Anyone care to share what was a total waste of £ in hindsight?

[MandaraSugar]

NB: I don't mean "I don't understand why people spend £25K and the rest on one day..." but things you/someone you know chose to do that looking back wasn't worth the £ or time that went into it.

Several years ago I was my friend's bridesmaid - we spent many hours in the run up to the wedding making handmade soaps as favours (including wrapping and putting twine around them the night before) for 100+ guests, people appreciated the gesture but at the end of the night at least 75% of them were just discarded, unwrapped on the tables. We were talking the other night about how, effectively, they were a waste of time and £.

DNiece got married last year and spent a tidy sum getting a graphic designer to layout artwork for the seating plan, name for each table and place name for each guest etc so all in the same font and colours - looked really lovely, however she said she wishes she would have just taken the venue up on their offer to put the table plan up on a big screen (almost like a powerpoint slide I guess) and do basic table and place names as when it was all over and she asked friends/family if they liked it most said they didn't notice/didn't remember the seating plan, or anything that was nicely graphic designed and printed Nevertheless, they had a great day. Think she was just grumpy it was all over and they still owed a couple of invoices to suppliers.

Don't know of anyone who has done this, however I see buying a veil from new as a waste (unless there's a v.specific one you want) as so many people sell them 2nd hand after only wearing them a few hours.

nobody notices anything.

Totally agree. People have a great time if there's nice food and plentiful drink. End of!

MardAsSnails.

Now you've said it and I totally agree with you!

Plenty of food, especially nibbles while waiting around, plenty of grog, a good band or DJ and it's fine. That's all I remember about weddings anyway ha ha.

I agree they are the main parts which you should put most money into but I do think if I didnt have any flowers, centre pieces, favours etc people will notice.

We did tonnes ourselves: photo props (not a booth, just a suitcase of bits to dress up and a cheap compact camera), sweet table (my amazing MOH did it, it was demolished!) and flowers except bouquets; table decs - some places wanted £200 per table! We had 10 tables - we did wicker wreaths with fake ivy wound around and a cheap pillar candle in the middle. We also did postcards on a board for seating plan, and put sprigs of rosemary & lavender with tags as place settings.
Spent tonnes on food, wine and never regretted a penny.
Also got a cheap photographer as she was a portrait photographer looking for a winter wedding to build her portfolio.
My dress was £300 inc fittings, a custom made jacket and veil.

Oh, and did our own invitations with stuff from Hobbycraft. Took hours, cost £30.

I got married at the weekend and it was all on a budget but we had a fabulous time!! Wouldnt change any of it as long as friends/family are there you cant go wrong. Local registry office and pub function room after.

Friends did decorations
My mum did food and sweet bar came in at under £300 and the spread was amazing!!!
My sister did my hair - bought flowers from claires.
Makeup i went to a beauty counter and had a tutorial and bought the bits and did myself.
Bought a cake stand from amazon and then used little cakes from sainsburys - doughnuts etc all sprayed with edible glitter. Used figures which held special meaning as toppers.
Mil paid for dj £250 as dp knew him.
Photo booth £375 - great fun kept the kids busy, just wish we had it for an extra hour.
Mine and dds outfits were bought online from high street shops came in at under £200 i will wear shoes and dds will wear whole outfits again. Dp wore a suit he already had, new tie though.
We paid for first round - got charged less as they knew us!!

Our biggest expense was the rings at £400 but they were handmade and designed especially for us by a local artist. They are beautiful and i highly recommend this. Our wedding was one day but the rings we are going to wear every day of our marriage they had to be amazing 😁

So all in all i dont think i regret any purchases - we did do a bit too much food though, i have a ridiculous amount of sweets in my house!!!

People still talk about our wedding mainly for the music & lots of food.

A college friend sang a solo at church, a string quartet played at the reception & we had a barn dance in the evening.

My workmates made traditional sugared almond favours (mini eggs for the children) none were left

We had a 3 course meal based around a roast dinner & a huge evening buffet with a whole salmon fillet.

Things we didn't have were a make up artist, loads of bridesmaids (I had my best friend & 2 family children), disposable cameras, sweet stalls, guest book etc

Things that were a waste of money - fancy invitations.

We had a bargain wedding!
My Mum made my dress and the bridesmaids dresses. £150 for the fabric. My sisters wore their own choice of shoes.

Buffet for wedding breakfast and just nibbles for the evening do (same people invited to both) at a local function room. Disco laid on for the evening.

The car was driven by a friend of my Dad's and he was thrilled to be asked to drive his classic vintage car for the day. Free.

Photographer was a friend of my Dad's. Paid for, but not a lot.

20 years plus ago.

My auntie had 25p lucky dips on the Irish lottery as favours which I though was fab and pretty cheap.

I can guarantee people would notice if there's no cake. They're just too polite to mention it.

Favours are a waste of money.

I love my guest book. Several family members who wrote in it arent with us any more and those handwritten personal messages are very special.

