budget wedding tips- list yours here.

[honeybee2]

Hiya ladies.

Like me, there are plenty of brides on here with a small budget. Unfortunately for some, a wedding is a financial crisis so I thought it would be really helpful to some for others to list their wedding budget tips here.

This could include; DIY tips, special websites and your personal ideas.

Thankyou

 

[Sofiekirsten]

This is a great idea, I have managed to do my wedding on a £1500 budget.

This is how I did it.

Instead of buying the dress from a wedding shop I went to EBay and bought one for £99 made to measure from China, this saved me alot of money....
This is my dress:




They didn't need any alterations.

I also did all my own stationary rather than paying a ridiculous price for someone else to do it. My place cards I designed and wtote them out myself, I don't know how to do calligraphy but they look great.

The wedding car is one of my friends vintage cars that she is going to dress up in a suit and take me to where I want to go for free

The suits we hired from debenhams which were £55 per hire which includes winged shirt, jacket, pants, waistcoat, cravat and hankerchief

If you need any adivice just message me

 

[honeybee2]

thanks sofi..... what about you other ladies??

 

[tmr1234]

i have done my own flowers well me and my mum i got them off ebay 36 calla lillys for £12 we are going to be doing all the flowers are self also getting my dress off ebay oh isnt waering a suit as he will look a mess i think( he has very long dreadlocks) an i dont like them any way doing my own table centers and having a buffet not a sit down meal but thats coz we aren big on big meals more than the money side.

 

[Niki]

This is a great idea, I have managed to do my wedding on a £1500 budget.

This is how I did it.

Instead of buying the dress from a wedding shop I went to EBay and bought one for £99 made to measure from China, this saved me alot of money....
This is my dress:

View attachment 98419
View attachment 98420

They didn't need any alterations.

I also did all my own stationary rather than paying a ridiculous price for someone else to do it. My place cards I designed and wtote them out myself, I don't know how to do calligraphy but they look great.

The wedding car is one of my friends vintage cars that she is going to dress up in a suit and take me to where I want to go for free

The suits we hired from debenhams which were £55 per hire which includes winged shirt, jacket, pants, waistcoat, cravat and hankerchief

If you need any adivice just message me

Your dress is very similar to mine

 

[Bocket]

I've decided to make homemade fudge as wedding favours. I've made 50 evening invites for about £15, just by shopping round for materials from outlet shops etc

Wedding shoes- ASOS sale

Handmade jewellery by a girl at work (I've only paid about £6 for gorgeous sets) as it's her hobby

Borrow! I've borrowed my veil, bracelet, garter etc

By not having a "traditional" wedding car I've saved loads and got a fab car that looks like something out of grease!

Encouraging talented friends to pick up old hobbies! (Helping with invite making, dress alterations and even pursuaded one to pick up her piano playing again to perform in church)

and by mentioning my wedding to people at work and putting pleas on facebook, I've managed to arrange mates rates on things like photos, flowers and hair. Ask and u may just get!!! Normally start by going "I'm getting desperate for someone to......." and more often than not, they've made a recommendation!

Hope they help xxx

 

[MrsVenn]

I've mentioned this on another thread but for decorations:

Collect jars - Soak them in fairy liquid and scrub the labels off. Put them in the dishwasher on a hot wash (tub of boiling water will also do) and wash them all. Dry them and make them nice and clean. Then get a ton of glitter from Hoobycraft and pour it in to the jars at different heights. Then get a bag of tealights from Homebase and put a couple in each jar. They give a really twinkly like glimour to them. You could tie ribbons around the top of them too for extra effect, could tuck a flower in to the ribbon etc. Also mirrors under them would look good to make them really reflect.

Definitely get a penny jar, the sooner the better, it'll soon mount up!

Also fairly lights, just strings of white fairy lights can turn a room in to a lovely atmosphere..you just need lots of extension leads! You can wrap ribbon around the wires to disguise them and again hang things off of the wires etc. to make them blend in and pretty

Make your own stationary - print labels for envelopes at home using free software online.

If you get married in a venue, ask how much corkage is. If they offer it, it may be cheaper for you to supply the alcohol than pay the price of the venue's.

Ask for cheaper room rates for guests if you get married at a hotel.

If you know someone who can make cakes, ask them!!

Photography students at University are usually happy to do photographs for a fraction of the price you would pay as long as they could use some as examples for their portfolio.

Ask a colleage where they do beauty courses if anyone would be willing to practice/do cheaper nails, hair and makeup.

 

[EstelSeren]

My main tip would be to figure out all the skills that you, your friends and your family have that might be useful! Do you know someone who is good with hair and/or make up? Do you or someone close to you have a penchant for gardening (so you can grow your own flowers- I did my flowers for £12!)? Do you know someone who's good at baking and/or cake decorating? Are you or someone you know good at papercrafts (for the invitations and other stationary)? Do you know people who are good with cameras or video cameras? People love feeling useful and would usually be honoured to help out so don't be afraid to ask and utilise their skills! You will save so much money that way and get everything exactly as you want it! I found it to be so much easier to communicate my ideas to people that I know so I always got exactly what I asked for, or a better version of it as they knew me well enough to know what I would consider an improvement!

I would also suggest checking wedding dress shops that do suit hire as an additional service. I got my husband's morning coat from one for £15 as they were having an ex-rental sale. It was only so cheap because it was missing a button! If you found an entire suit from there it would probably end up cheaper than hiring!

