If you had a seriously low cost wedding, come and tell me how!

[LittleLongDog]

How on earth do people manage to get married? The costs just spiral!

Has anyone managed to throw together a lovely wedding day on an incredibly low budget?

And if so, how did you do it?

There's an Aussie series on Netflix called Cheapest Weddings. I found it gave me a lot of good cost-saving ideas!

I did a hollow laugh at the £7grand budget. Think more within the hundreds rather than thousands.

A town hall wedding would be great. (In fact, we’d elope if we knew that it wouldn’t upset everyone.)

I’m starting to feel like I need to find generous friends with lovely big gardens and secret cake making skills...

All - about £1200, that was 26 years ago.

You pull in every favour going - you don't need posh cards when everyone has a media app and photoshop - you just need one lot of posh(ish) card and some envelopes

Flower - we got married at Christmas, so the church was already decorated and my friend made all the table tops and garlands - that was her present to us

Didn't need limos - everyone we knew had a half decent car.

Favours - if you want that sort of thing - easy enough to make with a few yards of netting/silk, some ribbons and almonds

Friend took the video, we had disposable cameras on the tables. We did pay for a pro photographer though.

Cake - my mum made it, MIL decorated it.

Don't bother with a sit down, we had continuous buffet made by MIL, aunties, neighbours

Hall Hire was nothing as it was annexed to a pub and the land lady loved us, she know we were a popular couple and she'd more than make her money on the bar, so that was free hire

DJ was a mate, that was free

Wedding rings are cheap enough, 100 quid a piece if that, plain gold bands, I don't like fancy.

My dress was the one out lay - 400 quid and that was 26 years ago. Cant remember how much 6 x tux was for the grooms party.

All in all it was less than £1200 - and I always get a lot of stick, we both have enormous families, DH plays a lot of sport, he is very popular, so we had over 700 people invited, of which around 400 turned up.

We did not have a free bar, the land lady said not to, people always abuse your hospitality.

fantastic night :-D

We had register office then back home for reception. Lots of decs from hobby craft and tiger. Food from m and s. Organised in 6 weeks. Was lovely

Dh knew the lady who took our photos and the lady who made our cake. My mum knew another lady who made our 2nd cake add well as the person who did my flower bouquet. Because of that we got all those things on much reduced mates' rates.

Dh rented a suit and my dress was a bridesmaid's dress in my favourite colour. My cousin did my hair & make up.

We had a registry office wedding and then went to a local pub for a disco, a buffet and some drinks (guests bought their own drinks apart from the first glass of champagne).

There was a play area outside for children so we didn't fork out for entertainers etc.

We didn't have a formal sit down, multi course meal and didn't mess around with favours or decorations or anything like that.

Altogether we only spent £2k, if not less.

My point is, many of these inexpensive wedding pp’s cited were not ‘inexpensive’ at JamesTalbot, it just that the B&G didn’t pay.

The cost was borne by their family and friends did in money/labour or assets.

Which is fine, no judgement, but to claim them as ‘inexpensive’ is somewhat disingenuous.

Unless OP has that same level of support, then these examples are of no help.

Can’t spend what you don’t have! We did the whole shebang for £3k. Chose a new venue, new photographer, off the hanger dress, didn’t have transport (whole day at venue), weekday wedding, accepted all offers of help. We ended up paying about half ourselves and had half gifted to us.

I did a lot of DIY too! Cake, invitations, favours, order of service etc. All self made.

You have to care more about the marriage than the wedding to make it cheap, IMO.

Picked a venue off season which didn't charge for room hire (just the meals)

Bought champagne and wine from Sainsbury's and paid corkage (was cheaper)

Music was a traditional group who were local and took payment in pints of beer.

Made my own cake

Rings were bought from Goldsmiths using Clubcard points

Substituted floral arrangements for candles.

Wouldn't say my wedding was on a tiny budget (I paid for wedding dress, car hire etc) but I certainly cut out the bits that really add up.

Have you got friends and family who will help, OP?

I think if you start with a list of the things that are important to you and work from that you'll get an idea of who can do what to help.

Mum made my dress and those of the bridesmaids. £250 on material.
Mil paid for cake.
Only did flowers for bridal party. Didn't decorate church or tables at do.
No party favours.
Dads friends vintage car for the church.
Another friend of his did a cheap package in photos.
Hired a hall.
Got someone to put a buffet on.
No cooked dinner. No open bar.
Disco.
Honeymoon in Scotland.

Just over £1k.

