to ask for help with wedding planning?

[NearlyMrsCustardsHardHat]

Our wedding is booked for next year and this year is going to be manic with planning etc currently suppliers are quoting 2013 prices at a huge mark up from 2011 and 2012 and the registrar fees aren't even avaliable yet although this years are just under £400 so i'd assume we're looking at nearer £450 for next year :(

We're pulling in favours, at cost, for flowers, makeup, cake and music, family are paying for my dress and the bridesmaids dresses, our wedding venue is one of the cheapest in the area (although they stipulate you MUST use one of their set caterers whose prices are all much of a muchness), we're keeping the guest list to 50 for the ceremony and meal and 80 for the evening so it's not huge, only one car is being hired, and all this is is without the rings, photographer, invites etc.

I'm getting really downhearted that we won't get the wedding we want (which isn't much as it is) without winning the lottery :(

AIBU to a) ask if it's possible to do all of the above for under £10k (I can't get the sums to do it) and b) for your tips and advice please.

Is your wedding planned for a saturday? By having our wedding on a Friday, the venue was £1,000 cheaper!

We also did all our own invites, place cards, orders of service etc. as the companies that do this for you are a total rip off. The personal touch is far nicer anyway.

Hi op :) I spent a fortune on my wedding but it was because it was what I wanted. It sounds like you're having a big do for your familiy's sake, apols if I have wrong end of stick. Unless they're willing to pay for it then you should ignore their expectations and do what you want!

If its venue costs that are taking up the bulk I'd consider going further afield unless you are in love with the venue.

If I was to do it again, which I would as I'd love to do it all again with hindsight I'd spend my money on the photos, rings, dress, hair & make up and wine. I'd save on flowers, cars, dj, stationary, favours, cake and meal.

I designed my own invites & printed them out via vista print was about £50 and gave me thank you cards too. Favour boxes were 10 for a pound from tesco & filled with on offer thorntons, cost about £10. I did my own seating plan and table numbers (pictures) so cost nowt as venue had the holders already. Got a lovely wedding cake from m and s for and a cake topper from etsy for £30 which now adorns my mantelpiece.

My venue you had to have their caterers, their florists and corkage was astronomical but it was an amazing one off venue so I sucked it up but if it was a generic hotel type venue I would have been disappointed to have paid out as much as we did. Even then, venue, meal, corkage, flower, registrar etc. was less than £7k, so it should be possible to do it for £10k. I'd consider getting married as late as possible and only having one meal if that's bulking up costs.

My top tip would be to do what you want and not let other people's expectations make you compromise on what you want or what you want to spend. If that means you want to spend £8k on a dress and pennies on everything else then so be it. As long as you and your husband are happy and wed it will have been a success! Good luck :)

Vistaprint definitely the way to go for cheaper but good looking invitations. Where are you? I'm trying to sell my wedding dress if you're looking for something gorgeous but cheaper

Invites- we made a funny "save the date " video on our phones, and emailed it round our guest list with a link to our wedding "wedsite" . (www.mywedding.com). Wedsites are brill, free, totally customisable and easy to update.

In the email we asked people to state a preference for email or paper invites and send an address accordingly. We only got 5 people ask for paper ones out of 150 guests. Most people stressed " save money, please email mine". So along with elderly non email able people, we had 5 invites to send, which I hand wrote and photocopied.

Food- we catered for 150 people, giving them two hot buffets for about £300. Did this through a combination of doing the cooking ourselves the weekend before, freezing it and reheating on the day, using our friend's help to heating up and lay everything out and asking for side salads and puddings as wedding presents. It was an amazing spread!

Booze- made all our own for pennies. 48 litres if elderflower champagne, 20 litres of raspberry champagne, 48 litres if ginger beer, fruit vodkas. Made enough for 150 guests to have 2 glasses champagne each and two cocktails each for free, and then it was BYOB. Which everyone loved, better than hotel bar prices.

Flowers- picked my own from country side and gardens, bought some roses and geberas from asda and made all the bouquets ( 6) button holes (7) and corsages (7) the day before for under 30 quid. Not difficult and lots of fun.

Photos, cake, music, dress- wedding presents from talented generous friends.

