A wedding under 10k?? Is it possible? Tips???

We did ours for just under £8k. i guess the biggest drain tends to be venue hire and food, and then sometimes the dress. we found a really nice council owned building, hire was £800, then limited ourselves to 50 people for a sit down dinner. lots of people do buffet style meals to keep costs down. we had a friends band play, a friend dj, oh's mum made the cake. i bought my dress in a closing down sale. we made the invites ourselves. we didn't have special wedding cars - local taxi firm charged £20 for a really nice car for an hour.

lots of things you can do if you think of friends and their talents. we found most people were just thrilled to be asked to help in some way.

Oh I should hope so, our budget is £6k TOTAL

Of course it depends where you are and what type of wedding you are hoping for, but we are having a sit down 3 course meal and look like we should come in pretty much in budget. What kind of wedding are you hoping for? Any themes/ideas so far?

Easily done.

Ours is a tight budget at 5grand! And so far adding everything up, its coming to 4, so with a grand spare for anything to not go to plan.

It all depends what you want, but a sports hall or village hall for hire are normally very cheap for hire, then you decorate yourself which can also be done quite cheap. Outside caterers, keep numbers down. At the end of the day if you want to get married its about you two no one else, obviously we all want our special day, but it doesnt have to cost 10s of thousand to be the best day of our life...well i dont think anyway xx

It's the venues and food that'll get you.

A wedding can cost under £500 if you think about it. All that is important is the legalities and vows. What YOU choose individually to add on to that is up to you of course, and £9.5k is a lot to add.

What are you priorities? Lots of guests? "Putting on a show"? A posh dress? Fancy catering? A photogenic venue?

Narrow those down and realise you can't have it all, but it's ALL choice. A wedding doesn't have to cost much at all

I LOVE this answer!! So true! xx

Of course its possible! We're doing ours for 8k (very almost 8k anyway, about £100 less) and we're not scrimping on anything.

Biggest cost is reception and ceremony thats around 60% of our budget. We are having the reception venue of our dreams. They're not an especially expensive venue anyway in the wider terms of things but to make it just that little bit cheaper we are having an afternoon tea party followed by BBQ in the evening. Its not exactly a buffet but its a similar idea so its cheaper. We told them what we wanted, what we wanted to pay and they said they would do their best to work to our budget and bless them they have!

My dress was very expensive but I just couldn't bring myself to compromise on this one. The cut and feel of the fabric is so lovely so its worth the price.

Car, we tried but couldn't get a discount on this.

Everything else has been bargain hunted but is still exactly what we want:

My accessories are mostly borrowed. Jewellery is being borrowed from my Mum. My veil is being borrowed from a cousin (if its the right colour. If not I will be bargain hunting this) My tiara was a DIY job and came to 17.50 in total and I love it.

My shoes are some gorgeous sparkly gold heels I found for a bargain in New Look.

Bridesmaid dresses were half price each because my dress was full price. So we effectively got buy one get one free on four dresses.

Our flowers are silk, not real, which has cut some cost out whilst still being exquisite and made just for us by Brenda at Rainbow Flowers (she is a HIB here). We aren't having any flowers in church.

Invitations are coming from Vista Print. Its the slightly more expensive range but over all for 60 invitations, rsvp cards and envelopes it all comes to £40. You can get them even cheaper than that if you go for the cheaper ranges which are still lovely. Information sheets will be printed on normal paper by us and popped in with the invites. We have a wedding website with most of the information for people to log on whenever they need something. Name places will be coming from hobbycraft or poundland and hand written. Order of service and seating plan are going to be made by me.

Some of our decorations are second hand, bought from the for sale boards here. We got some fabulous bargains.

Cake will be the single tiers from M&S, decorated with some ribbon, a brooch and a cake topper. Unless we can persuade D's cousin to make it for us as a wedding gift if they get back from Australia in time.

D's suit and best man's suit will be hired, this is one expense they wanted to spend on. But for ushers and fathers we will be buying them matching ties at a fraction of the cost instead.

Table centres: if we need them will be potted plants bought using my sisters work discount from the garden centre where she works. I don't know if we need them yet though, depending how the afternoon tea is being set out. In the evening we are asking the venue to put out candles in glass jars that we have collected from friends and family. The candles are just ordinary tea lights from morrisons.

Garden games, bought in the january sale at 50%-70% off.

DJ found through a website sandysounds runs, we said our budget and he said fine.

Photography is FREE. My uncle and my cousin are both amazing part time photographers with lots of experience at weddings, family events, fashion events etc.

