Alternative wedding on a shoestring budget

How many guests?

I'm near Worksop! I'd try:

http://www.fantasticakes.co.uk/

http://spoonfulofsugar.food.officelive.com/default.aspx

or Sugar and Silk craft on Norfolk St

50 guests in total....

...thanks for the links, I'll check them out now

Out of interest - where are you thinking of getting married? 2k is do-able if you're having 50 I think

Maybe the West Retford Hotel, they're doing an offer for 35 guests for £1k... I would back that up but their website's down. I think that was the offer, just noticed it on a billboard while passing it the other day.

A Friday wedding sometimes reduces the cost. Is there any £ shops near you, they have all sorts of wedding stuff. From wedding invitation, place cards, etc and not tacky looking either. If you have a later afternoon wedding then could make it into an evening reception/night do. Another idea is to have something like chicken and chips in a basket or similar to eat. Tina

Poundland have lots of weddingy stuff - I know the one in Worksop had some this week

Can I just say, I love you. Lol! I wanted to put themes from games into our wedding, but partner has said no. Won't even let me have names of places in games as our table names lol. Though I have lots of other ideas so that's okay he's not too keen. I knew he wouldn't really lol. If I had my way, I'd have a Final Fantasy wedding... Nothing to say to really help you but good luck with your planning!

Poundland? I'd never have thought of looking there, will take a trip over at the weekend! And Clare, thanks so much for your message, I'm glad we're not the only gamers out there. Google "super mario wedding cake" to see the sort of thing we're looking at :-P

Chicken and chips in a basket would be great; we're also considering making lots of chutneys and buying cheeses and breads to have a sort of Ploughman's dinner but your idea sounds more filling. Hungry guests would not equal happy guests...

If you want to do the catering yourself, you could get married somewhere like Worksop registry and then go to a village hall like Shireoaks that you can get for about £40 for all night with a alcohol license

I've seen that first cake on Google Images a while ago. Love it! I've also seen a wedding cake that was the Millienium Falcon that the bride had made the groom. Was amazing! I'll have some kind of gaming reference in there to please the geek in me hehe.

Wow, I love your ideas, arriving on tractors- brilliant!

2k sounds so do able to me, I'm having 20 guests (just very close family and friends) we are having:

£420 church wedding, that includes the organist, bells and he even chucked the choir in for free ,

we are then going to the next village (less than a mile away) for the reception in the village hall, this is from 8am-midnight for £25

for flowers we are only having my bouqet, the grooms button hole and a button hole for my Dad, and the bestmans button holes which came in at £60ish

we are having a buffet meal, which my parents have kindly decided to pay for

My dress was £50 off of ebay, plus £10 for alterations, £9.99 for my maid of honours dress off of ebay, on bridesmaids dress was £3 off of ebay, and the other was £12 BARGAINS

Our rings were £15 for mine and £24.99 for OH, even though we had set aside more for them, we actually fell in love with the cheap set.

there was other bits and peices, for the contrepeices and favours including party bags for the kids which added together cost about £30.

My advice is to just shop around, keep looking, if a price doesn't sound right, ask about it, ask exactly what you are getting for your money.

And happy planning

We are getting married at the West Retford. The only problem with that would be that if you are having 50 guests, the package is only for 35 so you would have to make up the difference with the other 15. If you arent too fussed on a big 3 course meal I would ask them if there is something else they could do. A lot of people like to just have a sort of tea party with sandwiches etc instead to save on the costs.

Clumber Park Hotel is pretty reasonable and as someone else has said, if you have it on a weekday or even friday you will save even more money.

I looked at Clumber Park Hotel and found it too expensive for us - so we're going for Ringwood Hotel

We also found it too expensive for the full 3 courses, West Retford worked out cheaper as we are going for one of the packages and having it on a friday. A friend of mine though is having a sort of afternoon tea party there and I think its worked out quite reasonable for them.

From what I hear West retford is a nice venue and I am shooting there in Feb 2012.

Don`t know what you are thinking re: photography if at all but my advice would be to use a photographer that would supply a cd of high resolution images with rights to print / turn into a budget album or maybe be prepared to do you a higher end album for an additional fee at some stage in the future when funds allow. It`s the only record of your big day after the cake has been eaten and the guests have gone and too precious in my eyes to trust to friends and guests to get what they can.

Me and other suppliers advertising on here offer that basic package so look for that angle to save money on photography.

Hiya! Sorry if someone's already suggested this (I haven't read all the replies) but one way to cut down is definitely to have a late service ie 4pm and that way you only end up having to provide food in the evening? Wish I'd thought of that one!

We're on a budget (the whole thing has cost £3,500) and I'm pulling in favours left right & centre. My sister is making my cake (not a fancy royal icing one but a 2 tier whippy iced one with sparkles), my friend is taking us home from the City Hall in her convertible beatle, I've made all the bunting (60 metres of it) with my lovely friends, hand made all the invites and order of service etc

We also picked up all the booze for the day in France - if you're near Dover then you're sorted on that front!!!

Best of luck!