Pm me if you want more info or ideas. Did a wedding for 150 people for under 3 grand. Look on rocknrollbride.com, offbeatbride.com and cheap-wedding-success.co.uk/

Enjoy and don't feel pressured. Do it your way.

You said earlier in the thread that you would be happy to do the ceremony and go to the pub but you have conceded to your dp and traditionalist family.

Have you thought about just inviting the 50 guests who are coming to the ceremony and forgetting the 80 in the evening. I would have have thought that if they aren't important enough to come to the actual wedding there's no need to entertain them at all. Apart from the fact that it's incredibly rude to invite people just for the evening because it says: "you aren't important enough to actually come to the wedding but you're welcome to the cheaper knees up later"

If you have to have a great big do perhaps the venue you have chosen is too expensive and you need to rethink. Perhaps a nice restaurant/hotel for the 50 important people and then a church hall with a buffet for the people who aren't as important to you. Or even, invite everyone as equals because they mean something to you to the church hall which is what I would do if I couldn't afford a ritzier venue for them all.

What kind of look or feel are you going for, OP? That will give you a place to start.

Etsy is lovely for wedding things, you should check that out first. :)

Where abouts in the country are you? My husband is just starting up his own wedding photography business. Because he's trying to build up his portfolio he's currently offering a deal to photograph the whole day and provide all the photos on a DVD for just £200. If you'd like more information then PM me. Good luck with organising your wedding!

Oh and I bought my wedding dress from Monsoon for just over £200 and everyone commented on how beautiful it was on the day.

Who are the 50 vs the 80?

I agree to some extent that you might find it easier to cut down to just one lot of people, but it sounds like you'll have to put your foot down on inviting people your family want vs people you actually want.

A great way to get a really eye-catching but inexpensive cake is to get a plain one from a supermarket (asda & marksies do them) & decorate with cake jewellery. We did this & got beautiful toppers from www.annastarzi.com. They do bouquet jewels too which are amazing. Really friendly woman too!

But DP and my traditionalist family have really put the pressure on.

Then your DP can organise the wedding HE wants!

£10k should be loads for that kind of wedding. We had similar numbers (50 for the day and another 10 in the evening), went all out on food and booze (because we and most of our friends and families are really into food and wine) and came in around £12-13k I think, and that was upgrading to the best wine and champers the caterers offered and that kind of thing.

We saved money by doing the following:
-using a semi-pro photographer rather than a pro. Considerably cheaper to hire and we got the CD of photographs afterwards so we didn't have to pay him every time we wanted a print and could instead just order them on photobox or whatever.
-we were not going to have a cake at all but in the end my parents bought us one. It was a plain M&S cake and the florist stuck some flowers on it, so it ended up looking lovely.
-we ditched bridesmaids, best man, ushers, not to save money but because we didn't want all that, but of course it did save some money.
-for rings we just got plain wedding bands from a high st jeweller (none of this going to get one made at Hatton Garden or whatever). Neither of us was sure we would wear one but as it has turned out, we have.
-didn't bother with favours or anything like that.

-I did my own make up and went to my usual hairdresser on the morning of the wedding, which was much cheaper than having someone come to me (although this was really as a result of a disasterous trial with someone who came to me rather than a desire to cut costs!).

Basically, we thought about what we cared about (good food and drink) and what we didn't really (a big wedding party all in matching outfits, etc) and spent our budget accordingly.

Second hand dress is worth it. Check online to see if there is a specialist charity wedding shop near you, that's where I went. Got a gorgeous dress for £125, and paid £45 to have it altered to fit.

We got married in a church had reception in local hall sit down meal for nearly 200 and buffet for evning + around another 100 evening guests.

Wedding cost around 4000 (including 3 weeks in Kenya).