The best bit about all of this, is its exactly how I wanted it to be. We don't feel as though we need to spend more on it to have a good day, we're having everything we wanted for 8k and i'm quite pleased with that!

Yep I had a beautiful big White wedding for 4 grand. I decided what was important and what wasnt. Important being, nice venue, church, food, having all our family and friends... Which meant cutting out things like ushers and bridesmaids, wedding breakfast, (had a posh buffet instead and cake for dessert) favours, drinks on be tables, an expensive dress... All the things we deemed an unnecessary expense. But it was perfect for us.

yes it is, our budget is 10k max, venue has cost the most, but got a package deal for 4k, with alot of things included, photographer is £900, and my dress £500 that i have paid, and another £500 paid by in laws

Ebay can be your best friend, i have got my invites, guest book, favour bags, bridesmaids dresses, bubbles, table crystals and much more from there........all for £350 so far, thats for 6 dresses!!!!

we only have flowers and flower girl dresses and rings left to buy, and then the registra fees and we are done....we are even putting on 2 coaches for evening guests to get there, we get married in a different city from where we live....

Our is working out about £5500. we have apackage deal with the hotel & then everything else has been either DIY or ebay or scrounged off friends

Our original budget was £15,000 - that includes our honeymoon. But with ebay, DIY, friends and tesco clubcard vouchers we're currently looking at £12,400 - we've still got various things to sort which will hopefully bring our total down some more!

We are spending between 9-10k. We have kept costs low (ish) by hiring a lovely old hall which we'll decorate ourselves and our having fish suppers brought in. I didn't want a bogstandard beige wedding where you could be in any hotel anywhere in the country eating overcooked chicken and triage of desserts. Sorry just me though!!! Thinking out of the box might help you come up with a cheaper option is what I am trying to say! ?

We're spending less than £10 easily (closer to £7/8k). We're getting married abroad and this includes two weeks in a gorgeous villa. We're having no bridesmaids or ushers and a very low key reception.

Yup, at the moment, ours is coming in at just over £4k. We're having a Village Hall reception, lots of DIY stuff, homemade mints for favours.. everything can be done "cheaply" and still remain tasteful.

Our budget is 12k not because we wanted that we were hoping for 8k but my h2b said the things most important to him were a church, 3 course wedding breakfast, decent car, and to pay for the suit hire/ dresses for our bridal party. Mine are a good photographer and having my hair and make up done and the guests having as much free drink as we can afford. once we knew those were the things we really wanted, we had no choice to raise the budget!! we have a package deal for our reception (and added some to take it to 70 day guests) i have only budgeted £600 for my dress, veil, underwear and shoes, and were doing invites ourselfs. If you want to save some money the best place to start is invites, and maybe doing the flowers yourself? e bay is great for table decorations, and making the centrepieces yourself will save you loads, we have changed the package our tog offered us and took out a few things we didnt need (engagement shoot and photo album) and we saved nearly £500 and we still have a amazing tog!

My tip... don't have bridesmaids! They can cost a fortune with the dresses, hair and make up, shoes, jewellry, pressies etc. Our daughter had a Man of Honour instead. Did a great job, everyone loved him and his poem during the service. Total cost £90 for his suit!

Ours isn't until 2013 as we wanted chance to save.

We have budgetd for £10k and this includes

Ceremony and reception at the beautiful Midland Art Deco Hotel in Morecambe (it's PERFECT!) which was £7k for 70 for the ceremony and 4 course sit down meal, drinks package which included 2 glasses of sparkling wine and 2 glasses of normal wine with the meal each, 120 for the evening buffet and even bacon butties at midnight as everyone is leaving.

The rest of the money is going to a photobooth, my dress, suit hire, DJ and decorations.

We're saving a lot by doing all our own decorations (vintage theme so we've started collecting a lot as we go along), my friend is designing our invites and making our cake (she's super talented) and another friend is doing our photography.

I'm having 4 bridesmaids and my H2B is having 4 ushers but they are buying their dresses and hiring their suits themselves (the suits are £60 each to hire and Im letting the bridesmaids chose their own dress but matching colours)

Hello ours is coming in at £2500 atm........includes a sit down meal, car, photographer, my dress, evening reception, decorations, 1 junior bridesmaid outfit and a suit. We are doing loads ourselves and limiting numbers to 25 during the day but 70ish in the evening !!

It CAN be done xx

We have done ours for £10.5k and here is whats included:

Church wedding, transport for bride and groom, photographer, 100 guests in day with 3 course sit down meal, 240 evening guests, flowers, 4 adult bridesmaids dresses (ronald Joyce), 8 male suits hired, disco and buffet in evening.

