10,000 Wedding Budget

Not sure I’ll be much help, as my budget is higher, but we do have a similar amount of guests to you. Half of our budget is just venue (we’ve gone all in - so ceremony, canapés, wedding breakfast, evening reception and venue hire). Venues are cheaper on weekdays and out of season. Many offer winter packages, if a winter wedding is something you’d consider. If you have a big enough garden, you could hire a marquee. You can do your own flowers/centrepieces. You could hire a hall and just do buffet style food yourself. Decide what sort of wedding you’d like, then you can look at where costs can be saved

It really depends on the type of wedding you are after. If you want an exclusive use stately home you'll only be able to stay within budget on weekdays or if they do winter deals. I find hotels or stately homes which are also hotels and/or spas offer better deals, but you don't get exclusive use, although usually the wedding venues are very separate from the rest of the hotel so would not be an issue. My wedding is going to be within this budget, one tip is using suppliers who are quite new to the industry i.e. I saved hundreds on my cake using someone starting out and the cake is just as gorgeous as any others I tried ☺️. You really need to think what is important to you, but stick to your budget and have a great day and not regret spending too much. More people regret spending too much than too little

Our wedding budget (for 30) came in at £3,000 including our honeymoon!

We picked a midweek date, so our photographer was half price. We booked a local country inn for the reception instead of one of the pricy local 'wedding venues' (the gardens were actually much nicer than any of those more expensive venues anyway!). My OH hired a kilt and my dress was mail order, so much cheaper than a boutique. I got my regular hairdresser to do my hair, which worked out a tenth of the price of the 'wedding stylists' I contacted. We paid a florist for my bouquet & his buttonhole (under £60 for both) but the venue flowers were DIY homegrown, so free. A friend offered to make the cake & we got a customised wedding cake topper for £15. Spotify playlist for music & a musician friend played us in/out for the ceremony.

You can make a wedding as simple or as elaborate as you need. Work out what is most important to you (dress, photography, venue, food, decor, entertainment etc) and work back from there. If your dream dress is £3,000 or your dream photographer is £6,000, then you're going to have to cut back hard on other areas. Hitched has an online budget planner which helped us work out our budget.

We went with a best western for ours, massively surprised us. Two venues we looked at were both amazing and had great staff. We went for a Friday date because we wanted a specific date and I the package was £1850 for 50 people day and evening. That’s ceremony and reception there, arrival drink, 3 course meal with some wine and evening buffet plus bridal suite included. We’ve added extra people, drinks and canapés to ours and still really reasonable. Even with everything else we’re on track for a £10k wedding with closer to 100 people. Definitely recommend having a look at them if there are any in your area

I think £10k is doable for sure. We wanted to spend as little as possible but have accepted there are certain things we want. Venue and food for 100 and some accommodation is £4700, it is out of season but on a saturday. We aren't having a photographer, we have a couple of people with decent cameras and an interest in it we have asked and will ask everyone else for copies of theirs. I'm making my bouquets ( you can get bags of scrap fabrics from certain places just for delivery price or buy things from charity shops and cut them up etc to save money) I'm also quite lucky, my mum is a seamstress and will be making (and paying ) for my dress which will probably be a tenth of a designer one. Also making own table decs etc so hoping to keep it under £8k ? the only thing panicking me is gifts for wedding party! Get googling, there are so many ideas out there!

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Louise,

This sounds amazing! Well done. Do you mind sharing the venue if you wish, thank you in advance.

Hi. I am aiming to stay under 10000 for my wedding. We are only having 40 people. We picked a Sunday date which saved us money. Only having a couple of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Used a free website for invites and printed them relatively cheaply. Photographer for half a day not a full day. And we are not falling for the trap of getting unnecessary extras that all add up and won't make a difference e.g. no favours, no novelty personalised bridesmaids gifts etc. We could have cut the cost down more but instead spent money on the things that matter to us like having real flowers, a nice cake, and having my hair and make up done professionally. Only time will tell if I manage to stay within budget!