Weddings cost can spiral out of control very very quickly. We choose a 'cheap' venue and cheap option for food we brought in our own drinks sale or return- food was still very tasty the hall was nice and our lovley friends /family decorated it beautifully. Yes it wasnt posh but we had all our family their to celerbrate our special day - local hall also had a small room next to main hall so we put a bouncy castle / a few toys / colouring books and paid some local students (friends of family) to 'keep an eye' on the kids while they were in there paid them £20 each they were chuffed ;)

Ours was the lowest cost wedding out of our friends and family - but everyone has said they think it was the best - more relaxed and the kids were ammused while the parents could have a good time neck the free drinks

ways to reduce cost:
only hire the photographer for a couple of hours, not the entire event. we had ours to cover the ceremony and then do some nice shots of DH and I then some group shots. He left before lunch was served. much cheaper than having the poor bloke hang around all day, and have to provide food for him too, and we got some lovely shots.

forget about favours.

don't insist on bridesmaids wearing matching outfits. If you have a colour theme, and trust your bridesmaids, you can give them some money and tell them to go and buy something in that colour. Or send them links saying 'here are 10 dresses that are ok, choose one, tell me your size, and I'll get it'. much cheaper than having all the faff of fitings and custom made dresses that will be worn once, as high st dresses can be worn after the wedding if wanted.

do your own makeup. I never wear make up normally, but before the wedding I wnet to a local dept store and asked the woman at one counter (clinique I think) to match me some foundation and cover up, and she showed me how to make myself up for a wedding. she drew it out for me on a piece of paper, and told me which colours to get etc, so in return for the cost of the foundation and cover up, I got a make up lesson.

get rings from a high st jeweller. they'll be just as shiny as custom made ones and cheaper too!

however, I would put some effort into invites (we ordered ours from a friend in the states who was just starting up her own invitation/stationary design company, and got a lot of positive feedback on how different they were to the usual UK invites - I'd be happy to send you a link to her site if you'd be interested? we got 60 invites (I think) for under £200, but think it may be a bit more now. Worth it though IMO).

Would also get a hairdresser you can trust - we found one just before the wedding (was abroad, in DH's country) who turned up on the day and decided she didn't speak english after all (grr!) and didn't know how to deal with 'british' hair (WTF?!). I ended up with singed hair and a style I hated. I looked a bit like a spaniel actually until my wee sis worked some magic with kirby grips.

enjoy :)

And breathe....................................(breathing in a brown paper bag emoticon)

Please don't be pressured to have the day someone else wants, do it your own way.

I'm getting married next year and this is my second time around. The first time I did all the table decorations myself (silk flowers bought cheaply), did the wedding favours, bought supermarket 'champagne' and paid a corkage instead for the toast. Ebay was a great help for silk flower bouquets & my tiara & amazingly my dress which was new and fitted perfectly.

Your guests will understand that weddings are sooooooooooooo expensive and won't expect the finest food and wine. The most important thing is that you and your fiance have a lovely day. But agree the pressure is huge.

I don't agree that 'evening only' guests consider themselves to be 2nd class. If you've met someone a couple of times, say at work, you don't expect to be invited to the main event.

I've got some amazing tips just reading this, so thank you for bringing it all up. Love the idea of candlarbra (?) with pearls for the table decorations.

have a long, hard think about what actually will be important to you after the day. I had no idea and rushed my wedding plans so we would have time to marry before a move to the States, as we needed it for visas (sounds unromantic, but we were engaged 5 years).

Things I bought at vast expense that were a total waste of money:-

The cake - 5 layers, each a different flavour - looked nothing like I had hoped, and cost $350GBP and I didn't even have a slice - the venue threw it away before next morning too, nobody I spoke to even got to try it because the 3 course lunch and then buffet had filled them up.

Make up artist:- I am always running late, and because I had to catch a bus to the hotel (my own mother didn't offer me a ride and we were skint after all the wedding expenses - oops - I threw up on the bus as had morning sickness too) I was too late after hair appointment to get my make up done. There was a very angry woman who looked like that huge blonde woman off How Clean is Your Home making grumpy clucking noises as she managed to shove a tiny bit of blusher on while I breast fed my daughter... Could have saved $50GBP right there.

Home made wedding invites:- Cost about $300GBP!!! Oooops, thought I was saving money, didn't realise how fancy and OTT I was going with them, wasted about two weeks making them all, got through a dozen pairs of those fancy edging scissors and took so long some guests only got the invites on the day of the service!

