trying to BUDGET a wedding

[xxJaslynxx]

Hello everyone!
I am attempting to have a budget wedding reception as I have a daughter, planning on having another baby soon and dont want to bankrupt myself in the process....lol.

I was wondering if anyone could give me ideas in how I can save money. Maybe recommend somewhere to hold the reception that isn't to expensive.

Any ideas or recommendations are welcome.

Thanks. x

A wedding I went to had a cakestand on each table with cupcakes on: centrepiece, pudding and wedding cake in one!

Also consider escort cards instead of a table plan. Much less of a headache seating people.

120 is quite a big wedding, so you'll probably be doing something quite informal. Don't get we'd too early in the day if you want an evening do, or you'll end up feeding everyone twice. We had a big do and fed everyone bacon, sausage and fishfinger butties at about 10 pm. They went down a storm.

Bacon, sausage and fishfinger all in one sandwich??!

Am very impressed by the thought of Chancery Lane, CMOT!

I hope they weren't all in one! I didn't even see the evening food!

Be creative with the entertainment: playlists can really personalise a party if you get your friends to do them. We had a pub quiz, which went down well. Costs nothing and you find out who REALLY knows you and DH-to-be!

CMOTdibbler that place in chancery lane sounds really good...do you have anymore info???

x

The Knights Templar
95 Chancery Lane
WC2A 1DT

020 7831 2660

It's a decent pub. Got history, too!

That place looks great, very impressive building. As long as you can personalise it so it doesnt feel like you are getting married in a Weatherspoons pub, I reckon you're onto something. Looks good inside.

Make the day shorter - I got married in London in Feb (but ours ended up around 12K even with my budgeting ideas). We found:

• have a shorter day: get married at 4/4.30 then you don't need to provide so much food and wine and people aren't standing around for ever
• church cheaper than registry office
• sparkling Bouvet from Majestic rather than champagne (better than cava or prosecco - a tip from a wine buyer friend)
• buy beer etc. at xmas when all the offers are around
• Vintage dress (30's - under $200)
• I didn't have bridesmaids
• important men just had similar suits and ties and shirts (ones they would wear again)

relative did the flowers

• morning of the wedding we had a decorating party with about 20 friends which was lovely (be creative with decorations and find a pretty place)
• no photographer... but told everyone in the info. sheet with the invites that we weren't and would appreciate any photos they took (we ended up with around 400 photos and loads were amazing)
• no cake: instead we had a table of home made cakes from our best baking family and friends on vintage style stands (it was so pretty)
• black cab instead of wedding cars
• get a friend/friends to DJ

What took our budget up was the venue and sit down meal. If you have a buffet and cheaper venue you will make big savings. There are some pretty village halls around London which are cheap - I know there is one in Richmond for instance).

Best tip of all: buy everything you can think of (stationary, dresses, placecards) from ebay from other brides who bought too much!

don't do favours, i hand made mine and most people left them behind!

Registry office? Book a room in a hotel?

yy - agree about the favours. Like the poster whose guests kept her hand-made name flags, ours kept their hand-made (well, photocopied and hand-tied) invitations, or the service sheets which I'd also hand-tied. I guess those who want a memento, just want something that reminds them of you.

Thinking about it, you can upload a photo to Vistaprint for card printing. They're very cheap.

We did ours for £5k. I was pregnant at the time and we didn't want to spend a fortune when we had baby stuff to buy. We got married right after new year when everyone had finished their christmas celebrations but the decorations were still up. Hotels very quiet and so didn't have to pay much for the room since they were glad of the booking. We had a civil ceremony there. Fairy lights etc they had used for christmas were fine for a wedding and we bought large candles for the tables for £3 each and surrounded with lots of holly from the woods. For table settings I wrote names on holly leaves with gold pen which looked lovely and they were free. I had flowers but my bridesmaids just had wrist corsages which only cost £20 each. No other flowers on the tables just the holly.

My mum made favours with some chiffon wrapped around a chocolate but to be honest we'd have been fine without them.

You could easily turn plain iced christmas cakes into wedding cakes by putting some ribbon around them and putting a couple of fresh flowers on top.

All your ideas are great and sooo helpfull...
ohforfoxsake that wetherspoon is sounding good and i'm quite confident i can make it look good without spending a fortune....

littleredsquirrel everything you wrote sounds lovely...where did you have the reception?was food included?

come on ladies anymore locations

*countryside locations welcome such as surrey...

x

We got married at a beautiful church in Surrey and had our reception at Pyrford Golf club, which is set on a lake and is truly gorgeous.

