Cheap(ish) wedding advice

[mushroom]

Hi everyone

I'm looking for other experiences of cheapish weddings. Dp and I would like to get married, but are on a bit of a budget. I would only like to do it in a registry office and that's no problem, but I have a huge family and wide circle of friends and just could not afford to have a huge no expense spared 'do'. We've been thinking along the lines of maybe a meal for close family and then a party, but for that, we would love to be able to invite everybody. I've got a small idea of expenses but would love to hear how anyone else did it, on a budget of about £2 to £3K.

Cheers

Mushroom,

We had around 75 people for sit-down reception. This wasn't in a hotel but a kind of hall (was lovely) which catered too. At only about twenty pounds a head including drinks package this was about £1500 and we then had a ceilidh and paid a band about a hundred quid. Even with budget of £3k you could still afford flowers and dresses within that! Sure you could find similar. Look for slightly 'unusual' venues, i.e. not big hotels that might be a bit more pricey. So our whole wedding didn't cost more than say £4-5 (don't actually know the figure) but that included a lot of photos/ church expenses/cars and all the rest.

Hope this helps

Hi mushroom - When dh and I got married we didn't want a large formal wedding so we got married on a Sunday afternoon (in Church) and invited about 40 guests to the wedding. We hired out the top floor of a v nice restaurant in Knowle for our reception (in fact the venue dictated how many we were inviting) and had a sit down meal with all alcohol paid for by us. We didn't have a separate evening do and the wedding celebrations ended about 10pm. Best wedding I've been to. It all cost about 2.2k. including dress, car, photography etc.

My sister's pal invited everyone to one enormous "informal" wedding and instead of sit down meal etc they had an excellent buffet. Sis says it was excellent and really laid back.

Don't forget you can set your own wedding and break with tradition to make it "exclusive".

Love organising things like this so please keep me informed.

Thanks Smiler2

I have to admit that I'm probably thinking weddings cost more than they really do; I went to one recently that cost about £16K (yikes!!) I'm really not bothered about having a 'cheaper' wedding; I just want to make sure that we can cater for a party for all our friends and family as there's so many of them!

Hi mushroom. Oooh me too, we will be doing it on a budget if we ever actually get around to getting married so I'll watch this thread with interest. What about hiring a youth hostel? You can sometimes get the whole place so that would mean accommodation too and it's cheap-ish as a venue if you then do your own catering. When I got married the first time (ahem) we got Tesco to deliver the food and the local off licence to do the champagne on sale or return (yeah right, like there was any to return!) and hired glasses from them too. My cleaner helped organise stuff and cleaned up afterwards as we had the reception in our flat. What about a posh picnic? Will post again if I think of anything else.

Yes, definitely can do without it costing the earth! You shouldn't have to spend £16k to be able to have everyone you want to invite. My SIL is getting married soon and is inviting a LOT - about 150 so I'll have to ask her how much it's likely to be!

I think these days you do tend to think that in order to have everyone at a reception of some sort it's going to cost about a million pounds but that just isn't the case. Hope you find what you want

We had a similarwedding reception to sex goddess but had a registry office in york first. We then had a party a few days later(here in Scotland) at home.
Yes the catering often makes up most of the cost but beware of all the smaller things adding up. Dh made invitations on the computer and they were really different and personal to us. Getting married in Winter can make it cheaper if this appeals to you and the venue has lots of atmosphere. Real fires , lovely old building etc. Dd had a beautiful velvet dress fom M & S as it was Christmas and the shops had party dresses in.
Although I heard of someone having their wedding reception in a garden in the summer and all the guests brought a dish, and it made 4 a completely different wedding.
. Good luck the planning is half the fun.

BTW Mushroom, when we got married we naively thought that we would have a small reception - just family and friends - thought something along lines of fairly intimate dinner - but when it came down to it still ended up with 75+! So remember to budget for more than you think you'll want to invite.

We did my ds's wedding blessing for about 3K, Mushroom. (Due to unusual circumstances he and his dw had three celebrations!!) They used an hotel and had the blessing at about 5pm. Then cocktails followed by a buffet style sit-down meal and finally, dancing.

