Budget savings ideas??

[LouH93]

Sorry for a long rambling post…

We are (very) recently engaged and are absolutely flabbergasted at the cost of weddings! The idea of spending 20/30k on one day scares us and isn't something we ideally want to do. We are also TTC so any money saved so far is in a ‘mat leave’ pot.

I love weddings! And have always been so excited to plan my own but i now need to think about ideas for a smaller more budget friendly wedding.

We don’t have a massive guest list.. 60 people to the day and probably an extra 20 or so to the evening.

I don't like the idea of spending £7/8k on a sit down meal (as i never really enjoy these at weddings). A lot of venues i’ve looked at offer a BBQ option. Has anyone done this before? Can it still be classy? I still want table plans etc.

We are in Hampshire so looking at venues in Hampshire/Surrey/Dorset if anyone can recommend a cheaper venue!

Any advice in how to cut costs would be amazing.

from a very overwhelmed but excited bride to be!

My advice is to make a list of everything and prioritise a few things you are willing to spend more on. For example if you love flowers then maybe go for lovely bouquets but cut back in other places.

A BBQ meal sounds lovely and you can still have a seating plan, they will probably call the tables up in order to make it run smoothly.

I have been to a BBQ wedding. It didn’t work well, people were queuing for ages like at a festival and it was hard to get nice meat. They clearly saved a lot on food and staff. Vegetarians were complaining as meat juices were on the veg and there weren’t many salads. A good bbq can cost a lot too if you want everyone to have nice meats, side dishes and enough food!

personally I dislike big weddings, I spent 5k on mine had an amazing day and spent a lot on the honeymoon. But each to their own.

Also because of the BBQ people had food at very different times and then ended up sitting on different tables anyway. Like half my table was queuing so I went and sat with some other friends. It made it all very messy.

@LiloP Can i ask what you did for yours for 5k please? That seems to be the cost of just the venues and its about what we would like to spend!

If you genuinely want to save money then why not have a small register office service followed by lunch for just your closest family .. and then if you want a bigger 'celebration' have a party in a village hall or similar at a later date for wider family and friends. That probably wouldn't have the 'wedding vibe' that are looking for but would certainly save money. Weddings cost an insane amount of money not to mention the angst ... do you really want to spend that on one day?
Thats the sort of wedding we had 35 years ago ... without a second celebration . Just had five guests to lunch .. never regretted our decision.

We only had 28 people but did afternoon tea which was quite a bit cheaper than a 3 course. It’s our favourite thing so was our first choice anyway.

It's pretty simple - just don't hire a big expensive venue.
Registry office for the wedding, with a reception/party at a community hall/church hall on the night.

You could arrange to have a buffet and do it yourself, or be a bit more cheeky and see if a family member or close friend would oversee the buffet prep as their 'wedding gift' to you.

OP if you're on a tight budget you really don't want to be looking at traditional wedding venues.

@LouH93 I cut massively on guest list and had a small buffet party for some relatives (who lived in a different area) a few months later. I know this isn’t right for everyone and as you probably only marry once you have to make the right choices for you. I still had hair and make up but no bridesmaids.
other things that saved money:
-no ring for DH (he didn’t want one and wasn’t going to wear it)
-didn’t have an expensive dress or shoes
-photographer for half the day (registry office and some family pics, I never look at them anyway)
-3 course lunch for small number of guest, evening party with more guests
-no bridedmaids, flower girls etc
-no registry office flowers (it was a beautiful building anyway)
-no expensive decorations anywhere
-not a lot of hair and make up trials (had one each)

It was what we wanted and I was happy I didn’t spend more frankly. We already had one DC and a mortgage and it seemed frivolous to me to spend more than a year’s mortgage on one day.

And buffet only at evening party. We had open bar but only beers and wine.

@LiloP thank you! Thats really helpful. Definitely puts things into perspective. I.e photographer - i’m pretty sure we would look at photos once and then never again! Definitely where we can cut the budget a bit there.