Our whole day for a full on white wedding with 7 bridesmaids, 4 ushers and a Ferrari for the weekend was 7k! So if you take of the car cost around 4.5k for everything else.

We didn't go abroad for our honeymoon, instead we had our fist night at Pennyhill Park (awesome), the car for the weekend, a 4day break in a secluded farm house and spent a week as "tourists" in London.

All done on that 7k.

My sister did all our flowers, we got 3 different sized plain white iced cakes from Tesco's (for less than £20), hired a cake stand and my sis decorated it to match my flowers (pink gerbera's), even now we get asked where we got it from! Bridesmaids dresses were all bought from Debenhams in the sale.

We made our own invites/favours/place cards etc.

It can be done :-)

Marylebone registry office is fab for weddings, all the slebs get hitched there you know!

www.westminster.gov.uk/services/communityandliving/registrar/marriage/councilhouse/

We went to a lovely late afternoon wedding there, the reception was at a restaurant (the ledbury in notting hill). Twas in January so apparantly a good deal was done in hiring out the whole place as most restaurants are pretty dead in January.

Whereabouts in London are you?

The biggest cost to the wedding is the day bit. The best fun at a wedding is the night!

Therein lies your solution!

I have been to a few weddings where they just did family only to the actual wedding - either abroad, later on in the day, or with meal for close family only after.

Then hire (and splash out) on a big reception in the evening. As others have said, as you are just booking a 'party' it will be a lot cheaper. Also, just offer buffet food - that cuts down a whole load of cost.

By just doing the reception, you get to cut out - meal, ushers, cars (get a room in the hotel!), favours, champagne etc etc...

Also, you can go all out - one wedding we went to was just the evening reception, and they had a black tie ball to celebrate. Very posh, but very cheap!

Ask for parts of the wedding as wedding presents eg the night in a hotel, flowers, music whatever

And do NOT say that it's a wedding!!

We spent about £3.5K on our wedding - we went pro for photographer (caught a very good one early on in his career who now charges 1.5x what he charged us) and semi-pro for an excellent DJ and karaoke who is a plumber and only DJs in his spare time.

I would recommend them but as they are both NW based it would be pointless.

Artificial flowers from ebay - I got mine from this seller: stores.ebay.co.uk/DENS-FLORAL-DESIGNS

Made my own buttonholes, bought a bunch of artificial flowers from ebay, some diamante pins and green florist tape.

Got a proper designer dress, tried it on in a bridal shop here, then bought it from the USA ( www.justprettystore.com ) and paid about half what it would have been here in the UK.

Made my own invitations and instead of having favours, bought in some big tins of Roses and Quality Street, and put them in glass bowls (Wilkos - 75p) in the middle of each table - centrepiece and favour all in one. Kids loved them!

We had our reception in a Britannia hotel which are offering an afternoon sit-down reception for 50 and buffet for 100, although that is probably not enough for you. But you could check them out: www.britanniahotels.com/weddings

We had the wedding there too - there was no extra charge although obvously we had to pay for the registrar to come out.

Friend with a big black caddy for the wedding car, and ribbons from ebay for about £2. I was considering a black cab and putting ribbons on it, but then the friend came to the rescue.

We did hire matching suits for the men, but we didn't have ushers so it wasn't too expensive

We begged lots of old gold from everyone we knew and traded it in at a high street jewellers - got £150 off my wedding ring.

Hoop, tiara and veil came from ebay. Earrings from Monsoon for £5. Bridemaids jewellery from Claires.

Wedding cake layrs fom M&S, hired the stand and my dh decorated it.

Place names, guest book and post box chest - all from ebay.

Sorry..can I just add that for me, I wouldnt forgo a photographer to save money, flowers die, food gets eaten and you'll probably only wear your dress once. Photos however last forever and I look at mine all the time, the only real lasting expense from your big day.

Its hard work but if you can afford £££ for one, research new and up coming photographers who won't cost the earth.

I have heard really good reports about this photographer, her style is really fresh and modern and shes not too pricey.

www.assassynation.co.uk

"Sorry..can I just add that for me, I wouldnt forgo a photographer to save money, flowers die, food gets eaten and you'll probably only wear your dress once. Photos however last forever and I look at mine all the time, the only real lasting expense from your big day."

I do agree with this.

It does help if you have decent amateur photographers for friends - I had 2, so was very lucky and got fantastic photos.

Forgot to mention - borrowed hoop and tiara too, so no cost there.

Shoes came from Mr Shoes (!) which was the only shop in Kingston that had shoes I really liked - £26! (they have an online store if you want to check)