My tips are :

dont spend a fortune on invites, favours etc

Book a village or town hall and get in external caterers and bar, We are very lucky that our town hall is a stunning old building and only cost £480 to hire.

Try outlet shops for your dress, in the end i ordered a brand new dress however the outlet stores are usually pretty good, i just couldnt find exactly what i was looking for.

Ask for discounts, i got an amazing offer on my bridesmaid dresses but only because i asked.

Have you got any friends that are TOGs, DJ's etc?

I'm pretty pleased with what we have for our money and think we have done really really well but its still stresses me that we are even spending that much!!!!

Happy Planningx

I've recently got engaged aswell and our budget is about £8k - although we haven't got any wedding plans in place yet, we've already been cutting down on our engagement party I made the invites myself a friend is doing the cake and instead of hiring a hall and dj its just around the house.

I thought i'm comment on this thread too so i can get all the tips

xxxx

Our whole wedding for 50 people, including,everything for the day and a weeks honeymoon is coming to just over £9000.

Have you thought about getting married on a weekday? I am getting married this summer and am saving about 2 grand (on venue/food/drink) with a package deal marrying on a friday rather than saturday

Have you thought about getting married on a weekday? I am getting married this summer and am saving about 2 grand (on venue/food/drink) with a package deal marrying on a friday rather than saturday

There are so many ways to stick to a 10k budget as many others have suggested.

The biggest expense is usually food, drink and venue hire. If you have a reasonably sized guest list and and can dry hire and get your own caterers and alcohol with minimum if no corkage that would save a fortune alone. Also weekday and winter weddings can be heavily discounted too. Shop around and don't be afraid to haggle.

We will be aiming for under £7k I think. We are lucky because my dad's back garden will be our venue and he bought a marquee already (he has 4 daughters!).

We are going on a booze cruise to France to get the alcohol.

We are planning to try and get a jazz band from a good local school or sixth form college.

It can be done easily.

We did the following to save money -

My H's ring was bought from Goldsmith's using tesco vouchers, and my ring was my MIL's grandmothers wedding ring. I had to have it resized which was approx £40 but we saved over a £1000 doing it this way.

My brother designed our invites and all our other staionary. I printed them at work and we put them together ourselves - again £100's saved.

A friend made our four tier cake as a present and we just paid for the ingredience - approx £300 saved.

I made my bouquet and my mum helped me to make all our table decorations - the table decorations also doubled up as gifts for family and friends - approx £400 saved

We didn't have favours or STDs.

My dress was in the sale and my chapel length veil a fiver from e-bay. My tiara and hoop were borrowed, a friend did my hair - approx £400 saved

We didn't hire any suits but asked the BM to wear a black suit. We gave him a cravat and waistcoat. My H bought his own suit from M&S and has worn it several times since - we never looked into prices of hiring suits but suspect a few £100 was saved here too.

Our reception was held at the local golf club who were very resonably priced and amazingly helpful. They didn't do many weddings when we first booked with them but were trying to break into it so were very open to us doing what we wanted with the decor, food etc. Other more traditional or established places were less interested in our ideas and wanted us to use the set menus, certain times etc.

I used photobox to make all our albums afterwards (for parents etc) and they look amazing and again easily saved us £100's.

My wedding is coming in at around 4 and a half grand. We are marrying in the registry office and having a reception in the rugby club and it's all so beautiful! I got an ex-sample dress down to £550 from £1200, rings for £250 for both, food 2 course carvery for £14 a head, diy invitations, table plans, centre pieces. And most importantly EBAY! lol It can be done!!!x

Definately can get married for under 10k! I think the main cost is often the venue/food, so I think if you can get that for less than half your budget then the rest can be done easily. We're having the full works and have spent about 10k. Being a bit crafty with stationary has saved us ££££ and is unique too!

Hiiii all wow thanks for the responses!

Toatally agree with all the comments about finding whats important etc!!

I guess thats having all the people we love with us which means a higher guest list so finding a venue that is affordable and that we like to have all those people there!

Ok so you have all given me amazing tips for going forward with various things!! For now its all about finding a venue that we can afford!

Is anyone from Essex with low cost venues? xx

10K is a good budget.

I would say thats not difficult at all to have a lovely wedding with that, despite what all the magzines keep saying.

Your only diffficulty maybe if you are having a very large number of people at the sit down meal.

Fry12 can i ask which seller on ebay did you use Im so wary of buying my bridesmaid dresses on there but budget is low and I have 4 adults and want long navy dresses

Can you please let me know website you are getting your bridesmaid dresses from

Many thanks x