£5000 budget - is it possible?

[TwittleBee]

Hello,

We have just come into unexpected financial difficulty (won't go into details) and shall have to cut our £10k budget in half if we want to meet our date in 2020.

How have people managed to be so savvy? I have already purchased my dress so that doesn't need to be accounted for but things we still need to purchase include:

Venue
Registrar fees
food
drink
flowers
bridesmaid dresses x 3
groomsmen suits x 5
rings
invites
photographer
MUA & hair stylist
Decorations / favours

The venue we have already fallen in love with and were planning on booking this weekend comes to £3500 including food & drinks! Leaving us only with £1500 left which was originally our budget for the photographer!

Shall we just give up? I mean, my family have already expressed how shit our wedding was going to be on a £10k budget, so maybe we should just wait 5 years before we marry (wanted to tie the knot before DS started school though)

Invitations - you can buy print files on etsy that someone has designed with all your requirements. They are really cheap. You just print them onto good quality cardstock which isn't expensive and add decoration if you wish to.

You can do it in the EU no problem. We married in Greece. You have to get some paperwork sorted in the Uk but it's really straight forward.

Our choice was go away with the kids and disappoint the family a bit or just keep waiting for that magical spare £15-20k.

Thomson do wedding packages, book the holiday and they sort it all out for you. Best thing we ever did.

I did but I had my budget before venue :-). Big wedding was not my bag but roughly I paid just under 5k for

Venue (council registry office but beautiful and like a grand house without the fees!) Google them there are some absolutely fab ones. You don't have to pay extra registrar fees on top this way (it was a grand to get a registrar to another venue)

Fish and chip lunch

Old London bus as transport

Wedding dress (went over my aim budget a bit but I was very particular on colour) beautiful bought from a wedding dress shop and got 2000+ of dress for 700 as it was an order not collected. You could get this way cheaper if you like traditional white etc dresses and are not plus size. Some of their dresses were 300 and less new new. Put it this way I contacted all plus size wedding dress shops for the colour and this place had two ;-)

Made confetti myself my mum and I collected flower petals and dried on radiators (her neighbours loved being involved and would bring her roses from the garden that were drooping and I bought supermarket bouquets reduced) ended up with a large Tupperware! Made cones out of gift paper

Function room in pub with buffet (paid for food pp, function room was free if a drinks/food value met) pub ran with our theme and made special cocktails for the whole bar to order

Taxi for me in the morning (called a taxi and explained so they got a driver with a fab fab car)

Bouquet for me and BM, corsages for main men and women -done by florist beautifully

Men's suit hire but shirts bought online (didn't want white/pink ;-))

Decorated function room, sweet bar (bought sweet jars and scoops on eBay from someone's else big day) I could easily sell again if needed. Bought sweets as and when on offer. Paper bags off Amazon and decorations as and when found (Poundland for most believe it or not) and online. Had cloths, napkins, runners, table deca, centre pieces, balloons, paper straws etc.) Trees and lights

Made own invites using Hobbycraft cards and envelopes as starters and bought bits to decorate

My jewellery (spent a lot by my standards but vintage pieces) and made my own hair piece

Fab 3 tier cake from a gluten free bakery (most beautiful thing ever!)

Dj

I would say mine could have been cheaper had I not needed plus size plus I had a theme and have particular taste however it was what we wanted so also could have been more expensive had we wanted a big big /traditional wedding.

Hope that helps! Pleased to help with more info if I can.

Don't have bridesmaids or groomsmen (5?) for a start. Not needed.

Do your own makeup, you've got plenty of time to practice.

Buy second hand rings.

I didn't have any flowers, in my case because I don't like them, just had sweet trees for table centres which I made myself (couldn't find what I wanted to buy).

Getting married midweek and sometimes between Jan and April can make a venue cheaper.

What @StormcloakNord said.

Personally I think weddings are an enormous waste of money. I'd rather spend 5k - or whatever - on my house, on a few nice holidays - rather than one day. DP and I have been together happily for 15 years, have 3 DC and have never bothered to get married. If we ever do it will be a registry office affair with only our DC present, and then out for a nice meal afterwards.

But everyone is different, so if you want something more lavish then I guess you'll have to wait.

Ooh meant to say I have heard good things about m and s cakes (you buy the covered tiers and you/someone puts together adds flowers/ribbon/toppers) but I needed gluten free

@ReinettePompadour Thank you for your reply!

Venue - already Wednesday off season

Registrar - been quoted £600 so still a big chunk

Food - already doing an afternoon tea and just a buffet for evening guests

drinks - already doing just table & toasting drinks (both of which are beer of soft!)

flowers - I have been quoted £200 for 1 x bridal bouquet, 3 x bridesmaids bouquet and 6 x button holes - thought this was bargain already?

bridesmaid dresses - I wasn't planning on spending more than £60 per dress

groomsmen suits - honestly it is working out cheaper to buy them! We will just be buying the suit and they are to provide shoes & shirt

rings - we have a budget of £200

Invites - we have found Papier to be cheapest option rather than making them. Works out £100 all in.

Photographer - But everyone says this is the part worth spending the money on?

MUA & Hair - I will just have to learn to do it myself somehow I guess! Just wanted to look pretty for once

Decorations / favours - I was going to just jazz up the tables with centrepieces, our idea was to fill jars (we have been saving) with the bride and bridesmaids bouquets (we only have 4 tables include top) and then maybe get a few more simple things to look pretty. I was also including the guest book and card letter box in this. I was baking the favours, biscuits with names on as name places.

TwittleBee sorry, I forgot the £35 each to give notice. You don't have to pay £4 for a certificate on the day if you don't need one.