Dress:- I had mine made for me from a design I drew. I thought it would be cheaper than going to a store and I was shy and embarrassed about trying on dresses in the shops. The dress ended up being the biggest expense, crazy OTT and I didn't love it as much as I should have for the price it cost. I have always regretted not just getting the red one I really wanted.

Thing I didn't get which was a good saving:-

Wedding cars - we didn't bother at all as church and hotel were oposite each other. Was a bit of a pain as I was 40 minutes late for the wedding and MIL had to shove my dress into her tiny Vauxhall Astra with skirts over my head, filling the whole car... bridesmaids had to leg it over there holding their petticoats up and arriving breathless... but it saved about $500GBP and weren't missed at all. A taxi would have done!

Thing I wished I had researched better:- Photographer. I chose a guy off ebay and paid $600GBP for all the photos, with a 50 photo album for us and two parent books of 20 pictures... well, when he sent me the photos I didn't like them :-( Any of them. So I didn't get round to choosing which I wanted in the books, and now 6 years later it is too late and I only have the computer albums. We wasted that money which could have paid for a good photographer.

This is doable! Not sure from your post if that's the venue of your dreams if it's not then look around. We found that all in packages were so pricey but by hiring a venue with no string attached (caterer-wise), booking our own caterer, buying the wine and glasses on sale or return from majestic (waiting staff came with the caterer) and supplying wine with the meal but having a bar for later we saved loads.

My cousin got stung on corkage at her venue.

But if it's the venue of your dreams then you might find it a bit trickier.

DH made our cake which saved a wodge.

I got a beautiful vintage wedding ring in Brighton and DH got his made there for way less than a high street jeweller (under £500 for both).

We skipped wedding cars too Flying. My dad put a white ribbon on his car and drove me to the venue (just across the road from their house but a little too far to walk) and then nipped off while the DJ was setting up followed by a friend in another car to drop it off so he could have a few drinks at the evening reception.

Daughter's wedding last summer was 8,000 but in rural Scotland. With hindsight would skip favours etc and get amateur photographer. So many people had cameras. You just need a few for the mantlepiece.

Great ideas here , particularly from Ditzi & Bogey - your wedding sounds ace.

I agree with those who have suggested looking at Rock n' Roll bride - the name isn't strictly reflective of they style of weddings featured. I think an unconventional, budget DIY wedding is often far superior to a trad, expensive identikit one.

Make up- book a make up lesson at the bobby brown or mac counter in your local department store. It's free, altho I did buy a powder compact that I used all day of the wedding and am still using 6 months on. I booked it for 10 am ( got married at 3 pm) and my bridesmaids brought champers with them and got their eyebrows done at ajacent counters. We created quite a buzz. I even got free false eyelashes put on from the counter opposite as a good luck present. Btw I totally reccomend false eyelashes! They looked amazing on the photos

Bridesmaids- give them a colour and maybe a length and leave them to it. Mine got there's from primark for £20 and a charity shop for £15 and coast sale for £40. They looked brill together, but individually brill. I made them matching accessories to tie them together.

God I hate it when people say this; "you aren't important enough to actually come to the wedding but you're welcome to the cheaper knees up later" It's just not true, our church was tiny and only held so many so we couldn't invite everyone.

Yes - you are being unreasonable. People put on events every single day for way more than 50 people, feed them, provide proper entertainment, organise transport, audio equipment, outfits, they even advertise the event and expect people to pay etc. and there is no way it costs them £200/head!!!

It's one day, it really does not matter to anyone more than you and your future intended, and when was the last time you heard anyone say "It was a nice wedding, but the flowers didn't match the bridesmaid's shoes!"

Think about what is really important to you, then scrap the rest.

Wow! Thank you all so much for your input and ideas!! And for all the private messages too, just wow!

We seem to be doing much of what has been advised but will look further at how I can cut the costs down. I have two versions of a dream wedding one no costs are an issue the second a budget affair

#1 would be based round this dress or this dress and be 1940's style hollywood glamour complete with cars etc it'd also be a church wedding with a picnic/barbeque for wedding breakfast

#2 would be in my scruffs then down the pub for some grub :o

I think we'll end up somewhere in the middle with a vintage/hollywood theme and work from there...maybe with a hefty slice of 1940's frugality!