Ours came to 2k

-we decided to get married 6 weeks before we actually did so that saved alot of money /last minute bookings / not enough time to go overboard
-Hired venue mid week/ out of season
-Dress of Ebay (first time I tried it on was night before the wedding!!)
-60 guests
-own music
-family friend made the cake
-asked a friend to do photographs
-got decorations from home bargains ect and made alot ourselves
-flowers were diy except my bouquet and button holes

Right, I’ve just found out that the town hall and the register office are very different places.
Town hall: lovely historical building, still office/admin in appearance and use but has some charm. A ceremony there starts at £300 + £70 to give notice.
Register office: £49 (+£70). But very grim looking council building.

Define low cost. What's your budget?

20 guests for the whole day
Registry Office
Booked private dining room at a hotel without telling them it was a wedding to secure normal prices.
Had a cupcake tower instead of traditional style cake.
No wedding party, just witnesses
Grooms outfit was military uniform
Dress was off the peg
Simple bunch of flowers for me and thistle button holes for the men.
There were no decoration, frilly bits or extravagance. Which suits us down to a T.
Came in under £1k which was good as it was organised within 2 months. And none of our guests had to lift a finger. Except my BIL who took the photos, but that kick started his photography career so he’s happy.
10 years later, wouldn’t have changed a thing, I got to marry my best friend!

(We had a buffet at the venue!)

@SirJamesTalbotAndHisSpeculum I’m sure some friends and family would love to help but what they are actually skilled enough to do might be another matter 😂 No dressmaking, DJing, photographers in the family unfortunately!

Good idea about making a list though. Always love a list.

All your weddings sound lovely by the way. They’re genuinely making me smile (I’m that person who always cries at weddings).

We had our parents, we took our own pictures. We went for a meal after. Then we had a walk in the park and a doner kebab for supper

jiltedjohn I think the way you did it is so touching and romantic. To have everyone pitching in and playing a role. How could you not feel the love and goodwill of everyone coming together to give you a good send off.

Every single enjoyable wedding I've been to has had a buffet!

Register office: £49 (+£70). But very grim looking council building

Don't be too put off by that OP. Ask to have a look around.
The actual room where the wedding takes place is likely to be nice. They normally have at least a display of flowers.
The registrars are lovely and will make it feel special. You can still have music and readings etc...

Even the doner kebab is making me tear up!

@brassbrass definitely under a grand. I’ve developed a health condition that meant I had to leave my much loved job: finances have changed drastically because of it but it’s bought us closer together than ever. It’s the marriage that’s important, not the wedding. But I don’t want to invite everyone to celebrate and make them suffer through an awful party! And we can’t just have a ceremony or elope without upsetting people who want more.

I only had 20 people to my wedding. That was the main way to keep the cost down!

-Dress: £750 once altered and veil added etc. I wore my sister's tiara and the bridesmaids shoes I wore to her wedding. Couldn't see my feet anyway!
-Husband's suit: £90 from top man!
-Cake £100- local bakery. Plain white with pink ribbon. I made the cake topper myself.
-Ceremony - can't remember how much but was just the registry office. £150 maybe?
Flowers - button holes and I had a simple gerbera bouquets. I think £150.
Lunch- at my sister's house. Homemade buffet. Can't remember cost but can't have been more than £100.
Dinner- at local restaurant in their back room. Hire was free because mum worked there. Food was a bloody reasonable £15 per head and 3 course! The chef liked my mum and didn't charge any extra. Simple pub food but he did fancy it up bless him. So only about £250.

Booze- we provided red/white wine bottles and a champagne for the roasts. So maybe £100? Then there was a bar.

Evening - just sitting chatting. No disco or anything, just my playlist on the speakers.

Photos - between them, our guests sent us 1000 photos. We didn't hire anybody. Probably one of my regrets actually.

Night in local hotel - £150

Bridesmaids dresses: gave them each £50 but the dresses were not chosen by me. They chose totally different styles and that was fine!

Car hire: we didn't. Our lovely friend dressed up his dads convertible, put champagne and ice in the boot and drove us! Bless his heart, he put more effort in than we asked!!

So about £2000. Very chilled out day. I also dressed the table with bits from EBay etc but it was a very cheap wedding. We blew our budget on our honeymoon, it was more than our wedding!

@LittleLongDog

You can get your dress from eBay. No need to have a new one.

DH's suit from a charity shop was very good quality and we did pay to have it altered and then dry-cleaned.

No need to have a DJ. Not nowadays.

Photographer need not cost a fortune.

I bet you have lots of friends and family who will help with the food. The food is the most expensive thing usually.

If you don't like the Register Office you've looked at, would you have a wedding at a church? That would be cheaper than the Town Hall.

You could either use their Hall for the reception or bugger off to someone's house for it.

I fully understand the point a PP made about inexpensive weddings generally needing a lot of goodwill from your friends and relations but surely that is a good thing?

The marriage is the important thing. Not the wedding and reception.

What is your budget, out of interest? We can make suggestions if you tell us.

Obviously I could have spent less than the 2k. I chose the things I wanted to skimp on!