To think you can plan a wedding in 7 months for £5k

[IMissMargaritas]

My family are driving me mad!

I got engaged last Saturday...yay! All so exciting and I can't wait to get this show on the road. But my family are bumming me out!

I have elderly relatives in the states who won't be keen on hanging around too long to take their 7 hour flight to get here. I've always wanted a fall wedding soooo...we're trying to plan this thing for September. We don't have much money, so my family are all trying to get me to put it off until next year when we can save a little more. Like they're really ranting at me for even considering it.

Am I mad? Should I listen to them?

Tell me your speedy wedding stories please. Or even better...any tips!

Congratulations, we arranged ours on a small budget in three months.

Top tip, get married on a weekday, everything is cheaper and not booked up - venues, cars, hairdressers, florists, everything.

Don’t bother with silly frills like favours.

I got engaged in May and married in October.
Booked a church and hotel first
Invites in June
Bought a dress in July
Shoes and bridemaids outfits from the high street in August. Booked bouquets and church flowers.
I did my own makeup, friends did cars, photography, rings and hair.
I designed my own order of service and printed it at work. Printed my table plan at work. Husband made table decorations and did flower arrangements with wildflowers the day before the wedding.
Bought favours, booked a band and a bouncy castle, borrowed garden games.
We provided a 3 course meal, champagne reception, wine with meal, evening buffet, but not a free bar.
Cost under £7k including honeymoon, a week in Europe.
I couldn't be bothered spending years planning it.

Congratulations!

We got engaged early March and got married in September. It's definitely do-able. You just need to be flexible and decisive (no umming and ahhing for a few weeks on a particular decision).

Enjoy the planning!

About 3 k here. Around 100 guests.
Registry office and Village hall
11 buckets of flowers from local WI market for £50 the room looked fantastic.
Ceilidh band
Spotify DJ
£200 dress ( my perfect dress )
Finger buffet about £10 a head
Has a help-yourself bar of beer , wines and LOTS of bubbly all bought from supermarkets When they had special offers on ( did some sale or return from Tesco). Soft drinks too.
Free glasses loan from Waitrose ( no purchase necessary)

Small marquee outside that we didn’t really need in the end, so could have saved £350.
Friends camped on the field surrounding the village hall and we had a lovely festi vibe going.

It was the best day ever!

Just steer clear of anything with Wedding in front of it, and you’ll be well under budget. So no wedding venue, wedding flowers etc.
I organised it in a few months.

Just seen your update .
Start with a date and a venue.

Ours was arranged in 4 days and cost peanuts. Had full (Catholic) church wedding, 40 guests, 2 tiered wedding cake, not a full on meringue dress but a rather nice cream silk number, no professional photographer but family friend who was v keen amateur....on one hand a great day but was arranged in such a short time period as my dad was v ill and only was given only weeks to live.
Amazing how everyone pulled together to create such an amazing experience but not great circumstances.
28 yrs later we are still married and I am always amazed at the time, cost and energy people (females mostly) invest in weddings when actually it's a marriage that's important.
Best of luck OP and remember no-one actually remembers the cake, the favours, the place settings etc but they do remember the love and joy felt on the day which cost v little.

I got engaged and married in 12 days and it cost less than £1k, but we eloped in Copenhagen so that helped!!

Are you ok with having religious language in your ceremony? Because you could probably get married in a church (unless you're a same-sex couple) and hold a party in the church hall afterwards. Almost certainly be able to book a Saturday afternoon slot.

www.yourchurchwedding.org/

We planned ours in less than a month, including bringing relatives from overseas. Registry office, pub meal, high street dress, all for prob about £300. Done.

(The relatives bought their own flights, obviously)

The key is to remember that the important thing is getting married, not having 'the perfect wedding'. You can get married in a few weeks time for a couple of hundred pounds. Everything on top of that is a bonus.

Look for a freelance florist - we saved a fortune that way. Ours didn’t have a shop so much lower overheads, her work was gorgeous and she had great ideas for saving money.

Our budget was higher but most of that went on the venue and photographer. My dress was only £500 (was lucky to be friends with a fashion designer!), I made invitations and table plan and place settings myself, bought vintage table decorations online and sold them afterwards, it was great.

I got engaged valentines day and marries sept 12th so definitely doable, spent about 6k on a wedding with 160 guests. It’s definitely doable you just might have to be a little bit flexible and some big wedding venues etc will be booked up for years. But we had our reception in a village hall with a hog roast and it was lovely

We did ours in three months. It did cost more than £5k (it was a while ago now but probably £15k in today’s money). But most of that was the venue (central London), if we’d gone out to Sussex where my DM lives it would have been much cheaper. We also had a free bar, which added up.

