****2017 Brides****Currently 166 Brides and 1 Groom****

House is definitely more important! We're your age too so I get where you're coming from our mortgage was spread over 35 years so... yeah haha.

You could always go it alone? Get a few ideas and then take people for a second opinion?

The TB dress is new - I just got an email about it last night

xx

Hey everyone!

I'm new here, glad to have found this post! My big day is 7th October 2017...only the church booked so far, struggling to find a venue that we both like! Originally was thinking tipi reception..however ££££! So that was sadly abandoned!

Seems like a while away but it'll be here before we know it!

Hi everyone,

I have booked my string trio who I'm really happy with as they consist of a violinist, cellist and guitarist and are amplified so they can play upbeat music too and they'll be heard across the lawn during the drinks reception.

I am very close to booking my florist. She's the first one I met (out of four). She's about £280 more than I wanted to pay but I just really liked her, she was really enthusiastic and I feel like she really "gets my theme". My mum is contributing £1100 towards the flowers which is lovely so she will only cost us £380 in actual fact. Going to have a chat with my OH about it and I'll probably book her over the weekend.

I have booked a hair appointment for a cut and colour with a hairdresser I found on my local wedding FB page and will discuss wedding hair with her when I see her at the end of the month.

I have ordered all of my place name cards, tags for the favours and some sparkly table confetti for the tables.

I also found some bridesmaid dresses I like today but I will hold off shopping for them until I have my dress.

How is everyone else getting on? X

Hi ladies, I'm new here! We're getting married on the 20th of July x

Edit 26/3/16 - Change of plan, we're paying for our wedding ourselves and can't afford what we want in this timescale so are postponing by a year, so no longer a 2017 bride. Good luck to you all and see you around x

Welcome and congratulations. 20 July is my mum's birthday and the weather at that time of year is usually fabulous.

I'm going to a wedding fair at my venue tomorrow and showing my mum the venue for the first time. We're looking at flowers and just inspiration on how it will all look on the day. My mum has also found out the hotel takes dogs so I now think half my family will be vanishing at various points of the day for dog walks!

Hi all! Paid my deposit for the venue yesterday - our wedding date is 26th February 2017!

I just got back from TWO wedding fairs with my mum. The one at my venue was quite small and we were finished quickly so we drove over to a second one that was happening at a local hotel.

I'm fairly sure I've found my florist as her work is exactly what I had imagined in my mind when I wanted a spring meadow theme. She grows all her own flowers too, so I'm going to go visit her in May to see what flowers she has and get a quote.

I also decided on some light up letters, which I'd previously ruled out but there were some lovely ones at the wedding fair and they looked lovely. We just need to decide if we want Mr & Mrs or just our initials for the day.

I saw some lovely dresses, and can't wait to try on now. I feel refreshed with planning as I was a bit stuck and not very motivated, but I've got some ideas and this is the first wedding thing I've done with my mum too and she helped me get excited.

Hi girls! Welcome to the new brides ?

I've chosen the BM dresses - long, infinity dresses from DressLongBridal on Etsy. The girls are all keen on the idea of infinity dresses, they're cheaper and the girls can wear them again. I've sent the link over to the girls so that they can let me know what shades they prefer. We're thinking of maybe two shades or a full range. I'm asking the girls to sort out their own shoes, jewellery, hair, makeup etc, but because the dresses are so cheap, I might be able to put money towards wraps for them all in case the weather is chilly or some sparkly accessories.

We've got a couple of weddings, hen/stag dos etc over the next few months, so planning on sending out Save The Dates in July/August. That should be early enough to make sure our friends haven't booked holidays over Easter. I need to get my friend over in the next few weeks to talk about her writing our reading. It's going to take references from our favourite manga, movies, and games. I'm currently looking for a smaller-sized version of the Zelda Master Sword to use as a cake knife lol.

Slink, if you think a lot of the family are likely to go off for dog walks, could you incorporate it as part of your day? If there's lovely countryside or something, maybe your Mum could take those who want to go on a walk between the wedding breakfast and evening reception, to walk off the post-dinner slump?

Hello to all the new 2017 Brides! The year is really filling up!