Cut the favours/decorations
Groomsmen can find their own outfits
Bridesmaid outfits on the cheap from ebay
Free email invites from Paperless Post (this is what we did, they're quite stylish)
Do your own hair and get a free makeover in a department store
Do your own flowers
If you get married at the registry office rather than at the venue that will save you about £450

Tbh if I were you I'd forget about the venue, just get married at the registry office then on to a pub or similar, you can pay for a hot buffet or something rather than a full sit-down meal and then you don't have to worry about seating plans and table decorations.

Elvisola we were looking at France and that is EU and that looked complicated though requiring residence? Maybe we should look at Greece then! thank you

Ifailed oh really? were do you do that though? and what is involved?

My wedding cost under £5k (excluding my dress which my dad bought).

Venue
Maybe see if there is anywhere else "quirky" like a local museum? That way your family won't feel like it's a "formal wedding done on the cheap" IYSWIM?

Also, we had our ceremony late afternoon meaning we didn't need two meals, we just had a hot buffet early evening.

Drinks
Don't pay for lots of booze, just have reception drinks on arrival and for the toast, we bought our own online and just paid a corkage fee to the venue.
*
Bridesmaids*
We bought the dresses but let them buy their own shoes, you couldn't see them anyway and they each chose something they'd wear afterwards so were happy to provide their own.

I also told bridesmaids that it was their choice how they had their hair/makeup ie do it themselves or go pro, but obvs if they chose to go pro they paid.

Groomsmen
Hire the suits and let them wear their own shoes, or you could pick a colour/style theme and let them arrange their own suits. That way they can choose to hire or buy themselves something they like that they could wear again?

Rings
You could buy something plain and cheap just for the ceremony and if you really want something fancy get it at a later date.

Or, see if either of your parents/grandparents have any antique rings they don't use or would like to give you?

Invitations
I handmade them myself along with thank you cards and church order of services.

Photographer
We found someone who did photography as a hobby, he charged us but was a quarter of the cost of a pro.

You could also contact your local art college and see if any photography students fancy a project.

MUA/Hair for bride
Pay for hair but go to the salon as it's cheaper than paying them to come to your venue - enlist the help of talented friends and YouTube for makeup or if you are near a major department store book in one of the counters like MAC or Benefit, they will charge around £40 but you usually get to keep the same value of products so it's worth it.

Decorations/Favours
don't bother** or depending on the venue do it yourself - my cousins wife and friends did hers and they were beautiful, I honestly thought they'd hired a pro!

Flowers
Sorry can't help, this is the one thing I splashed out on because I changed florist two weeks before the wedding and stupidly didn't ask for a new quote. I nearly passed out when she handed me the final bill

One last tip....
PINTEREST!!!!!

Our's cost £1500 and was the best day of our lives. We had register office wedding followed by pub buffet reception, in our own dedicated area of the pub, waited on by two waiters who uncorked and served our own Prosecco which they had kept chilled over night for us (cost for everything was £4/head!). Got mates rates on a cake as it was our friend's first wedding cake (£100) mates rates on photos (£100) as our friend was starting a new business and wanted to build his portfolio. We wore TKMaxx and M&S outfits (approx (£125), got solid silver rings from Debenhams (£27 each), taxis to reg office, home again and then to train station, train to Bournemouth, honeymoon for 5 days in lovely hotel with seaview Room. So yes, £5k is plenty.

Photographer - But everyone says this is the part worth spending the money on?

Ask everyone when they last got their wedding photos out and whether they do regularly The answer will most likely be a resounding 'we don't'. Why pay for something you will look at 2 or 3 times and put away for safekeeping never to be seen again ?

My 'professional' photos were crap and cost £1900. My favourite photos are from the family with the bridesmaid laughing and chatting with Great Grandparents, friends eating the flowers off the table thinking they were edible and Grandma falling out of the car drunk.

Oh yes, I made the invites using blanks from The Works and my own art work (I'm an artist) and we just had button holes and a corsage.

Epic bold text fail lol

Could you contact photography students or start up businesses and see if any of them want to do the wedding on the cheap so that they can build their portfolio

TwittleBee I'm taking about getting married in a registry office - £35 each to register 28 days before the marriage, then £46 for the actual ceremony, no need to book a room and you just need 2 witnesses.
I fully understand why you'd want to have a celebration afterwards, but it's not a requirement for getting married, and I don't see why you or anyone else should be bullied into anything by family or anyone else.

We had a basic wedding for under £1k with 9 guests. Suit and dress/shoes/veil were about £400 altogether. We booked a 3-course lunch offer at a local restaurant (we didn't mention it was for a wedding celebration) and got a bridal "posy" for under £20 after turning down the £100 bridal bouquet price. Then back home for champagne toasts and cake (both provided by guests). I did my own make-up. Hair was hidden by the veil so didn't need doing. Family member is good photographer so didn't get a professional. No favours/invites, honeymoon or evening do.

It was a lovely time, helped by people knowing in advance it wasn't going to have the traditional frills.

One option with photos is to get a good photographer but cut the amount of time they're there for - ceremony and post ceremony formals plus a few casual shots during the drinks reception and then rely on friends and family for getting the rest of the day.

Could you let your bridesmaids wear their own dresses in a coordinating colour - I always think people look better that way than in identical dresses which rarely suit everyone.

Ifailed where is this? our local one wants £750 for that?

Okay so we can get the venue we want just for £350 if we don't have food/drink there afterwards, only have it hired for 3 hours too.

Just need to find somewhere decent for the afternoon tea now... Doesn't look like anywhere else nice to go for that option nearby though

If your on the northeast my DH is a wedding photographer with reasonable prices. Is there a small local restaurant that you could use for your reception

Our registry office only does the basic wedding with max of 2 witnesses on Monday.

I wonder if half the issue with cost is because I am in Essex