To ask how cheaply you can do a wedding.. But nice.. Any DIY ideas.

[MarmiteAndCheeseRolls]

So 15 months to go and thought I'd better start working out the odds and sods costs. The venue for ceremony is £700.. The reception venue is free, its a pub but will. Close to public as its where dp has done a lot of unpaid work so she's said we can have it for free and she'll do the food.

So as for everything else.
Car.. I have that sorted as my dad has a classic in storage so will be put on the road for that

Cake..

Flowers..mums friend is very artistic and it going to attempt a posey if no good will go to florist

Photos.. Newly Qualified realative so hoping maybe £400 as she wants the experience, but if more that's cool

Dress for me.. Dontb want a full on gown maybe just a nice occasion dress..? Hmm?

Suits. DP, Teen DS and Best man
3 x bridesmaid.. Age 16,7,18m

So it's table decor etc.. Kinda want to make my own. But what.. Prob about 30 tables.. Lots of craft shops local so should be easy for supplies..

What else do we need..

Any ideas for DIY stuff

Not sure on color scheme.. Prob ivory and pink..

Hi Op, it’s surprising what you can conjure up if you have a look around.
Some shops like dunelm/hobbycraft/Wilkes do some good wedding stuff, when my dd got married I bought some really pretty tea lights/candle holders from store 21, We bought old fashioned china teapots from charity shops as the table centre pieces, filled them with roses/greenery & tied luggage labels with pretty ribbon with the table names on, bought some wooden spoons & painted them to match the colour scheme with the table numbers on, which I put in the teapots.
The place settings were little paper hearts & I glued on some pretty bows/buttons & seating plan was made from an old picture frame, the wedding cards were put in an old suitcase that I got from a secondhand shop, which I lined with gift wrapping & attached some fresh flowers around the edges.
All cost a few pounds, so definitely can be done if you are a little creative.
Have fun, I enjoyed myself immensely 😃

Sorry for the humongous post.

People on my local FB selling groups sell lots of wedding stuff off so there's bargains to be had there. I sourced a lot of stuff off of eBay when we got married.

I have been to a wedding were the table centrepieces were 3 green bottles (of different sizes) with just a few simple flowers in. Apparently they had asked friends and family to save empty beer bottles for them. They matched it with some inexpensive green and white ikea fabric made into cutlery ties, table cloths and napkins. It looked great.

I'm sure it would look as good with clear bottles and white/pink fabric.

We bought small jam jars and engraved them with an engraver bought from Argos! On eBay you can get personalised mini chocolate bars quite cheaply.

Choose cheap seasonal flowers. We had a Spring wedding and went with daffodils. Bought 100 bunches online for £50. Borrowed some lovely vases from relatives ans did all my own flowers. It fitted with a DIY village hall reception - The registry office had its own flowers.

Start collecting jam jars and decorate the tops with bits of ribbon.
Have a look round the charity shops and start collecting bits of lace and any nice vases or ornaments.
Car boot sales, Ebay and freecycle, all good places to get secondhand goods.

Aldi has a load of cheap decorations, invitation packs and other bits and pieces for only a few quid at the moment

Our local registry office does ceremonies for £50 on Mondays....dp's eyes actually lit up when the birth registrar told us that
On a more serious note, Aldi have wedding stuff in at the moment.
Don't bother with favours, noone remembers them anyway unless they need to double as places settings.
All you really need is a registrar everything else is optional so don't be pressured into having everything perfect.
You could easily make centre pieces using cheap value jam jars, ribbon/rustic tags and a few flowers.
Bunting is cheap and easy to make with fabric offcuts. You can use hot glue if you can't sew.

Oh have a look at tissue paper pom poms/honeycomb balls. They can look lovely if done properly and are really cheap.

Cake - baked it myself (easy if you have traditional fruit cake as it keeps for months)
Flowers - bought online and DIYd, lots of greenery and seasonal flowers.
Dress - second hand
Bridesmaid dresses - high street in the sale
Favours - none
Invitations - eBay seller
Splashed out on food booze and music and had a blast!

The range recently had some cheap as chips wedding decorations (lots of shabby chic style bits like hessian bunting etc.)

A bit exploitative but my cousin's wife bought her made to measure dress from China for 200 quid and look ah-may-zing!

You can get nice dresses for bridesmaids from Debenhams. I miss BHS though, they did some nice dresses way back when we needed a flower girl outfit for my daughter...

When we got married we dispensed with a wedding photographer and asked people to send candid snaps they had taken to our email address. We then made up an album on Snapfish from the results.