My dil wore a Monsoon dress, so not hugely expensive. Flowers were kept to simple hand-tied bunches, but they were absolutely gorgeous, stunning for the money! We bought wine on special offer at M&S as, even with corkage, it was about 5gbp a bottle cheaper than hotel wine. The cake was also from M&S and very tasty. It was decorated simply with matching flowers.

Instead of a live band, a DJ friend provided the evening's music for free. Photos were probably the most expensive 'extra' and that can be moderated by how long you have them snapping away. Another friend is good with a camera and provided lovely pics after the official photographer left. Cars weren't needed as ds and dil were staying at the hotel anyway. HTH!

Oh, yes, forgot to say, that was for around 100 guests, Mushroom.

Yes, thats the problem, Smiler2 - I would say that I'd only have about 30 people for a meal (and thats just immediate family), but then I'd be looking at a party for about 100; I'll have to ring round and see how much finger buffets are per person - I've no idea!
And then there's a disco, plus I'd love to be able to put money behind the bar.....!

A warning - don't rely on friends to do the photography. We did. Very few good pics of our wedding. 'Friend' who took the crappy pics emigrated shortly afterwards leaving us to get them developed and discover quite what a pigs ear he'd made of it (this was someone who had sold pics to magazines...). Happy memories though.

mushroom, how about hiring a social club for the evening do? Drink is a lot cheaper and if they were willing family could help out and between you all do a finger buffet yourselves? The social club would probably be able to put you in touch with some good disco dj's too.

Photographer & dress are the 2 things I want to do properly for my wedding (when we eventually get to it )

We had no money when we got married. DH decided after 10 years of swearing we didn't need to get married, that when I was expecting DS1, we should.

So, our wedding expenses

£30 for registry office
£60 for silk for my dress (MIL is a seamstress and made me a lovely dress)
£100ish DHs suit
The flowers (which were lovely white and purple lilies) were a wedding present from BF.

We went to a local restaurant afterwards which was doing christmas set menus - we told everyone on the invites that they were welcome to join us, but we couldn't pay for the meals, although we bought drinks. 50 of our closest friends and relatives came, even though it was at 3pm on a wednesday afternoon!

We had a wonderful day, I couldn't stop laughing. If I could have done a big party I would have, but we didn't need to, to have a beautiful wedding. I'm planning to do something special on our 10th anniversary, as we would have also been together 20 years by then.

we printed our own wedding invites, orders of service etc on the pc - you can get great varities of cards/paper really inexpensive but look great. I got my dress - which was actually a bridesmaids design but in ivory - think it was just over £100 from a little local bridal shop. Ours was a little different as we were married on my aunt's property in Australia but we had an early afternoon wedding with just fingerfood - lots of platters and nibbles rather than a sit down meal.

I also did our own invites, ... I can do caligraphy and used an embossing kit I found in a crafts shop.

My dad arranged most the rest of it as it was in California and I live in UK.

Photographers, Flowers, Cake, Catering, Music (Dancing, etc.): in spite of eddm's warning, I'd still consider anybody in the family/friends who had a good track record for any of these. My mom used to do photos for our family weddings...The thing is, I told my dad we wanted at most just 1-2 really good photos for our wedding (I am not sentimental at all about weddings), and he went ahead and booked a pro-photographer anyway, who admittedly produced almost all good photos. But my dad did get the photographer to just then give us all the rolls of film, and got them developed ourselves. That saves a lot of money.

And we really only did/do display just one nice photo, it really was all we wanted!

Also, my dad got work colleagues who did flowers/cake/catering/music DJ'ing in spare time for a bit extra cash to do them for my wedding, and because they liked my dad they gave him a good rate.
Reception Venue is usually the highest expense... are you ok about village hall or similar?

DP and I are getting married on 19th June.

Neither of us wants a "big do" so we have booked the local register office for 1200 and then booked one of the local village halls for the reception. We've got family and close friends so there are about 25 adults and 10 children (including ds1 and ds2). I've arranged for a local caterers to do a buffet, which worked out considerably cheaper than going to a hotel/restaurant. Also we've been able to pick items to make up the menu. We've ordered "sparkling wine" from Tesco.com who have a special offer on at the moment.