We spent 13k on ours but thats due to overspending g on some things(dress, videographer, band) and could easily have doen it for 10k. Key is to not overspent on venue as this is your biggest spent. We spent 2.5k on venue and another 3.5k on catering(3 course sir down meal for 80 and evening tacos for 120). We are having a Sunday wedding(Easter so everyone has Monday off anyway) which made is much cheaper.
Big expenses:
Venue 2.5k (includes all decoration, chairs, tables, plates etc, staffed bar and stage/sound system)Food 3.5kDrinks 1k Band 1.5k (dj could have done for 600... but we preferred band)Dress 1.5k including alterations(but you can get lovely ones from 500)Photographer 1kVideographer 700(that was an add on we got due to covid maybe stopping people to come so can have a video to watch with them)Flowers 250Cake 300Accommodation 300 (3 nights again could have chosen just 1 to cut costs)Celebtant 560Misc. 1k
So if we cut just the band/dress/video costs we would have been 10-11k without bother. And as your guest numbers are lower I think you will be totally fine. Just make sure that you split your budget: venue+catering+drinks should be 60% of you budget max to allow now stressing/ overpaying. That leaves you with 6k... so don't look at venues/packages above that or you just end up disappointed. If you book venue that let's you bring in your own caterer(like ours) that might be cheaper but do make sure you know exactly what's included(decorations, plates, barstaff.....) . Some hotel offer great deals especially on weekdays!! Good luck and have fun planning!!!

View quoted message Yes it's called country ways and it's in north devon. I've spoken to the owner a couple of times but she is really nice and extremely understanding of all situations. It's not a massive business, it's a small family run one with a farm as well.

We compared a Saturday summer wedding to a winter Thursday wedding ( our engagement anniversary and our first date) and the winter wedding was nearly £7,000 cheaper . 100% look at different dates to keep Costs down xx

I think £10K is doable but it depends what you are wanting for your wedding. We’re having 50 to day do and then upping to 100 people in the evening and we’re on track for a £5k budget. But I’m not having bridesmaids, my friend is doing my hair and make up, we’re buying our own flowers and drying them to make a dry flower bouquet and we’re making a lot of the decorations ourselves. I’ve also opted for a photography student who’s just starting out so I’ve saved money there (will still need to buy the prints separately though). Our venue is a local hotel and they offer an afternoon tea reception which is a lot cheaper than a traditional meal.
There are ways of making a wedding cheaper but it depends what you are wanting. Make a list of what’s important to you and that will help you to identify areas where you could save some cash.

Whereabouts are you planning to get married? Just seen you're based in South West London. Unless most of your family & friends are there (or you have sentimental/practical reasons for getting married there) it might be worth looking at venues in cheaper areas. E.g. when we got married, I was living midway between Newport and the Cotswolds - and wedding dresses were about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price in Newport to the prices in the Cotswolds. Same with venues. And wedding photographers.

View quoted message Hello that's a great idea,i drop a message for you go check your inbox

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Thank you so much for coming back to me on this. I am really greatful.

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Thank you for the detailed reply. Could you please tell me what venue did you use? Thank you in advance

View quoted message Fingask castle in perthshire

Hello my lovely!
We are having 50 guests and our budget has come in at about £7,500 - £8,000.
We found an all in one venue where we xould have the ceremony, sit down dinner and evening reception for just over £4,000, photographer is £700, and DJ is £300. Bridesmaids dresses for my children (baby to teen) i sourced new online for £30 odd quid each, my dress was off the peg and over half price off in a sale (£600 - result!).I am extremely lucky that my best friend dabbles in floristry so is gifting me my flowers.Not having fancy transport to the venue, not doing favours/photo booths/sweet tables extras etc. Keeping centrepieces for table simple (vases from ebay with cut flowers), not hiring/buying chair sashes or going crazy with decor for the venue.Everything i have bought - i.e centrepieces vases and a card holder i have bought in mind so that i can reuse them in the house somewhere. (Im too lazy to sell them on)All my save the dates, invites and rsvps are online using free tools such as hitched wedding website, facebook and whatsapp.Also either not having a cake or going cheap at the supermarket.
Figure out what is an essential must have, then do a list of what you would like if budget allows.Domt sweat the small stuff too much : nobody is going to notic if yoy didnt spend £200 on draped fairy lights etc x

Great and impressive

View quoted message Thank you very much

The key is to work out what's the most important part of the day, for me it's marrying my partner and we only wanted a small wedding without too much fuss. If you go for a hotel wedding, you'll save on Transport for everyone but it will cost more for the Registrar.

Our wedding is coming in around £4.5k, we are having it at a hotel with 25 in the day for sitdown meal and an additional 50 in the evening with a disco & snacks.

Wedding dress prices are so variable, I personally couldn't bring myself to spend over £1k on the dress and have opted for a bridesmaids style dress which cost less than £100. Also I'm not having bridemaids which help to cut the costs.