I didn't have any table decorations, it seemed totally unnecessary to me and a bit of a waste, what are you going to do with it all afterwards? (Plus I'm a bit of a foody, so what we ate was more important to me). We hired disco lights and a PA and just did music on an MP3 player for the disco (we had a ceilidh first). We didn't actually bother with a cake either! I couldn't be bothered to lump it around (we had our evening do in a different place to the wedding breakfast), I like fruit cake but loads of people don't. I just made some fairy cakes and made sure my husband and I shared one for tradition's sake. Didn't do favours (again, mostly stuff that goes in the bin, or people don't want to keep but feel they have to). I printed all our invitations and table places.

Our evening do was in a village hall, they are brilliant because everything is included, tables, chairs, crockery and cutlery, kitchen, stage and PA if you're lucky. We catered the evening do ourselves (pasties, salads, desserts), bought wine and beer in bulk from Majestic, glasses on sale or return. Because it was in the middle of nowhere we laid on a little bus. We spent under £5k including our short honeymoon 😀

Get your friends to help.

My art teacher friend made my invites.
A friend played the organ for the ceremony
Another friend is a professional photographer
Another friend made the favours.

All the above were happy to give these wonderful things as gifts instead of wedding gifts.

My dress was from a sample sale in London (£50. I bought 2 different ones as unsure. I have now dyed the one I wore and worn it again numerous times).

Venue was £100 in a fancy hotel as we wanted just the bar instead of wedding barn

Whole thing cost less than £4k. Including everything.

12 years later divorced. But £4k 12 years ago was still not a lot! Glad I didn't spend more!

Sometimes it's actually cheaper to rent. We've bought our tablecloths, half the price of renting and we'll sell them on after

*cheaper to buy than rent

Cake - M&S
Dress I got from a sample sale
Flowers, I made my bouquets with fake flowers and some beads. Cost me £50-60 for button holes, bridal bouquet and 3 bridesmaids bouquets. Good alternative is M&S again.
Table decorations - Jam jars, some with tealights in or sweets that guests can eat during the speeches instead of canapes.

invitations, print your own. Both me and a friend made our own. borrow a guillotine and chop away. use pinterest for ideas.

place cards can be made the same way and orders of service. also little cars inpews for people to write a message if necessary.

dress, second hand, preloved? sales?

table decorations? jam jars and foliage with ribbon in wedding colour tied around?

table cloths would be sufficient. uses cheap flat sheets in necessary.

if you are going to make bunting, use old clothing/material, charity shop finds or material from the market. fat quarters are much more expensive.

cake, yes supermarkets do lovely cakes, you could buy three in different sizes and varieties and display artfully on a stand.

we hired a car, local so was cheaper.

friend did flowers in church, used them in reception (church hall) and dismantled them to make bouquets for the mothers. (dm/mil) she bought £30 of flowers and used foliage from the garden. If you plan well you can grow some of your own flowers. check out gardeners queestion time website on radio four as they have mentioned it recently. (get a family friend or two to grow if you can not)

We had our wedding out of season in a pretty swanky, vintage venue that had gardens, gallery and play area. We decided to get married there (civil ceremony) which was followed by a very long, slow meal. The whole thing ran from 11-5. For everything including our outfits, food, booze, rings, childcare, musicians (sourced from local Music school), flowers, favours etc. etc. -- plus talented photographer friend who took photos for free, another musician friend who played at the start of the ceremony. Cost £5k total. We were given £2k by family so it only cost us £3k. I appreciate you may be looking for something even cheaper than this. I haven't read the entire thread (!).

Out of season everything is cheaper.

I've also know some people who had their wedding reception on a bus, I believe this was bus tour of places that were part of the couple's relationship story. I'm sure it was very entertaining as they're thesps.

Are you in London or Kent? I’m asking as my Mum lives in S.E London, and made my wedding cakes and has made several others. She has made hundreds of other celebration cakes over the years. She’s not a professional, but her cakes are tasty and pretty, and her prices are very reasonable. PM me if you’re nearby and are interested.

You could alternatively buy some ready iced cakes from one of the supermarkets and buy lots of fresh flowers and ‘stick’ them on using some sugar paste, and/or apply ribbons and a cake topper if desired.

You could also contact a local college who offer Catering courses, and ask if any of the students would be interested in working on a wedding cake making brief, and see if you can get anyone.

For my wedding table decorations, I bought several bunches of artificial roses in the £1 shop and pulled all of the petals apart to scatter on the tables. I also bought a cheap heart shape paper cutter and some card, and cut out thousands of little hearts to scatter on the tables.

I have just bought a brand new wedding dress on Ebay for £50 for in case we renew our vows soon. My original dress would never fit me now, and I definitely want to wear a huge ruffley meringue again, and that’s what I managed to buy! There are so many bargains on there.

Made my own cake. Covered it in ready roll icing and bought some gorgeous sugar flowers off ebay for the top. 3 tiers but I displayed them on ‘wood slices’ I was given by a friend who had just chopped a tree down in their garden. Then stuck at different heights on the table. Looked lovely!