


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## Cowgirl07

Congrats lady!! I can't wait to see pictures and I am glad your day went splendidly


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