We get married in couple of weeks and I don't think there will be anything we wish we hadn't wasted money on.
Everything we have is because we like it and it reflects us rather than for our guests although we do want them to like it and have a great time too.
We have a magician, sweets and choc fountain and have made our own post box and signs.
We don't have a bridal party at all and no favours. No speeches except we will thank people for coming and a buffet instead of 3 course meal.
We just want it to be an amazing day which im sure it will as we only invited people who we really wanted to come.

Wedding went amazingly well and wouldnt have changed anything. Everyone loved the magician and the sweet cart was ransacked. Loved the whole day and several people said it was a relaxed day which we felt was a big compliment. Wish we could do it again.

I got married 20 years ago so there were no table favours (wtf) or some of the other mad stuff I have seen (labels attached to a tied-up bunch of cutlery saying thank you for coming to our wedding??)

But still I think we wasted ££ on

orders of service ( could just have had hymnbooks)
fancy car for us (was £300 or something mad, any big car with ribbons on would have been fine)

What I would never skimp on is food and drink, as that's what people remember and enjoy. I also loved my flowers so so much, so I am happy we spent a bit on them, both my bouquet/headdress and the ones in the church. I think that must be a personal thing, I really love flowers.

Haha I see lots of people say favours! I don't understand the favour thing at all. DD says if she ever gets married she is going to have bags of sugared almonds, just to annoy me (really, who would have those? They are grim!)

My wedding was a pretty cheap affair. One thing I would have done to save money is not bother inviting ‘family friends’ and friends of your parents. If I could do it again, it would be on a beach with minimal guests.

My bil just got married and IMO they wasted so much money. They hired a really expensive venue that came with rooms for guests to stay in but they wouldn’t let anyone stay. The venue obviously provided dinnerware but she hired it separately because it needed to be floral, not plain. The venue was expensive but she’s not from this country so they hardly had any guests so could have done it way cheaper somewhere smaller.

What they spent on China they should have spent on drinks - they ran out of drinks while we they were doing photos. Only 2/3 were alcohol, the other elderflower cordial.

I'm surprised how many people have said cake. I wasn't that fussed about one, so I was planning a cheap M&S one with some flowers on, but cake is DH's thing so he wanted to go all out. He didn't insist on much, so we went for it.

We ordered a massive cake that was enough for three times as many people as we had invited, specifically so there would be leftovers for DH. We even cleared space in the freezer for it!

And then every single scrap got eaten. We were flabbergasted! It was absolutely amazing, some of the best cake I have ever eaten and we got so many comments about it, so I'm not as surprised as I might otherwise have been. But DH is still bitter about it

It's so so so easy to be swept up in the wedding planning wave though - so many pretty things and often too much time to think about it due to having to save up.

I'm trying really hard to be strict. We're having no wedding cars as it's all in one place, going to print my own invitations and going with the decor options at the venue. Yes I could pay extra to have the chairs I lust after on Pinterest, bht the guests won't care so I'm going to work with what I've got.

Nearly nearly nearly booked an ice cream van but properly thought about it and realised that each cone of ice cream would work out insanely expensive and how many people would have some?

The photographer, the photos are nice but everyone there took just as nice photos, we’ve looked at the album twice in five years.

We majored on food and drink, canapés, a posh carvery, supper....and a dj.

No table flowers, venue just left their usual nice flowers in a vase, no swagging on chairs.

If I could have spent £30k and made it Uber special. We were on a 5k budget though (with buses to get half the family to where the other half were) so it was always going to be a party with a bird in a white frock!

My entire first wedding LOL! My second one was lovely - 20 people and all very low key. It felt like it meant something and I enjoyed myself.

Don't spend loads on = dress, favours (if I went back on time would rethink both), cake ( get someone to make it)

Photographer probably not worth it either.

I would pay for hair, flowers and actually wish I had paid for nicer wine and a choir for the church.

We had cupcakes in pretty glass jars for favours and got a selection of quotes about love on them. Every single one went home!

Went to a wonderful wedding recently with an ice cream cart. The ice cream was fab but nobody used it ( expect me- I went up twice!)

Following because we’re getting married in September and our budget is 5k. Which to me sounds like a fuck ton of money but apparently not!

Some things I’m doing to cut back:
Borrowing my aunts car - it’s not fancy but it is new and white, I’m going to get some ribbon, nobody’s going to see us!

My friend bakes cakes as a side business, she’s doing our cake for cost: £100

My other friend does flowers as a hobby - she’s doing all my flowers for £150

I bought the little flower girl headdresses for £2:99 on eBay

I’m having photographer for getting ready, ceremony, straight after only, not the reception - she was offering a deal of £250 including an engagement shoot, a book of prints, and a bottle of champagne!

Bridesmaids dresses all same colour but whatever style they wanted, got them from ASOS in the January sale for £22

Evening food is a ‘cheesecake’ from Costco for £60! With wedding cake

My best friend and bridesmaid is a hairdresser.

I’m good at make up but worried i’ll Be too nervous on the day to do it so booked a make up artist but got a half price deal in Black Friday sale - £40.

Biggest cost has been venue/food.

From recent wedding attended agree that favours are bit of a waste. Also arrangements on the table which meant I could chat to the people on the same table properly.