Slink - I love that you can have dogs at the hotel! I'm super jealous! I think arranging a post meal walk could be good though as MadamRed suggests. That way, people can walk off the post-meal drowsiness and it might also give you and h2b some time alone

I feel like we don't have much to do now towards the Wedding - I wish it was this year haha! We had engagement pics done on Saturday, so we're looking at using them for STDs. We want to send them a year in advance, so we need to get on it!

All that we really have left to do now is the suits, rings, Honeymoon & jewellery. We're meeting a venue decorator this weekend to hopefully arrange the set up, but I can't honestly think of anything else we need to do!

We're already planning the dog walk to see where will be good to send people off for a bit. Im also really happy we get to have doggy wedding pictures. My mum will be going around collecting doggg bags from the wedding breakfast though!

Thanks everyone! So nice to hear from brides getting married in the same year, however I'm getting slightly nervous reading all your posts - you all seem to have so much organised in comparison to me!

I wondered if I could get your thoughts on costing..I'm feeling a little bit worried about the overall cost of the wedding - I had a figure in my mind of around £20,000 (absolute max) however when I've started looking into the price of any of the venues I like they're all super expensive! Also, when I've spoken to friends that have tied the knot within the last few years, most of them have spent up to £30,000 on theirs! I'm quite creative and will do a lot of the decorations myself, my H2B and I will do the invitations together and we have decided to give a donation to Macmillan in each persons honour for favours.

How does everyone else feel about the cost of everything? I know weddings aren't cheap by any means, but when you hear about people spending like £5,000 on their weddings...how do they do it?! x

When we first said we got married we said £8k, which went to £15k once we really looked into it and what we want.

From looking at things I can see how costs can spiral, and the people I know who have had lower budget weddings have done a lot of stuff themselves and while they looked gorgeous I know that I don't have the time or patience to create my wedding myself.

I could easily spend £30k if I had it and still probably feel like I was missing out on something or cutting back because the wedding industry seem to have thought of everything!

We have cut back in places, our venue isn't stunning inside but the views outside are amazing and it's a really well respected venue in my area. I'd have loved a stately home but couldn't justify the cost. We've spent on photography and videography but I'm cutting back on other areas I could have easily spent three times as much on. We're also not having the once in a lifetime honeymoon which a lot of people seem to add as part of the budget.

The budget has gone up, and we probah will have some finance at the end but nothing we cant pay off easily in the months after the wedding.

It's a scary amount to spend but we're in a position right now in our lives where we have it, but if we had waited we might not.

I haven't added up what ours is costing yet, ball park figure I would say is going to be around £14-15k. I think we saved a bit on the venue as we pay per person which includes venue hire, rather than a lot of the venues where you pay a hire price but it doesn't include anything and catering can be quite expensive. Some of the places we looked at wanted £8-10k just for the venue hire and although we haven't gone for our dream location, it's still somewhere we love. We also aren't having an expensive honeymoon and OH hasn't bought me an engagement ring yet...

I think it's definitely do-able to plan your wedding for £20k, just try not to get too carried away!

We've budgeted £13k for the wedding and a max of £5k for honeymoon - it's an expensive time!!

Our actual wedding budget is as small as we can get it for what we want. I looked at doing things DIY but by the time I priced up all the bits and bobs needed it all came out at a similar price so thought would take the worry of making things myself away!

We have our wedding booked for 9th September 2017 ??

So far we have the photographer, band and cars booked! Busting to start the dress shopping but possibly leaving it until the summer to get a few lbs off first

I'm beyond excited already!

The budget is causing me a few headaches too at the moment - I'm trying to get in under £16k but it's still early days so I am hoping we can make a few more savings here & there. We've not cut out altogether anything we want at the moment but we have booked cheaper end photographers etc than we could have done, & instead of booking a band for £1k plus in the evening we're going to have an acoustic solo artist & DJ, but still costs are high...

First dress shopping date is now confirmed for mid-June - scary / exciting!

I get a little bit embarrassed about our budget if I think about it. The wedding is currently coming in at just over £13k, but that's without the honeymoon. The honeymoon will be about £20k at the moment, but that's for five luxurious weeks in Japan and Vietnam, including all of our travel, spending money etc and a honeymoon photoshoot in Japan.