If you buy your own alcohol (or have a cash bar), buy a tiered wedding cake from somewhere like M&S, and choose a reasonable venue, £5k is definitely do-able. We also honestly felt the wedding photographer was a total waste of money, we literally never looked at the photos again. Lots of arty shots of the fucking carpet, practically none of our guests. The pictures our friends and family took were far better, and with hindsight we should have just paid one of them to take pictures.

We sorted our wedding for £6k in 3 months for 100 guests. It was amazing! And actually felt very simple and we were given huge discounts for venue/food/entertainment since it was short notice. I.e. they were unlikely to fill it with anyone else so jumped at the chance to have us. Also less choice makes things much simpler - i.e. planning it 1-2 years in advance then every single caterer and venue will probably be available so now you have to pick between them all plus pay their maximum rate. Book a month or two in advance and only a few will have availability but they'll do it for a bargain price. The package we put together would normally be in the region of £12-15k when compared with the advertised prices. This was 6 years ago though so not sure how much things have changed since then.

Good luck, it's fine there are so many caterers and venues out there there is never a rush if you're flexible :)

My mum and dad did it in 4months on less than that i think. Used a friends big american pick up to the registry and then my dads best man owns a gorgeous country pub so afternoon food and evening do was there and he did all the food an flowers. Was relaxed, lovely atmosphere and a really good day. Id like much of the same for mine i think

I planned mine in 6 months. It cost around £3000 15 years ago so yes totally doable. Get a venue first and foremost!!

Call in favours from friends wherever you can (dh uncle did photos- amateur photo enthusiast, friends provided wedding cars, mil made bridesmaid dresses)

We also booked a later wedding so our wedding guests had a drinks reception and only provided a hot buffet for the evening do. This also got us a discounted deal on a hotel venue and we only requested the honeymoon suite when the actual wedding deal included rooms for parents and wedding party which furthered the discount.

Selling sites and eBay are your friends for decor and accessories, I had a lot of fake flower decs but bought fresh for bouquets.

We got married in feb so venues were more willing to negotiate in order to fill their venue!

What's the point in saving more money just to spend it on a bigger wedding 🤷🏻‍♀️

When I say 15 years ago I mean 15 years to the day lol. Completely forgot it was my anniversary ha ha

We did one in 8months and under 3k for 100 guests. If you make it personalised rather than your standard hotel/venue wedding then you can get it much cheaper. We did the local church(donation), village hall (£200), buffet(£10p/h), drinks from bookers and a band. Get a cleaner in afterwards. Skip all the fancy stuff like favours and table settings and do something meaningful and fun. If you try to do a classic wedding on a small budget it is a lot of work and can look cheap compared to others. People still comment how nice the day was compared to all the other identikit weddings in our friendship group that year. Plus it’s the marriage that counts anyway.

Getting married in six months. Holiday was already arranged and will be costing £60 for the licence and small ceremony with our kids only. Doing it in Florida at the County Court. So yes, doable with that amount of money but depends on what sort of wedding you want.

My best friend planned hers in 6 weeks.. Around same budget.
I can honestly say it was one of the best ones I've been to.

Ours we had a date set. But I didn't start planning and buying until 8 weeks before.. We did it for 1.5k.. Register office. Wine bar after then a small meal in eve.. It was so relaxed and suited us perfect. Nothing forgotten and everything fell into place

It’s definitely possible. We did it but not a traditional hotel wedding and quite small - but perfect for us. Remember it’s what you both want rather than other people that is important. Good luck and congratulations.

Just saw you’re thinking about September or autumn. We saved a fortune on flowers by using branches of autumn leaves for decorations (October). September there are plenty of nice flowers in people’s gardens. If you have any family or neighbours then it’s worth asking. As pp said, use skills that your family and friends have, most people love the chance to be involved.

Engaged in AUGUST, started looking in September and booked for the April (early) overall bill from the venue was about 7k including exclusivity, an afternoon tea party the day before and all bridal party accommodation for the night of the wedding and my accommodation for the week, I arrived on Monday, got married on Weds, left Friday morning. My family had booked out the hotel so it was all ours!! It was a fabulous manor house!! All newly decorated and the food was AMAZING!! It was a total steal!! When we arrived there we thought there is no way we can a) afford this place or b) that they will have an availability. It did help a lot that we had a mid week wedding though!! Most of our guests made a holiday out of it though as they came from my home country and even further afield too!!

And yes to the favours from friends, we had the cake made as a gift, photography done as a gift too! I did my own invites, bouquets and favours. The hotel did the table flowers included in the price, we had 95 guests!