Money saving tips!?

[Jellycustard]

We got engaged last year and have just booked our wedding for winter 2023.
We've worked out rough costs and it's looking to be about 11,000!

I know in the grand scheme of things this is small compared to others but it's still a huge amount for one day. Our venue is in around 6,500 alone which is cheap compared to most other locations aside from registry office route. We are hoping family may chip in a bit, but we aren't expecting it. We had also looked at abroad but that isn't the cheaper option like we'd been lead to believe.

Anyone got some to savings tips or ways to save on the "extras" - I'd be grateful to hear from you all. The hardest part will definitely be cutting down on our disposable spending! I'm just so overwhelmed!

One of the stand out things I remember from a weddings, was homegrown terracotta pots of herbs. The pots had names on in chalk, and served as table decorations, place names and favours. Genius idea!

Other stand out wedding memories -
The child friendly wedding with amazing, well timed and plentiful food
Afternoon tea served in the village hall at 4pm, straight after church. Photographer did the big group photos first, most of the guests went for tea, then close family had tea in the vestry while family photos were done. Then speeches, then dancing, then more food, then more dancing.

They also put a small, age appropriate toy at each child’s place, and deliberately chose a venue near a playground. Very cheap, very effective.

The wedding with no food, not a crumb
(The vast bulk of guests had travelled several 100 miles)
Register office at noon.
Immediate family only lunch.
Guests left to fend for themselves until evening reception at 7.30pm
(It was v early days of the www, no one really knew where to go for this time)
Guests all expected evening food
No food, no drink apparent
Guests all left and had a party in the Chinese takeaway nearby at 9pm

I'm getting married in July and on track to spend just under £10k. Few things I've done to save money:

Limit the day to family and very close friends only

Call in as many favours as possible! My step grans cousin is a budding wedding photographer so she's kindly doing the photos for free (plus 2 of our friends are good with a camera), my future sister in laws mum is a great Baker and is doing the cake for cost price only, my H2B is a goldsmith so will be making our rings (although obviously not everyone can be this lucky!). You might be surprised how many people you know can do stuff for you.

Don't have centrepieces. Our venue is beautiful enough without all that rubbish that will only be chucked the next day. I've been to a few weddings and could never tell you what the centrepieces were - they just aren't important!

DIY invites. I downloaded a nice pattern I found from a website call Greetings Island. You can customise them and then save them to get printed. With some clever cropping I got the watermark off it aswell. Cost us £36 in total with printing and got loads of compliments. Again your guests won't care what the invite looks like and they more than likely will end up in the bin.

As others have said - WED2B is your best friend! I got my dress there and it is stunning. Although they do make their money back on the accessories so be careful there. I ended up getting a few accessories for my dress from JJs House instead and it was a fraction of the price.

Don't go crazy with flowers. I'm only having 4 x bouquets for me and the BM's and buttonholes for the gents. No need for anything else.

DONT RENT A SUIT! Go to a website called Suits Direct, some lovely suits there at lower prices than renting. With renting you also have the added risk of losing your deposit or even being charged for the whole designer suit if any spills or accidents happen. Might seem like a better idea at first but will likely end up costing you more in the long run.

The last and probably weirdest sounding one - don't buy bridesmaids dresses. As soon as you stick the word BM in, the price shoots up. I couldn't find a dress to suit my girls and colour theme (yellow and dusty blue) without spending a fortune so I went to JL and got 3 beautiful dresses much less in a lovely emerald green to compliment the colours. Also suits my BM's more - 2 of them are blonde and pale. Each dress was over half the price of the "bridesmaids" dress I had found online and look so much better!

Good luck and enjoy the planning!

Our wedding is coming in considerably more than yours but a few places I've saved along the way;

Invites & other stationery : I designed them using a template on Vistaprint and they're honestly lovely and weren't at all expensive compared to bespoke invitations. I'm very impressed with them. Vistaprint have sales twice a year so worth keeping an eye out for them.

Flowers : Our bridesmaids are having corsages rather than bouquets. Much much cheaper, and leaves them with their hands free for a drink after the ceremony.

Bridesmaid Dresses : Ours are from Next. Don't get conned into thinking you need to get them from a bridal shop.

Your Dress : If there was a Wed2B where I live I'd have been there like a shot. As it is I had a choice between high street or 'proper' bridal shop. I tried high street first, was thoroughly disheartened and ending up being saved by the bank of Mum & Dad at the bridal shop.

Rings : We bought them last week in the sales and saved half of what we'd budgeted for them! Worth planning some purchases like that around the January / Summer sales.

Discounts : If there are wedding fayres near you, go to them. We went to our local big one just for a look and lots of suppliers were offering discounts if you booked on the day. Sadly we'd already booked most of what we needed!

I've been married before on a really really tight budget and to be honest we cut so many corners it showed, so be aware of that. DIY decorations and stationery are all very well if you're creative and talented but I'm not. We got the bare minimum of flowers so tables looked bare and conference-like. Afterwards I wish we'd spent more on slightly nicer essentials, and less on superfluous extras like the photo-booth hardly anyone used.

Would you buy a 2nd hand dress? I'm selling mine on eBay - its still selling in the shops, cost me £1680 and I'm selling it for £500

So you can get a really good bargain that way?

I have no tips. Found the saving really hard and cried alot near the end at the lack of disposable income but kept telling myself it was only a year of extreme saving and it was worth every penny.

Seriously, go through your budget and look at every item without using the word "wedding" ...... would you pay £1500 for a dress for anything else, that you are only every going to wear once and there is no possibility of getting other wears out of it....... would you really pay ££££ for a taxi ? .......... cake can be £££ or you could go to M&S for a nice iced fruit cake if that is what you want or there are loads of alternatives people have nowadays........ photographer - do you really need someone there for the whole day? If I wanted a photo of me in my dressing gown getting ready, then I can get anyone of the people in the house with a phone to take a snap - you don't need to pay a photographer to do that.....same as keeping them there in the evening....... and so it goes on.
For some people the food is crucial, for others it will be something else, but don't get drawn in to thinking this is anymore than one day. As a pp said, think about what else some of that money could be used for, and make rational choices rather than getting carried away in the first flush of excitement.

I know someone who recently booked a “special birthday lunch event” at a local venue - fraction of the cost of a “wedding package” in the same place. The minute the word “wedding” is used prices rocket.