And sorry to add we didn’t hire a traditional venue. My lunch was a private room of a nice upmarket restaurant and the evening party was at a private room of a standard Hotel. That was for Dh’s relatives who all live in one are and weren’t invited to the actual wedding. We had a standard buffet and a bit of dancing. Worked well

@LouH93 half a day of photos gives you some professional ones for thank yous etc but a full day can easily cost you 1k and more. My dress was beautiful and from a designer but not a big wedding dress with veil eyc and I didn’t have designer shoes.
(tragically that’s the one thing I regret 🤣🤣)

just make sure you do want you want not what others expect eg don’t have 6 bridesmaids only to not offend your mates if actually you only want 2 etc

We got married last year and found hotels much cheaper - we used Hotel du Vin and it was excellent, about £90 per person including sit down meal, prosecco arrival and toast, 1/2 bottle wine and evening food. You pay per head rather than venue hire, so probably best if you're around 60 guests. We spent about the same as friends who used a village hall because they found so many hidden costs in renting everything like tables, plates etc, whereas hotel had everything included. You could look at the Hotel du Vin in Winchester.

My DF had a BBQ but hired two catering sized BBQs and her friends offered to do the cooking. Lots of nice salads and the vegetarians were catered for.

My DSis is vegetarian and a couple of times has been to parties where there's a hog roast and has been given the bap with just apple sauce. If I was hosting a party and that happened I'd be mortified.

We saved a bit on table flowers and cake decoration. Just simple lillies in vase on table, and florist just put a few nice flowers on top of out m & s wedding cake. So the main flower costs were my bouquet and had 1 bridesmaid (so only 1 set of dress/shoes bouquet etc). A friend who is a hairdresser did our hair (did a practice a couple of weeks before) and that was his gift to us, and we did our own makeup. Bridesmaid dress was bought when lots of prom style dresses were in the shops, and was suitable that could be worn again as a nice dress. My wedding dress was bought before lots of stores now have them - but monsoon often have a nice choice of dress that aren't the big meringue style for a couple of hundred pounds. But it depends if you have your heart set on a certain style.
You will save lots if you got married in afternoon, so only one lot of catering to pay for (venue dependent). A friend had theirs at a local place which had a garden where we had afternoon drinks with a band playing (like a fancy garden party really), and had a huge conservatory and they had a hot buffet - so in between bbq and proper meal. We were all still seated. Also had layers of different cheese rounds arranged as a cheese "cake". As was a less formal affair it felt nice and relaxed.
And if booking something, don't necessarily say its for a wedding...otherwise costs might shoot up!

You could look at other small scale catering like a pizza van, or fish & chips bl an or similar?
We cut costs by asking a friend who made cakes to make our wedding cake as our 'present', another bought flowers from one of the London Flower markets & we made basic bouquets & button holes & I made floral arrangements from pumpkins with flowers in (we had an autumn wedding).
I had my dress made by a local dressmaker for a few hundred pounds instead of thousands; she also made my bridesmaids & my mums.
Mid-week weddings will be cheaper than weekend ones, but can obviously be tricky for your guests.

All good tips. I've been to a couple of wedding where the bride wore a Bridesmaid dress. Much cheaper than a Wedding dress and they both looked stunning.

We had a bbq for our wedding and the pizza van in the evening. Everyone loved it!!!

My favourite wedding was held at a regostary office and was a festival theme afterwards. In a field with a marquee local caterers did a "festival truck" with hotdogs and burgers, and a local band played

Getting married around Christmas can save a lot on flowers/decorations if you go for a hotel or pub/restaurant that is already decorated with a lovely tree etc.

Don’t look at Pinterest or Instagram and you’ll save a fortune! So many of the things people do for weddings-the favours at place settings etc just end up in the bin, but cost a fortune. Or if you do want to have these fancy kind of touches, look for them second hand, lots of people sell wedding stuff like this on marketplace after they’ve used it for a day

A friend held their reception in their parents garden. They had caterers supply a number of dishes, others prepared by family, cakes bought from cake stores, but also had a hog spit roast going.

That garden was a decent size but nothing truly amazing. A spruce up and lots of garden/fairly lights transformed it.

It was one of the best wedding receptions I had been to.

Look at last minute wedding packages, my friend has just booked one for 8k this includes food , drinks , table arrangements and dj

Skip a sit down meal entirely. We had a late ceremony (5pm) and then hired a bar for just a minimum spend for the night. Put on loads of canapes and later evening snacks and there was a lot of food leftover so nobody went hungry.
You don't need flowers bar buying a nice bouquet for yourself. Shop for a dress in the sample sales as they're half the cost of a made to order dress.