If you had a beautiful wedding under £15k please tell me how

[Skiaddicted]

We have 80 people who we genuinely want with us on our special day (actually more than that, the 80 is being incredibly tough). Im happy to get a Wed2be dress and get a friend to do my hair and make up. Costs locally, however, just seem to be insane for wedding venues!
The best we've found is marquee venues who charge circa 3k for the land hire......then a marquee is 8k ish.....catering seems to be around the 6k mark somehow......it just seems madness

If you're doing a beautiful wedding cheaply please help!!

People will be travelling a long way (some over 6hrs) so we want them to have a lovely time too

[Snausage]

Hi @Skiaddicted. I got my wedding on Groupon. We had 50 people, but the venue would've catered for 80. It cost £2.5k and included sole use of the (small) hotel, (including all 15 rooms) for the night, a three course meal, cake knife. My wedding cake was a three tier chocolate and salted caramel cake from Waitrose, which we decorated with fruit. We did have a band which put the cost up, but they were £900 and worth every penny. I had a cheese tower, too, and decorated that with fruit. My dress was from JJ's House and I had a dressmaker alter it. We had to pay for the table wine and fizz (hotel prices) which wasn't cheap but also not extortionate. I bought all my venue flowers from Lidl (raided my local store on a Thursday morning after their delivery) and decorated the whole place for less than £70. We got married on December 1 last year and had the best time and it didn't cost even half of £15k!

[lesleyw1953]

We hired a marquee for the garden which came with tables, chairs, table cloths crockery and dance floor Wine from Costco, glasses free loan from Sainsbury buffet catered by family and friends, flower girl/bridesmaids dresses off ebay, and their flowers artificial and done by us. Fresh flowers for bride and button holes. Peace lilies on each table (from Ikea) we hired a few people to hand round food and wine, asked everyone to take lots of photos and share them afterwards. A friend made the 3 tier cake using a youtube video. Bride's dress from China, veil borrowed. Local DJ 120 guests £12k . It was a fantastic day and many said it was the best wedding they had been to! Surprisingly stress free - the key is to get lots of helpers organised carefully. Hope you have a fabulous day

[Lj8893]

We spent about £6000 on our wedding.
About 80 guests.

Beautiful registry office (guildhall building)
Restaurant function room which we decorated ourselves with bunting, balloons, decorated jars, vintage style jugs for flowers
Scoured local florists to find best deal
Hair and make up done professionally
Ex sample dress
High street bridesmaid dresses
Cake made by a friend
Photography by a friend
BBQ (professional)
Hired an vintage ice cream cart
DIY sweetie table
Band were also friends of friends so half price
Car borrowed from BILs boss (garage owner)

[BikeRunSki]

Depending on how much effort you are prepared to put in with DIY decorating, have you considered a village hall, scout hut, cricket club, school hall? Hire out a youth hostel?

The best wedding I’ve been to was in a village hall. The biggest was a Muslim wedding that took over 2 gyms and the hall of a private school.

[RachelEllenR]

Village hall, external caterer for canapés and sit down meal (buffet would be cheaper), free bar all day, 150 guests, marquee drapes all round the hall to make it posh, quite an expensive dress, live band: around £11k.

[Whiskeylover45]

Sorry bar =local bar did it for free, just bought the wine.
D.J =family friend did it for the cheap.
Car = mum bought it. Received a text a year before saying she had had a dream dad took me to the church and my lovely dress was crumpled like dianas first, so she was booking me a car...

We had about fifty people total xxx

[Redspider1]

Mine was 20 yrs ago but was in a hotel that did packages including 3 course meal, champagne for toast, wine with meal and buffet in evening. The price included decor, table linen. These days it all seems to be separate. My mum made my 2 small bridesmaid dresses from silk for £50 and I got them ballet pumps from a dance shop.

[redspider1]

Oh and sister did my hair and makeup.

[BikeRunSki]

Our wedding was £5K for 70 people nearly 20 years ago! It was cheap, even for then though.