Hi girls,

Well I'm kind of glad to hear Im not the only one worrying a little about the cost...I'm still looking into potential venues and getting a cost idea from them all. We went to look around Goldsborough Hall (in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire) which is only about 10minutes away from our church - the venue is amazing and from speaking to people who know couples that have got married there before - I knew that it was probably going to be over budget. The price would be just over £20k and thats just for the venue, food, drinks etc...not including everything else - church, dress, rings, honeymoon etc..! So although they've knocked £3k off that (because of a mix up) I think we're going to have to rule that out and look at other options!

I just want to decide on a venue now so I can relax a bit more! I'm in the process of losing weight (I want to lose quite a bit!) before the big day and I'm using October as my milestone - as it will be a year until our big day! I can't wait to start trying on dresses then

x

Hearing some of your budgets and costs, I think we're getting a bargain! Although honeymoons do seem to account for a big chunk of the budget

My parents are paying for ours. Initial budget was £20K, but I think it's creeping closer to £25K.

We don't include the Honeymoon in ours because we'll be paying for that. It's looking at around £6K at the moment though.

It's honestly so scary how the costs just mount up - I take my hat off to all couples who pay for the whole thing themselves!

We haven't even started costing a honeymoon up yet I think we're going to set up a Trailfinders gift account & then pay whatever is left over, but we're not going straight off on a big honeymoon, we're going to wait a few months. We're spending the actual week after we get married at Glastonbury Festival!

I sold my house to move in with OH, so the proceeds from my house sale have gone into the wedding fund. Other than that, pretty much all money other than mortgage and bills is being saved for the wedding and honeymoon. Without the house sale, though, there's no way we'd be able to spend this much.

Got my meeting with the florist today to confirm costs for the centrepieces. So excited! ?

Hi everyone.

I've been away from here and wedding stuff for a few weeks now - had other stuff going on. But I'm back and really getting into the wedding planning again.

Looked at bridesmaid dresses and I think I've found the ones I want and in the colour I want - so pleased!!! Ane in finding the dresses in the colour I really wanted, it made us finally decide on a colour scheme for our day - Pink!!!

Still trying to find a photographer - but not stressing about it, cause we'll get there and find someone we want and is available!

So next up for me was to try and think about designing the Save the Dates. I've spent this afternoon messing around with a few ideas and I've come up with something i really like. Thought I'd show you all and see what you think! Hopefully the image has come up below

I'm new on here , I'm deciding between 2017 or 2018 , ive looked at 5 wedding venues and have narrowed it down to 3 , orsett hall , friern manor , fennes . so hard to decide , is anyone getting married at any of theses places in 2017/2018.

Jamaica sounds fab and you should do what you want, not what is expected. You will have such a great time.

Your save the dates look great missbiscuits. Like you, I think I've found the bridesmaids dresses I want and on debenhams so not as pricey as bridal salons. I'm just hoping for a promo weekend now so I can hopefully save a bit more money.

We had another meeting with our venue yesterday to go over some things and came away feeling very excited again. I've emailed a company today about hiring light up letters and a "classy" bouncy castle. I now have the agonising decision of whether I want to hire LOVE or our initials!

I'm also trying to decide which photobooth company to book, there are just so many so if anyone has any recommendations for Surrey that'd be great?

Finally ordered the Save the Dates today!

It's been an absolute nightmare! I created them as RGB files, but the printer works in CMYK so the blue is going to be duller than we hoped. Hoping it won't look awful though.

Then, my file was too big to send to them, but if I compressed it then it was crappy resolution, so I had to email that to them separately, but it wouldn't attach right and.... ugh.

They should be arriving tomorrow though, so fingers crossed that they're ok!

Hi everyone I've been away for a while but back to wedding plans now (just bought a new house so that took priority) we've booked photographer, budget, looking at florists and venue decorator which we will book asap. hows everyone else's plans ? X

That's exciting! All settled in now I hope?

I think we're on the verge of being done for the time being haha. Need to decide on flowers and look at suits and rings

MrsW2017 I am intrigued by the idea of a classy bouncy castle. Do share!

Hi all ☺ I'm a newbie here recently engaged. We have been to one venue which we knew we loved anyway (it's where we met) but are viewing one other option next week just to see what happens. Hoping for 24th February 2017 (we have been pencilled in after our viewing for this date).