I've bought a linen suit (which I can wear afterwards) from Kaliko which is lovely. I've made the invitations - cards from a craft shop, wording done on the PC at home. I think they look great and very individual.

Still got flowers and photographer to source. Wedding pictures are still abit of an issue as they seem to be so expensive. Thought about contacting the local college/camera club to see if anyone would do them. Mulling this one over at the moment.

DP has got a fab e-type which makes the perfect wedding car!

We aren't going away on honeymoon as such - but will have a short break during the summer.

So we are working well within our "budget". Getting what we want without going too mad with money.

My wedding didn't cost £2k and we had a 150 guests. We got married in a church and then had the reception in the ballroom of the local town hall. It had it's own bar and kitchen. We had caterers do a buffet tea and we also had a dj. Then we had hotpot for supper which my gran made with mountains of mushy peas and red cabbage. I'm from lancashire, can you tell? Everyone still raves about the wedding where they had hotpot. It all went and people were going back for seconds and thirds. It was a lovely day and we didn't skimp on photo's or the dress. My dress was about £300 and that's included in the £2k. It can be done and it doesn't have to look cheap. Hope everything goes well for you.

Flip - friends of ours told us of a wedding they were invited to where they served hotpot. Problem is I can't remember who told me about it. Possible contenders are friends in Lancaster or people we met at a wedding in Staffordshire. Is it popular in Lancashire?

We had no money when we got married. Did it in a registry office, which seated about 30 guests. Then for the reception we hired a hall, and instead of asking for presents (we had lived together for 7 years and had a 3yr old already) we asked everyone to bring something to eat or drink. Got a fantastic wedding dress from a charity shop, and had it altered to fit, courtesy of my friend. I think the day cost about £250 altogether, but that was in 1995. It was great fun, and I don't feel like I missed out on a big day at all.

When we got married we had no money at all so the entire wedding was paid for by "gifts". My mum paid for the food and Dhs Dad paid for a suit for him. We used our lovely old black mini as the wedding car and a friend lent a white bettle for guests. I bought a very simple dress and because the wedding was at the end of June they were about to mow the haymeadow next door so we raided it for wild flowers and used those to make the bouquets and button holes. A friend did my hair and make-up and another made a huge chocolate cake decorated with roses as the cake.

We hired a holiday cottage for a couple of days and had the party there afterwards and then stayed on for our brief honeymoon.

We asked for money instead of presents and used it to but an old VW camper for a later honeymoon.

I might have been cheap but it was lovely

mumbojumbo, when I got married for the second time, we wanted everything to be very laid-back (and not expensive!) so we asked one of our main guests who enjoys photography as a hobby to take photos before and after the ceremony and during the reception as his wedding present to us. He took half in black and white so they look very arty!

I don't know if this idea has been mentioned, but I'm going to a wedding in June in which the couple have asked their close friends for "helper gifts" as opposed to tangible gifts. That is, instead of bringing a gift, their friends will either help with the barbeque, or arrange some flowers, or bartend (which is what I'll be doing.) The couple will be spending very little money, and have even managed to broker a deal with a venue for which one of them has done some freelance work. So they won't even be paying for the venue! I think creativity is the key. And I love the sound of Lydialemon's wedding. My own was an overblown affair given by my parents, and I hated every minute of it. I'm convinced the smaller scale weddings are actually more fun & memorable. Good luck!

Our best pix were done by friends - luckily one is a photographer and one's a graphic designer. Do you have any arty friends who are good with a camera? We rented a big house for the weekend with pretty grounds and got all our drink on a booze cruise to Calais and found a local caterer who did a wonderful buffet and provided glasses and a small number of staff. I found the bit holiday cottage rental people helpful about big houses where they wouldn't mind you having a party - Helpful Holidays in the West Country were good. But we did only have 50 guests.

Agree with comments re getting friends to take photos. Dp used to be a wedding photographer and says that really any fool with a half decent camera can do it: the main part of the job is herding everyone around into the appropriate groups. And making sure that people's feet are in the full length shots.

I'm also planning a wedding for about the smae budget by the way. My dad is doing the photos. The local taxi will be the wedding car (there is only 1)

Easy for us though as we're in Spain, where catering and booze are much cheaper!