Venue - register office, then local restaurant, across the road - no transport costs
Dress - off the peg evening dress
Suit - off the peg
Rings - made by local craftsman, white gold
Invitations - local printers, single sided, very, very cheap
Hair and make up - I did my own!
Attendants - one best man, one best woman, they wore their own clothes.
Band - from local college doing HNC in music
Cake - MiL made it
Food - hot buffet
Flowers - limited to bouquet for me and a few buttonholes due to allergies!

[SallyLovesCheese]

Village halls can be very reasonable if you're prepared to do bits yourself. I made hair accessories myself, our wedding cake was actually several cakes baked and brought along by various guests, family members did flowers, no favours, family member did photographs (studied photography previously) and we had a buffet dinner rather than a sit down meal. There are lots of ways to save money.

[butterflywings37]

I'm a teacher also. Got married a year ago in half term on a Friday. 50 day guests 100 evening. Approx £8k for our day - yurt ceremony, wedding 'breakfast', band and then a DJ plus evening food.

This included;
Flowers
Bridesmaid x5
Grooms party x 3
My dress and dh suit
Sparklers
Fire pit
4 x drinks per person.
Photographer & videographer.

[butterflywings37]

Oh and hair/make up

[SallyLovesCheese]

Oh, and DH wore a suit he already had, no matching best man/groomsmen suits, no fancy transport, a good local folk band for music.

[randomsabreuse]

Town/Village Halls, church halls.

I got married in Tavistock Town Hall (Devon) and venue hire was about £800 including a staffed bar.

Have a look at Arundel Town Hall - but most old town halls are council owned and therefore not silly money!

[Sipperskipper]

Got married on a Saturday in May 2015, whole thing was under 7k.

-church wedding (local)

• village hall for reception (fri afternoon, all day sat, Sunday morning)
  
• all decor etc ourselves - we sourced all the plates etc from charity shops, made bunting etc with friends
  
• hired sound system and lights but made our own playlist (so no DJ or band)
  
• alcohol bought from France (and Aldi prosecco!)
  
• homemade cakes
  
• friend designed invites etc
  
• wholesale flowers arranged by my mum
  
• hog roast for main food (this was biggest expense)
  

We didn’t have children then (and neither did our friends!) so we had a lot more time to spend on stuff, but it was a lot of fun, and I have the most wonderful memories of decorating the hall with all our friends and family (and clearing up very hungover the next morning!)

[MistyKoala]

Hi @Skiaddicted, we looked in the Surrey/sussex area for venues and found a few lovely barns that charged not as much. One we are getting married at next year! PM me if you want details

[converseandjeans]

Dress £300
Bridesmaids dresses from monsoon off the peg
Didn't hire cars - Uncle & Friend drove & we bought nice car ribbons
Hand wrote place setting plan
BIL did photos
Aunty made cake for us
Wedding @ 3pm so dinner was teatime so didn't need evening buffet (this wasn't reason for afternoon wedding really it was because of people travelling distances & having babies to deal with) we just had bacon sarnies.
We were then able to budget full bottle of wine per head & in the days before smoking ban boxes of fags out on each table 🥺

[converseandjeans]

Both teachers but had October wedding the weekend before half term weekend.

[AWishYourHeartMakes]

Sorry I haven’t read all the replies so might be repeating...we went for a winter wedding but still a Saturday. Find a pretty village hall and decorate yourself, catering for that many about £4/5k and do a dessert table yourself/between friends and family. Lots less than £15k. Don’t buy into unnecessary extras like cars or fancy band. Good luck and congratulations!

[RitmoRatmo]

It was over a decade ago so I can’t remember finer details of prices but my amazing sunny perfect day cost possibly max £3k.

Dress.... found vintage pattern in an old ladies haberdashery. Got local dressmaker to male it for £300
Marry in a lovely outdoor a public civic space (botanical gardens or similar) with a council registrar (there’s no limit on numbers for the ceremony)
School hols (Ex is a teacher)
Meal in nearby restaurant for nearest & dearest. Other guests happy to go to great pub nearby for piss up.
Minibus to village hall for all guests (Max £100)
Village hall hire fee (a couple hundred)
Guests buy own drinks but big hot buffet provided for all (a few hundred max)
Friend did DJ-ing for a bottle of whiskey.
Cousin’s band played for free as a wedding gift.