Hope this helps and good luck for the big day

My budget is 8k. We have our venue plus registrar fees which is £5500. That's for 79 day guests and 130 evening guests. Wedding breakfast, DJ etc etc. We've made our own invites and table pieces. Now all we need is the dress and suits hair and make up etc. Xx

Our budget was 5k and 30 guests. We chose a photographer who was building his portfolio so was charging less. We decided to cater the evening do ourselves. I've made decorations myself. And we're having dried flowers instead of fresh. Silver rings instead of gold. etc. There's lots of little ways to save money.

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Thank you for taking the time and sharing with me your tips and tricks.

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Thank you for taking the time, yes we did consider dry hire and we will be looking into it! We need to move from the house we are in (there is a massive garden and we actually thought at one point to have a party here, but won't be possible). We will keep searching, and yes probably will be involved a bit of DYI.

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Thank you for your reply, do you have any supplier you would recommend? Actually, I guess it is more about me finding the ones in my area...thank you again

Something to think about if thinking of using someone like a student for your photography. In the first time in over 25 years I am being asked by couples if I have at least 5 million public liability insurance because the venues are starting to require it for anyone working there. I think its covid and a requirement of the venues insurance so that the venues insurance can claim off the suppliers insurance.

Coming from East Berkshire, fairly close to West London, my partner and I originally had the same budget, but after looking around and deciding what kind of wedding we wanted, we realised we would need to increase our budget, with the help of my parents we are keeping it down to about 13K.

The biggest cos is the venue, so it really depends on what you are after from your wedding and the venues you look at. A lot of the venues around West London, East Berkshire and Surrey are very expensive simply due to their location, so maybe looking at getting married a bit further away from London could help bring your venue costs down. Go through the venues with a fine toothed comb and go to every one that is remotely in your price range as some may pleasantly surprise you. Our original venue shut due to covid butit was a gorgeous all in venue and was only going to cost us about £6k for 70 day guests and 120 evening

Another way to keep costs down is to look for students or amateurs to do things such as hair, make up, cake and photography. A second year beauty student will likely be just as good as a qualified beautician but a fraction of the cost. Also try friends and family for things such as cake baking and floristry. For example, my future mother in law is an amateur florist and is saving me a bomb on flowers, the only thing I'm going to the florist for is my bouquet, while my aunt is brilliant at making and decorating cakes.

Making things yourself, such as the decorations, activity packs and invitations also really help to keep costs down, pinterest is great for ideas and there are loads of tutorials on how to make your own invites on youtube.

Good luck and try to remember to enjoy your wedding planning rather than let it stress you out!

View quoted message Thank you page this is really helpful

Hi Roxana, this is our budget (Max!) our venue is £7000 including ceremony, food, drink, reception and room. We’re doing everything else ourselves, and booking a ‘staycation’ instead of an abroad holiday. I made our invites on greeting island, envelopes from eBay, card from the pound shop, and bridesmaids dresses from Facebook. Centrepieces from dunelm to build ourselves. I think it’s achievable! X

I think this is achievable and I would look for an all inclusive package at a hotel/pub style venue. I noticed these often come in much cheaper than stately homes or barn weddings. Also hunt for venues that are small and closer to your guest number. So many venues accomodate 150/200+ guests and its just overkill when you have a guest list of 50! You will be paying for all that space you don't need. So Google "small/intimate" wedding venues and do some digging.

Hi, our budget is 5k. We are getting married in church and having our reception in a village hall. 50 day and 100 evening guests.
I got my dress second hand, no cars, growing our own flowers and using foliage from our local woods, afternoon tea or two course sit down meal (not decided yet), getting in a paid bar and decorating the hall ourselves. Groomsmen wearing own black trousers and we’ll get their shirts and waistcoats in the sale, similar for bridesmaids. Not doing favours, my friend is making our cake and we have another friend who is a photographer.
You can EASILY do it on £10k!

I'm really hoping we can do ours for 10K too. We have a field (£500 for a week) and a marquee. This does mean we need toilets/generator etc which is all adding up but I think for all venue with tables etc. We'll be at about £4000.00.

Get friends and family to help! I've had people volunteer to make food, bunting, confetti, collect jars and bottles etc. My only bridesmaid has made me about 20 afternoon tea stands by collecting plates from tips and charity shops and drilling holes in them all!

We're also planning on providing all the alcohol so are gradually buying bits when we see stuff on offer.

It's hard to work out what to prioritise but there are so many places you can save money. One of our main priorities was to provide a free bar so we were really limited on venue options as unless you want to cover the tab you can't often provide your own alcohol.

We won't actually be able to get married officially but are having a ceremony there and will just get married the two of us in a registry office. (to my MILs dismay)