I'll be back later with more tips! Hubby's giving me puppy dog eyes and asking to go on the PC!

Beca :wave:

 

[honeybee2]

Thanks Ladies.

I have saved on many tips (similar to the ones above) this post was for other ladies rather than myself- I just think sharing tips shows other ladies that a wedding doesn't have to be an economic crisis!!!

Thanks girls- keep them coming!!!
xx

 

[binxyboo]

I bought my dress off the peg at a local prom dress shop. This suited me perfectly as only being 5ft tall, I didn't want a train. cost £325


Dress alterations were done by a friend of my mums (an ex dress maker). cost £30 plus a bottle of wine

Jewellry was all bought online. Tiara cost £12, necklace and matching earrings £15, braclet £6. Veil was my 'something borrowed' from my bridesmaid.

Shoes were from BHS. I bought 2 pairs (heels for the ceremony and flats for dancing) Heels £15, flats £10.

Made all our own stationary. we had a black and white theme, so we designed, printed and made them ourselves. Cost approx £45.

Had fake flowers. I bought foam roses from Sarahs Flowers. It was a bespoke order, consisting of my bouquet, bridesmaids bouquet, 7 buttonholes and 2 corsages. Cost £95.

Only had the one bridesmaid, so only one dress to buy. Bought the dress from a high street store (BHS). Cost £125.

Had my 2 year old godson as pageboy. I mananged to buy a little morning suit from Ebay so that he matched the 'bigger boys'. Cost £25 (resold on ebay so costs effectively £0)

Photographer was a freelancer friend of ours. He gave us a disc of all the pics he took (including the bad ones!) We made our own wedding album by using Photobox to make a Photobook. Cost £100 for photographer, £45 for wedding album

Evening venue was a pub function room (part of a Premier Inn chain, so ones that have done plenty of weddings before). I can't remember the exact cost of this, but we did make quite a huge saving by doing it this way rather than going for a posh hotel.

Cake was made and decorated by my Aunt as a wedding present to us. Cost £0

Table centrepieces were made by me. I bought mirorred candle plates from The Range at £2 each. Candles were £3 each from M&S. I then wrapped the candles with black sequins on a wire to make them less 'white'. cost approx £40 for 8 tables.

here are our wedding pics if you want to see the results.
https://www.whitakernet.com/wedding/pictures.php

 

[blahblahblah]

I saved money by

cutting back the numbers - it was a great excuse as I wanted it small anyway!
Keeping it simple - that's how I prefer things
Using small local suppliers - the cake was from a friend of a friend, the flower lady recommended by the venue
I was pregnant when I got married - although maternity wedding dresses are harder to come by, they tend to be A LOT cheaper than standard ones!
Using friends talents - SIL did hair, family friend did makeup
Do you want an all day event? My wedding lasted just the afternoon, and we left at 6pm to go on our honeymoon - any stragglers went to my parents house for drinks!

 

[amylk87]

I made my own stationary, had a family friend make my cake (for free), had a friend do my flowers at mates-rates, had a friend DJ the night! Saved us abit of money

 

[Sofiekirsten]

Oh Also I got my tiara from Primark....Yes I did say Primark, This is it



It was a bargin - £3 - !!!

 

[babytots]

For centerpieces we bought some butterfly tealights which cost 69p each so far have bought 10 but want to get 10 more so there will be 2 on each table. I also bought some pink crystal confetti on ebay for £1.99 to scatter on the tables and will be buying some table mirrors to put underneath the butterflies so the lights reflect off them.

Flowers I chose to get smaller ones for myself and my bridesmaids as I prefer the minimal look. So for myself I got a bridesmaid posy,then my bridesmaids got the size smaller.

Suits I think df is going to buy his and his best mans from a high street shop and then get the ties and hankerchiefs to match our colour scheme from ebay. Though I don't know for sure as df is dragging his feet

Flowergirl dresses I got on sale in debenhams and their headbands from claires payed £20 in total.

For bridesmaids rather then go for traditional bridesmaid dresses I bought some gorgeous fuschia pink maxi dresses which will look stunning and fit more in with our style as we are far from traditional lol.

Our car instead of getting 2 (one for df and his best man and one for me and my bridal party) we just got one which is going to pick the men up first then come back for me and my bridesmaids/flowergirls.

Someones already mentioned it but getting a uni or even a 3rd year college student to do your photos will save money and it looks like we will be having to do this as the photographers we emailed haven't got back to us yet and time is running out!

If I think of anymore I'll add to this thread. x

 

[honeybee2]

It was me who originally said about the 3rd year photographers as im at uni & know obviously alot of students and their talents so I hired 2 )

xx

 

[Missy89]

When you need to buy something try taking the word "bridal" or "wedding" out and inserting white (or whatever color you want) ie bridal shoes = £50 up, the shoes im wearing, very fancy- tenner from a high street shoe shop, bridal underwear- ive seen stupid prices, I got a bask, underwear and stockings for £20 brand new ebay. Wedding Rings, wedding decorations etcetc.

 

[missy123]

vistaprint!! that is really the cheapest most amazing thing ive found

 

[honeybee2]

I 100% agree with Missy there!

Vistaprint is the way forward!

 

[Sofaqueen77]

Hey guys,

Brilliant Thread!