Bob’s your uncle. I really don’t understand the modern world of lavish weddings.

[DeRigueurMortis]

So my tips:

• we got married on a Friday in the school holidays (my parents were teachers). Much cheaper than a weekend. Downside is you have to accept some guests might not be able to attend, though wasn't an issue for us as everyone liked the idea of kick-starting the weekend early.

• think about what you need rather than want. Ditch the peripheral e.g. wedding favours, hand printed invitations. don't have loads of bridesmaids/ushers that you have to clothe, expensive flowers on every table

• think about what you can do yourself (or ask friends/family). For example, DM made our cake, I made table centre pieces with flowers from the market and candles from amazon.

• Wine. Look at what the venue is charging and also how much for corkage. Even with corkage we found we could source nicer wine in bulk for cheaper than the venue was offering. Don't bother with champagne. Vintage Cava/Prosecco is just as nice, half the cost so you be bountiful with it (and frankly I doubt anyone can taste the difference).

• when dealing with suppliers don't use the "W" word. For example I got quotes for my bouquet. When I asked for a wedding bouquet it was always far more expense even when I was requesting the same arrangement/flowers. On that note also make button holes yourself - they are super easy.

• timing of your wedding...we got married at the venue (stately home turned hotel) but at 5pm. This has two advantages. 1. It gave guests lots of time get to the venue, get into their rooms, changed, get their own lunch in the local pub or hotel restaurant/picnic they brought etc 2. After the ceremony and pictures, pre dinner drinks, the meal was served at 7pm (4 course dinner plus coffee). It meant we didn't have to worry about evening catering or even evening entertainment. The meal finished at around 10pm and then everyone was mingling in the adjoining room with the bar with background music we'd complied from a playlist (not a free bar, but we provided copious wine for the table and fizz for the pre-dinner drinks and speeches).

• We had a photographer but bought a very limited package of only 30 photos. It was fine. In the age of digital photography you get loads to choose from to get your best 30. It also meant we didn't spend hours posing for endless pictures nor end up paying for pictures of all the guests (the photographer left before the wedding reception).

• Wedding dress. I designed it myself (and the MoH's dress) and a local dressmaker made the pattern and the dress from my (shit) sketching. I bought all the silk from a trade supplier.

• As we got married at the venue no wedding cars were needed.

[AmazingAardvark]

Ours was c. 5k for 45 people. We saved money by getting married at a registry office (£250 for a beautiful large room in a very grand building!), late in the day (we actually chose this because we hate hanging around at all-day weddings and we didn’t want to ask guests to pay for 2 nights accommodation in an expensive area).
Also, I bought my dress from high street. No favours. No bridesmaids or groomsmen. Canapés as starters (we’d have had both but the owner said there’s no way people could eat that much ). Food served “family style”. Photographer for 4 hours only. Inexpensive entertainment - DJ, sparklers, Polaroid camera, etc. Cake was a supermarket cheese tower.
For ideas local to you, you could try posting on the “Rock and Roll Bride” Facebook group - focus on less traditional/expensive weddings.

[Muumee]

Bloody hell, £15k! On a day? My wedding cost next to nothing, we eloped and wore our normal clothes. We did have a big party for family that we started arranging once we were married so we didn't get any of the extra costs, wedding wasn't mentioned really.
In your shoes I'd do a registry with a party after- closest family/ friends to register, then hire a pub/ restaurant/ hall and go on there. Even exclusive hire of a pub with a buffet laid on shouldn't cost anywhere near as much as a wedding/ reception venue. Lots of places will have space for 80 in an upstairs private hire space too. I'd save as much as possible on the ceremony and put money behind the bar instead.

[BellatrixLestat]

Can't help with the venue as I'm pretty far from your area but ours was around 4K and that included the ceremony (although we had ours in a church so didn't use it).

I made my own invitations, place cards, table names etc. I'm not crafty at all but I managed it and they looked lovely.

My dress was a 3.5k designer dress I bought from a shop that sold ex bridal show and display dresses for £200.

There are some things you can definitely save on.

[BellatrixLestat]

Oh and my aunt made my cake