To ask for your 'cheap' wedding tips

[InTheBirdBox]

Me and DP have recently gotten engaged.

I hear that the average wedding costs around £17,000.00 which I just find incredible (and we have no where near that much to spend on one).

Does anyone have any tips on keeping down costs? Things that worked for you maybe?

I want it to be a nice day to share with family and friends but I'm not overly extravagant so I'm hoping I can easily do it for less!!

Is buffet acceptable for ceremony guests rather than sit down meal do we think?

I read that evening only guests should expect to eat as well and that people were doing sit down meals for ceremony guests and then a buffet for evening guests?! In my mind, if I'm going to the evening only part of a wedding I wouldn't expect to be either fed or watered for free necessarily.

One thing I am going to do though is bridesmaid. There will only be one but it's a very important to me to have her.

Ooh Derbyshire! We had our reception at Ticknall Village Hall. Hired it out from Friday to Sunday so spent the day before having fun decorating with friends, and the day afternoon doing take down and snacking on the leftover canapés.

We ended up spending less than £10000 on the whole thing, probably close to around £8000. My dress was the most expensive, because I fell in love with it. Tried to do lots of Etsy/local indie suppliers for everything.

We had afternoon tea for the wedding breakfast and then a fish and chip van for the evening. Husband brought his XBox and we had Rock Band set up in one of the side rooms, which was very popular. Also had a DJ and a visit from a local Pug society (my husband arranged it as a surprise!)

I think you do need to feed evening guests or at least if you aren't you need to make that clear on the invitation

Sorry! Got a bit carried away there.
Other tips- canapés from M&S and Waitrose were surprisingly cheap and came with free glass hire.
Use connections where you can! I had a friend with family in France who sourced cheap but lovely wine from a nearby vineyard. We also got mates rates on a wedding cake and a sweetie table, and a co worker in the WI did our flower arranging because she enjoys it. As soon as you mention a wedding it seems like people are eager to help out!

One of the best wedding receptions we went to was in a field.

The food was a barbecue/pig roast and cold buffet of salads etc, bar was a serve yourself one, impromptu games of frisbee etc for the youngsters, guests could camp if they wanted to.....it was a great afternoon and evening.

You could have a marquee if you wanted a bit of glam

Don't buy your dress from China to save money, it's a false economy as even if it's not rubbish it will probably need to be altered

Simplest way to keep costs down is to invite fewer people. Be ruthless with your guest list.

You definitely need to feed people and make it clear on the invitations what food will be on offer and when. You don't actually have to have an evening party, though. Some of the best weddings I've been to have been: ceremony followed by afternoon tea, including cake and speeches, for everyone, then smaller group go off somewhere posh for dinner.

OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny I love the sound of that but don't trust the weather enough to risk it being rainy on the day!

DP did suggest Marquee which I wouldn't mind at all but some of them are just as expensive to hire as a venue!

So would you do afternoon tea for ceremony only guests then buffet later on for everyone maybe?

We hired a small local restaurant for the evening and until 1am. aFTER dinner tables were moved to make a dance floor. 100 guests and whole wedding including dress cost £5k.

Do you absolutely need an evening do? Would make it much cheaper without

From my experience your priorities need to be food, drink and a decent photographer. I know a pp mentioned rings but these can be changed later on if needed (mine will be reset in platinum).

dd2 is getting married in 2020. Wedding dress has cost £500.
Evening do is a celilidh with BYOB which will be fun.
Marriage taking place at venue so no need for expensive car /coach hire from church to party.
only 50 guests for main meal.

The MSE guide to a cheaper wedding is good:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/cheaper-weddings/

I saved this from a previous MN thread but don't seem to be able to find the original:

Can I make some low budget wedding suggestions. M & S wedding cakes are yummy & are less than £100. Kitty & Dulcie (google the website) do lovely retro wedding dresses. Simon @ Solo Bridal in China makes amazing err copies of designer gowns. M & S wedding flowers start at 125 for bride and 2 maids

We had all the aspects of a big traditional wedding but did it a lot cheaper. Artificial flowers (groovy ruby website) bridesmaid dresses from a high street shop, my dress from a proper dress shop but it was an ex-sample, no ‘engagement’ photo shoot or save the dates. Invites from a shop on eBay and high street shoes etc. Our cake was £100 ish. Also had to stop my self getting carried away with bridesmaid boxes etc

Do you absolutely need an evening do? Would make it much cheaper without

I would really like to do one personally. I don't want anything big and fancy but I would like a bit of a party!

That's fair enough bird :)

I noticed a hotel offering a 60 guest sit down meal wedding for £1200 if you had it between January and March. This was near Hull so no use for you but you could check if there’s anyone local doing similar?

Congratulations!

Online "save the date" cards are fine - there's no need to spend lots on printed stationery for them

Afternoon tea plus evening buffet is fine - tell people when they will be eating and they can (usually) manage to work around it.

Think creatively about not using things explicitly for weddings - eg look for lovely white, cream, gold or silver shoes rather than feel that you have to have special wedding shoes from a bridal boutique

Few people remember the favours at a wedding

If you have relatives who ask what you want for a wedding present, consider whether it is feasible to ask them - or a few of them - to help you with the wedding costs in a specific way. For example, two sets of uncles, aunts and cousins gave us the cake as one of our wedding presents

Simon @ Solo Bridal in China makes amazing err copies of designer gowns

sweatshop labour and copyright infringement. what's not to love?

Hi OP, we got married in Bakewell Regustery Office, then photos by the river. Restaurant we had the reception in had closed down, but it’s a pretty Derbyshire location.

Try on dresses at sample sales only. Find what you want then find it second hand or on eBay. A lot of boutiques sell off the samples they haven't been able to sell on there. I got an Allure dress that was beautiful and exactly what I wanted for £100 in perfect condition.

Search wedding on eBay and set it to distance nearest and if you're persistent you can get your decorations from a local bride after her wedding for a steal. Got all my table decs 10 miles up the road for £40.

Also sounds obvious but sit down and talk to your future husband about what really matters to you for your wedding. Neither me or DH cared about photos or videography. We spent £100 on a just starting out photographer and didn't get a videographer. The photos were perfectly good, but I don't like photos of me at the best of times.

We got a celebration cake from Waitrose rather than a wedding cake. It was tiered and delicious and beautiful.

We got married in a gorgeous pub with a marquee on the back. It was the height of summer. We paid for a sit down meal for the 31 guests at the ceremony and a buffet for the evening guests and we paid for the bar tab. We had no music but with the pub atmos it didn't need it. I made my own dress and invitations. My cousin made our cake. No bridesmades or anything fancy. It was cheap. Loads of people said how nice it was and the fact there was no music meant that everyone could chat and mingle. The kids played games and it was brilliant.

Decide what is important to you. It might be the dress, it might be having 1000 guests. Work from there.

We had a wedding in a beautiful hotel, they don’t do a lot of weddings so it was bespoke it that we just picked the food we wanted, and drinks. Only had 40 guests.

Had night do at a lovely casino, private area, gave guests chips and a hot buffet, maybe 60 guests? We decided we wanted to do it nicely for a few rather than scrimping for the masses. Dress was cream
Prom dress, photographer was a mn’er, mum naked the cakes then we got them professionally iced. Stayed at hotel beforehand so no cars. No bridesmaids. Paid for all wine, had a magician etc as these things were important to us. Hone made table decorations favours and invites